Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/98

 82 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

economics, and that earnings themselves are the surest indication of

social progress. This is quite true But fortunately we are not

obliged to depend upon the increase of rates of wages to show that the ordinary man is better off than at any former time in our history, because our censuses report aggregate earnings and also the number of persons among whom the earnings are divided." After quoting census wage statistics for 1850 and the decades following. Colonel Wright says : " Here is a steady, positive increase in the average annual earnings of the employes in our great industrial pursuits." Yet, according to Mr. Steuart, this is not true, the figures quoted rep- resenting practically rates of wages, that which would be earned by an employ^ who had full employment. If there was little lost time, there would be but little difference. That there was but 5.01 percent, of lost time during the census year. Colonel Wright attempts to dem- onstrate in the Forum (February, 1898). The absurdity of Colonel Wright's conclusions was shown by the. v/xittr [nlhe. Journal of Political Economy (March, 1898), and need not be considered here, except as these conclusions illustrate the utter worthlessness of the statistics on which they are based. While the writer has maintained that the figures quoted by Colonel Wright do not represent average annual earnings, he has not, as intimated by Mr. Steuart, maintained that they were too high as representing rates of wages, though that is probably the fact ; nor is it true, as Mr. Steuart declares, that the criticism of the totals of the Eleventh Census has invariably been that they are too large. The writer has made no such criticism. He has, however, maintained that the more complete returns of the last census are not comparable with those of 1880, and still less with those of the earlier censuses. The incompleteness of the earlier censuses was recognized by General Francis A. Walker, superintendent of both the Ninth and Tenth Cen- suses, who, possessing a comprehension of the proper use of statistics which seems lacking in officials of the last census, was careful to cau- tion the public against comparisons of incomparable statistics. While the earlier bulletins of the last census were grossly misleading, the final reports, published after the retirement of Mr. Porter, contain explana- tions and cautions that might, in a measure, have prevented the pre- vailing misunderstanding as to the facts, were it not that prominent census officials, in contributions to the magazines, persistently misrep- resent them. Mr. Steuart admits that it is possible that the method adopted in 1890 did result in a fuller report of certain industries, especially the hand trades, but he seems not quite certain of this, nor