ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS.
The Journal of Sociology for November 1895 contained a paper by the commissioner of labor, entitled "Contributions of the United States Government to Social Science." The article has thus far escaped due criticism. Colonel Wright very truly remarks: "The general welfare and blessings of liberty can neither be secured nor promoted without an intelligent understanding of all the conditions surrounding life." An inquiry, therefore, as to the influence of these contributions to social science, for which in so extended an article Colonel Wright finds only words of praise, seems the more necessary because his failure to give any word of warning as to their use can have no other effect than to strengthen public confidence in statistics which in large part seem worthy of no confidence whatever, and which instead of promoting an intelligent understanding of social conditions have chiefly served to mislead.
It would seem that no more conclusive proof of the deceptive and pernicious character of our census and other statistics could be adduced than the fact that they have not only grossly deceived those unused to statistical investigation but statisticians of the highest repute. In a speech upon the Wilson bill, the Honorable Thomas B. Reed quoted an article in the Fortnightly Review as showing what a foreign writer thought of the result of our tariff policy. This writer, Mr. J. Stephens Jeans, failing to comprehend the statistical methods of our census officials, says:
What, however, is probably most of all remarkable in the recent census returns of manufacturers, is the fact that between 1880 and 1890 the actual advance in wages paid in manufacturing industries had increased to a larger extent than the increase that took place in the previous thirty years. This appears to be so startling that it might be deemed to be altogether incredible were it not supported by the sober, unbiased testimony of a census report.
The noted and widely quoted English statistician, Mulhall, arrived at almost precisely the same erroneous conclusion in an
