Free Trader Journal And Ottawa Fair Dealer

CENSUS GIVES OTTAWA POPULATION OF 10,816
(By the Associated Press)

FIGURES ARE GIVEN OUT AT WASHINGTON;

INCREASE, 13.4 PCT.
The 1920 population of Ottawa, according to official figures given out at 10:30 o'clock this morning at Washington, shows Ottawa to be a city of 10,816, an increase of 1,281 over 1910. In 1910, under an abortive count, Ottawa was heralded to the world as having slumped with only 9,535.

The count announced at the nation's capital today falls far short in realization of Ottawa's hopes and upsets oodles of forecasts which gave the city a population of anywhere from 11,000 to 14,000. Folks who made those guesses may have failed to take into consideration the fact that the large number of residents of the Federal Plate district are not within the corporate limits of Ottawa and therefore could not be included in the check off of noses made last January. The same condition exists in East and South Ottawa, where scores of homes are situated outside the limits of the city, but the general idea is they were not so very far away in their estimates.

School Census Shows 11,924.

Compared with the school census of last July, the 1920 census shows many of the features which marked the 1910 count as such a glaring failure, replete as it was with horrible inaccuracies. The school board in its annual summarization of the city's population showed in 1919 11,924, with 3,691 of that number recorded as residents of the outlying sections. That report announced the population divided as follows among the wards:

First 1,833
Second 1,463
Third 1,554
Fourth 1,228
Fifth 1,651
Sixth 1,233
Seventh 2,567
Outside city 392
Total 11,924

5,213 Voted Last Spring.

Announcement of the census precludes possibility of any further action being taken by the municipality to have just one honest to goodness check on the number of people residing within its borders. The Chamber of Commerce, Business Men's association and influential citizens, as well as the Free Trader-Journal, urged every measure be taken to get the count right, but withal it appears now that there has been a slip up, not quite as bad as in 1910, but almost that bad. Ottawa has every reason to believe there is a repetition of the 1910 fiasco on the face of undeniable evidence shown both in the school census and in the election of last spring, with a total of 5,213 men and women of legal age participated, almost half the number of total residents given the city by the census bureau.

Governmental statisticians based on long experience in dealing with the human family place many population estimates on election returns, figuring that there is one man of voting age to every five persons. On this basis Ottawa's population could not possibly be under 10,000 or 12,500 at least. The election at which the present council was chosen drew to the polls 2,808 men and 2,405 women, a total of 5,213. Using the government's own system for compiling population data Ottawa should be in the census list a slight matter of 1,000 or more than is given in the report now made public.

State Census 10,500

Immediately after the 1910 jumble the city got permission from the state of Illinois to take a census, which would stand in Illinois records as official. That count showed 10,500 people were within Ottawa and at that time was considered accurate and scores of vacancies. Today Ottawa though augmented by a steady influx of farmers alone, while industrial growth has included several new concerns which brought many more workers to the city, until fewer houses are harder to find.

Despite its shortcomings, in the midst there has been a steady pace of buildings going up in the city while there were two applicants for every house a few minutes after it is vacated and stands idle and only one of them can become the tenant.

At present, it appears that Ottawa has bitten off another census lemon, and, like days of yore, will have to swallow it. The slip is apparent somewhere but no one knows where to lay the blame on it. Ottawa is not satisfied with the returns as reported this morning at the capital. The "dope" precludes any possibility of local citizenry O.K.'ing the government figures and accepting them as any where near correct.