The Boy With the U.S. Census

Francis Rolt-Wheeler

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• Publié par: zuif
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Project Gutenberg's The Boy With the U.S. Census, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Boy With the U.S. Census Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler Release Date: August 15, 2004 [EBook #13181] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS *** Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders. THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. The welcome of New York, the gateway of the New World, to all races and peoples of the earth. (Courtesy of U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island.) THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER With Thirty-eight Illustrations, principally from Bureaus of the United States Government November, 1911 To My Son Roger's Friend HAMILTON DAY PREFACE Life in America to-day is adventurous and thrilling to the core. Border warfare of the most primitive type still is waged in mountain fastnesses, the darkest pages in the annals of crime now are being written, piracy has but changed its scene of operations from the sea to the land, smugglers ply a busy trade, and from their factory prisons a hundred thousand children cry aloud for rescue. The flame of Crusade sweeps over the land and the call for volunteers is abroad. In hazardous scout duty into these fields of danger the Census Bureau leads. The Census is the sword that shatters secrecy, the key that opens trebly-guarded doors; the Enumerator is vested with the Nation's greatest right—the Right To Know—and on his findings all battle-lines depend. "When through Atlantic and Pacific gateways, Slavic, Italic, and Mongol hordes threaten the persistence of an American America, his is the task to show the absorption of widely diverse peoples, to chronicle the advances of civilization, or point the perils of illiterate and alien-tongue communities. To show how this great Census work is done, to reveal the mysteries its figures half-disclose, to point the paths to heroism in the United States to-day, and to bind closer the kinship between all peoples of the earth who have become "Americans" is the aim and purpose of THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER I—A BLOOD FEUD IN OLD KENTUCKY CHAPTER II—RESCUING A LOST RACE CHAPTER III—A MANUFACTORY OF RIFLES CHAPTER IV—THE BOY LEADER OF A CRUSADE CHAPTER V—"DON'T DEPORT MY OLD MOTHER!" CHAPTER VI—THE NEGRO CENSUS FROM THE SADDLE CHAPTER VII—HOBOES ON THE TRAMP CHAPTER VIII—THE CENSUS HEROES OF THE FROZEN NORTH CHAPTER IX—CONFRONTED WITH THE BLACK HAND CHAPTER X—RIOTS AROUND A CITY SCHOOL ILLUSTRATIONS The Statue of Liberty (Frontispiece) Taking the Census in Old Kentucky Kentucky Mountaineer Family Moonshining [2] Bill Wilsh's Home in the Gully Bill Wilsh in the School Alligator-Catching The Census Building Making Gun-sights True "A Bull's-eye Every Time!" Young Boys from the Pit "I 'ain't Seen Daylight for Two Years" Eight Years Old and "Tired of Working" The Biggest Liner in the World Coming in Immigration Station, Ellis Island Where the Workers Come from On a Peanut Farm In an All-Negro Town [2] "'Way down Yonder in de Cotton Fiel'" How Most of the Negroes Live Facsimile of Punched Census Card Tabulating Machine Pin-box and Mercury Cups Over the Trackless Snow with Dog-team The Census in the Aleutian Islands "Can We Make Camp?" To Eskimo Settlements by Reindeer Gathering Cocoanuts Taking the Census in a City Festa in the Italian Quarter The Fighting Men of the Tongs Arrested as the Firing Stops Work for Americans [2] THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS CHAPTER I A BLOOD FEUD IN OLD KENTUCKY "Uncle Eli," said Hamilton suddenly, "since I'm going to be a census-taker, I think I'd like to apply for this district." The old Kentucky mountaineer, who had been steadily working his way through the weekly paper, lowered it so that he could look over the top of the page, and eyed the boy steadfastly. "What for?" he queried. "I think I could do it better than almost anybody else in this section," was the ready, if not modest, reply. "Wa'al, perhaps yo' might," the other assented and took up the paper again. Hamilton waited. He had spent but little time in the mountains but he had learned the value of allowing topics to develop slowly, even though his host was better informed than most of the people in the region. Although not an actual relative, Hamilton always called him "Uncle" because he had fought with distinguished honor in the regiment that Hamilton's father commanded during the Civil War, and the two men ever since had been friends. "I don't quite see why any one sh'd elect to take a hand in any such doin's unless he has to," the Kentuckian resumed, after a pause; "that census business seems kind of inquisitive some way to me." "But it seems to me that it's the right kind of 'inquisitive.'" "I reckon I hadn't thought o' there bein' more'n one kind of inquisitiveness," the mountaineer said, with a smile, "but if you say so, I s'pose it's all right." "But don't you think the questions are easy enough?" asked the boy. "They may be easy, but thar's no denyin' that some of 'em are mighty unpleasant to answer." "But if they are necessary?" "Thar's a-plenty o' folks hyeh in the mount'ns that yo' c'n never make see how knowin' their private affairs does the gov'nment any good." "But you don't feel that way, Uncle Eli, surely?" "Wa'al, I don' know. Settin' here talkin' about it, I know it's all right, an' I'm willin' to tell all I know. But I jes' feel as sure as c'n be, that befo' the census-taker gets through hyeh, I'm goin' to be heated up clar through." "But why?" queried the lad again. "The questions are plain enough, and there was practically no trouble at the last census. I think it's a fine thing, and every one ought to be glad to help. And it's so important, too!" "Important!" protested the old man. "Did yo' ever see any one that ever sat down an' read those tables an' tables o' figures?" "Not for fun, perhaps," the boy admitted. "But it isn't done for the sake of getting interesting reading matter; it's because those figures really are necessary. Why there's hardly a thing that you can think of that the census isn't at the back of." "I don't see how that is. They don't ask about a man's politics, I notice," the mountaineer remarked. "No," answered Hamilton promptly, "but the number of members a State sends to Congress