Scientific Snoopery

This week 12,000 men begin ringing the doorbells of U. S. business, and, unlike book salesmen, they cannot be kicked out. At the executives of great corporations as well as at flabbergasted peanut vendors they will fire their questions. What is your business? Are you incorporated? What were your total receipts during 1939? Cost of materials? Wage payments? How much did you sell on credit? These snoopers are taking the business, manufacturing, mines & quarries section of the Sixteenth Decennial Census of the U. S. The population, housing, and farm sections will be taken during April.

The curiosity behind all this snooping is not that of the snoopers nor even primarily of the Government, but of those who will have to put up with the snooping--businessmen. Advertising firms, mail-order houses, Chambers of Commerce, business analysts have long complained that there are no satisfactory figures on marketing, credit, unemployment, etc. Though production censuses have been going on since 1810, the first official census of all U. S. business (retailing, wholesaling, construction, service industries, etc.) was conducted under Herbert Hoover in 1930. The only ones since then, in 1933 and 1935, were unsatisfactory because businessmen were requested but not compelled to answer the questions. When a census taker asks a question, a businessman answers or may be fined $100 and put away for 60 days.

For the 1940 Census, Director Austin and his bright idea-man Vergil Reed claim these improvements:

> By a question, "date of original establishment of this business in this city," the Census will determine the birthrate of U. S. business.

> Manufacturers used to be asked merely for the number of wage earners engaged in production. This year's census will also determine the number engaged in distribution and other activities, also their sex.

> The Census will ask wholesalers for tabulations of all goods they have sold during the year; among retail stores, which handle myriads of items, it will classify general categories.

> Companies will have to tell their expenditures for land acquisitions, new and used plants, new and used machinery and operating equipment.

> Instead of asking for inventories as of one date, businessmen will be required to state their inventories as of the beginning and end of the year, thus registering the year's inventory change--a favorite plaything of statisticians.

> The familiar and crude census of the "gainfully occupied'' will be made more searching by a long list of questions: during the week of March 24-30 were you employed, if so was it with private industry or Government agency? If unemployed, since when? Were you seeking work? Have you had previous experience? Was your unemployment due to vacation, illness, or strike?

> Housing, totally neglected in previous years, will get a thorough quizzing--age and condition of houses, materials used in their construction, persons per room, rent, mortgages, household appliances, number of privies.

> Salaries and wages received by families as well as individuals will, when combined with house values and home-grown produce, draw the pattern of U. S. living standards.

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