Census Quotes

I certify and declare that the Account of the Population of the District for which I am Enumerator, contained in this Book, has been truly and faithfully taken by me, and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the same is correct

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops,—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

It all boils down to power and money.

We have restored order and established domestic tranquility. We have fed the starving, clothed the naked, and ministered to the sick. We have improved the sanitary condition of the island. We have stimulated industry, introduced public education, taken a full and comprehensive enumeration of the inhabitants

They took a census of the floating unemployed on the East Side, which covered the homeless men. In the Municipal Lodging House, in the missions and shelters, in flop-houses and speakeasies where a man can stay all night, sleeping on sawdust, if he buys a drink… The regular salaried census takers had a force of between two and three hundred volunteers, divided up into teams…They are rounding up the misery of the East Side. …This is a queer census. It is a census of misery. It is the count of despair. In New York City for future reference they will tabulate the hopeless and put between covers of books how many men are wandering around shelterless, no prospect of jobs, no place to stay in the daytime, no place to sleep at night. How many are there - the wanderers from Municipal Lodging House to Salvation Army shelter, to flop-house, to speakeasy? How many are there sleeping in the subway or under the bridge at One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Street?

If a member of Congress doesn’t pay attention to process of reapportionment as the result of the census, he ends up being called “former Congressman.”

The Free States have a majority of 44 in that House. Under the new census, they would have 53. The cause of the slaveholding States is getting weaker and weaker, and what are we to do? What would the South have to rely on, if the Union were dissolved? Suppose the dissolution could be peaceably … what had the South to depend upon? All the crowned heads [of Europe] were against her. A million of slaves are ready to rise and strike for freedom at the first tap of the drum. If the South is cut loose from their friends at the North … whither are they to look for protection? How are they to sustain an assault from England or France, with the cancer at their vitals? The more the South reflected, the more clearly she must see that she has a deep and vital interest in maintaining the Union.

The current basis for apportionment—total population—creates an incentive for states to either encourage or tolerate illegal immigration.

Right and wrong are not the product of census.

I therefore have to use The Force. And weirdly, this doesn't work very well. I don't understand why, because on the last census, I put my religion down as Jedi Knight.

It's often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census.

Such a machine has the advantage that it will not make mistakes because it is tired or does not feel well, or because the weather is warm.

Asked since 1790. Race is key to implementing many federal laws and is needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Acts. State governments use the data to determine congressional, state and local voting districts. Race data are also used to assess fairness of employment practices, to monitor racial disparities in characteristics such as health and education and to plan and obtain funds for public services.

It is entirely reasonable to want to know how many citizens and non-citizens there are in the United States.

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census,' and people fall asleep.

Every country needs to know how many citizens it has.

There is no communication between the Census Bureau and the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] and the INS [Immigration & Naturalization Service]. None. Zero. Zilch.

The citizen is not adequately protected from the danger, or rather the apprehension, that his private affairs, the secrets of his family and his business will be disclosed to his neighbors.

We know the point of the 2010 Census is to count us, one by one, to tally every last resident, but the massive project of course has more prying, if limited, interests.

We don't have a system that knocks on doors of every person in America.

The census should not be political.

Genealogy is among the fastest-growing leisure pursuits in the U.K. Indeed, the urge to uncover the truth about our ancestors has proved so compelling that, when the 1901 census first went online, the website crashed after a million people logged on within hours of its launch.

In most of the countries where the people don’t like their government, we are now allowed to ask whether people like their government.

What used to be a statistical account is now a social accounting of our society.

Any time you have a large urban population, you will have an undercount in the census.