San Antonio Daily Light

CENSUS TAKING.
SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES TO BE ENCOUNTERED.
More Than Fifty Thousand Persons to be Employed—No Special Provision For an Indian Census.
Census taking is not the political picnic that many people imagine. Few appreciate the magnitude of the work; the Eleventh Census cost more than $11,000,000, and in the Twelfth Census an office force of more than 2,000 for about two years and a field force of over 50,000 for from two weeks to a month, will be employed. Then, too, the Hollerith tabulating machines, by which the population is counted and the returns tabulated, make census taking a huge industrial process. The census office becomes a factory: the director of the census a captain of industry, who, if he is to be successful, must possess all the directive energy and genius for organization which characterize our most successful manufacturers and railroad presidents. Among the troublesome problems which have to be solved by the census office are the legal questions which continually arise. The Indian census, for instance, fairly bristles with legal difficulties. In 1890 the census law provided that a "special report" upon the Indians should be made. A volume of 700 odd pages was published, profusely illustrated and touching every point of the Indian problem. For once in history "Poor Lo" was accorded justice. The volume was so pretty that the edition was soon exhausted and now the department of the interior has not even a copy for the census office herself. But the law providing for the Twelfth census makes no special provision for an Indian census; nor does it authorize such a special report as was made ten years ago. It is at this point that the real difficulties of the census office regarding the Indians begin. The Indian population, then, cannot be treated by itself and described in a separate report. It also seems illogical to class the Indians among the ordinary population of the United States. The Indian tribe is in many respects a distinct nationality, although since 1871 Congress has been doing its best to destroy all traces of tribal independence or self-government. Moreover, the tribal Indians are not citizens of the United States. The reservations upon which they live are not legally parts of the state or territory which surrounds them, and state and territorial laws do not apply to the reservation or to the Indians upon it. Acts of Congress do not apply to reservation Indians, unless such application is explicitly authorized in the act. Under such conditions it seems impossible for the census office to class Indians as a part of the ordinary inhabitants of the states and territories. On the other hand it is equally impossible to ignore them and omit them entirely. For the constitution of the United States says that: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, EXCLUDING INDIANS NOT TAXED." This fastens upon the census office a duty that seems plain enough. But as a matter of fact, it would give the attorney general of the United States some hours of work to explain exactly what is meant by the apparently simple phrase: "Indians not taxed." The uncertainty in the phrase is in the meaning of the word "taxed." The tribal Indian, like other inhabitants of the United States, is subject to the internal revenue duties and the various stamp taxes now imposed by the United States. If he uses a bank check, he must stamp it; if he manufactures a box of cigars, he must stamp it. Is he "taxed" thereby? Just what a "tax" is in the meaning of the constitution, has never been definitely decided, although the question has been before the Supreme court many times. The famous income tax cases hinged upon this very point. Ex-Senator Edmunds and Joseph Choate, now ambassador to England, assisted by some of the most eminent lawyers of America, successfully argued that an income tax was a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution. Attorney General Olney, James C. Carter, and other prominent lawyers, gravely argued that an income tax was not a "tax" but an excise or duty. At the first hearing of the case the Supreme court was evenly divided upon many of the points at issue. At the second hearing the decision was rendered with four dissenting justices against the five who concurred in the opinion of the court, that an income tax was a direct tax. Whether or not a stamp duty is a tax, and if it is, whether it is a direct tax; whether "Indians not taxed" means Indians not directly taxed, or whether it may not mean Indians not taxable, are questions that must be decided by the census office before it can form its plan for the Indian enumeration.