Census

The pains of the Nation--sometimes blamed on Republicans, sometimes on Democrats, sometimes on big business, sometimes on agricultural overproduction, sometimes on Prohibition, sometimes on the Ku Klux Klan, sometimes on everything good and bad--may be simple growing-pains.

Figures are dry and tedious but a brave body--the National Bureau of Economic Research--plunged into calculations and came out with a result--somewhat postdated, to be sure, but nevertheless a result. It found that the population of the U. S. (increased in this country by reason of considerable immigration and an unusually low death rate) had jumped by Jan. 1, 1924, to 112,826,000 people. During the last half of 1923 the increase of population was especially large:

Births ... 1,238,000

Deaths 621,000

Net natural increase 617,000 Immigration* 505,000 Total increase 1,122,000

For the year of 1923 the total estimated increase of population was 1,863,000 as compared with:

1920 . 1,784,000

1921 1,643,000

1922 1,505,000

By comparing the present estimated total of 112,826,000 people with the total of the census of 1920, 105,711,000 --a total increase of 7,115,000 is shown for four years. In other words we have grown 6.73% in four years--a good growth for a young country of 135 years.

"Excess of arrivals over departures.