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purpose of apportionment of Representatives in Congress and direct taxes. The United States was the first country in the world to establish a regular system of census-taking as an organic portion of its system of government, thus affording that indispensable basis of a full knowledge of population which may serve as a foundation for the vital statistics of the future. No nation at the time when the Constitution was adopted had provided for the registration of vital statistics as a national undertaking. Records of births, marriages, and deaths were maintained-chiefly as church records-but the development of vital statistics as an essential part of political knowledge and more especially as the corner stone of public health administration was not to appear until the following century was well advanced. Indeed, at that time, there was little conception of such a thing as public health or preventive medicine. The sanitary uses and necessity of vital statistics were unknown until the coming of the present "sanitary era," largely founded upon the results of the English registration law of 1837, which called attention to the importance of exact information on this subject. There was not the remotest idea in the minds of the framers of the Constitution as to | the necessity of a complete record of vital statistics for the purposes of Federal administration. Hence there appears to be no constitutional authority for the direct collection of births and deaths by the Federal Government except in the areas which are entirely under its control, e. g., the District of Columbia.

The early censuses were confined closely to the enumeration of population for political purposes. At the Seventh Census, which was taken in 1850, many additional inquiries were undertaken, among them the enumeration of deaths. It was well understood, or very soon discovered, that the method proposed for obtaining this information, namely, by an enumeration of deaths at the same time that the population was enumerated, would fail to be effective. Nevertheless, the inclusion of the subject of vital statistics in the Federal census was of great importance, although less so for the value of the statistical data collected than for the recognition of the inquiry as of national interest and significance. The work thus undertaken was continued along substantially the same lines at the censuses of 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900, and was not finally done away with until the Thirteenth Census (1910), when it was decided to dispense entirely with the futile attempt to enumerate deaths, and to rely solely upon the results of actual registration.

Here it may be well to indicate the sharp distinction which exists between the ordinary census method of enumeration and the method of registration, by which only can vital data be satisfactorily collected. Existing facts, as for example the status of the population at a certain date, can readily be ascertained by a count conducted on that date or extending through a brief interval of time. On the

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ther hand, events succeeding one another in time can only be comletely and surely recorded by means of a system of registration in onstant operation. The lapse of time, even a comparatively short terval, dims the recollection of past events. When the attempt is ade to recall the births, deaths, or marriages for a year past and set down the details, it is found that a considerable number fail to e recorded; and the details concerning those recorded are less trustorthy than if the records had been made immediately after the ccurrence of the events.

To obtain accurate vital statistics, therefore, requires continuous egistration. The establishment of such registration was quite out of he power or scope of the decennial census enumeration, even if uthority were available therefor. Hence it was necessary to wait until the states, acting individually, should pass and enforce the proper ws for this purpose. The collection and utilization of data thus egistered under state (and municipal) laws mark the establishment f what is known as the "registration area," or more properly the registration area for deaths," in 1880. The history of the connecion of the Government with the subject is mainly a study of the xpansion of that area from its original content, only about one-sixth 17 per cent) of the total population of the United States in 1880, until now embraces, in 1915, over two-thirds (66.9 per cent) of the total population. And the hope of the future is its rapid extension, not nly for deaths-to which the registration area solely relates at presnt-but also for births, until the entire country shall have attained -condition of 100 per cent efficiency in this respect.

EXTENSION OF THE REGISTRATION AREA FOR DEATHS.

The growth of the registration area for deaths is clearly shown in he diagram on page 13, in which the percentages of population and lso the percentages of land area included in the area as compared vith the total population and land area of the United States are dislayed from 1880 to the present time. The geographic distribution of the registration states is shown in the series of cartograms following or the years 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910, and 1915. Full details of the population, by geographic divisions and states, may be found in the etailed tables of the appendices,1 together with death rates 2 and irth rates,3 according to the best data available, for registration nd nonregistration states for various years. The rates for nonegistration states are given solely for the purpose of showing the eneral relation of the returns to population. They are not properly o be compared with rates based upon approximately complete eturns from registration sources.

1 Appendix 1, p. 54.

2 Appendix 2A, p. 66, and Appendix 2B, p. 70.

3 Appendix 3, p. 72.

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POPULATION, LAND AREA, AND DEATH RATES OF THE REGISTRATION AREA: 1880 to 1914.

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2 Net reduction of 269 square miles as compared with area stated by census of 1900, due to drainage of lakes and swamps in Illinois and Indiana, building of the Roosevelt and Laguna Reservoirs, and overflow of the Colorado River into the Salton Sea in California.

3 Ending May 31.

It is observed that the registration area increased considerably in population at each decennial census from 1880 to 1900 and that the proportion of land area increased even more rapidly (from 0.6 per cent to 5.9 per cent), although still remaining only an insignificant representative of the entire expanse of the United States. A slight increase is shown in passing from the census year 1900 to the calendar year 1900, which is due to the inclusion of Indiana for the latter year. The proportion of population and land area remained practically constant from 1900 to 1905 (about 40 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively), since which time additions are shown for nearly every year.

The Tenth Census (1880) marked the establishment of the registration area for deaths. It included only two states (Massachusetts and New Jersey), the District of Columbia, and 19 cities. The aggregate population was only 8,538,366, or 17 per cent of the total population of the United States. The number of deaths returned as transcripts of registration records was 169,453, corresponding to a death rate of 19.8 per 1,000 population, while the deaths obtained by enumeration from the nonregistration area numbered 562,564, or 13.5 per 1,000 population. The latter figures are considerably increased by the efforts of Dr. John S. Billings to interest the medical profession of the country in the importance of complete returns and by sending

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