Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

all over the government everything that had a like pattern. He regarded with favor the putting of all the statistical services of the government into the Census Bureau, making one great statistical pool. There's no more reason for that at all. Statistics isn't any mystery in itself. The Census Bureau has to have a certain kind of statistical work done, and that's all right. It should. But when you deal with the subject matter and begin to have knowledge of a problem, that the time for somebody who's close to the problem to start out to gather the figures, which will show statistically whether this is a serious problem or not a serious problem. Your inquiry has to be made by those who are close enough to the scene to even notice that there is a problem there. A statistical bureau doesn't even notice that there is any problem, because they don't recognize, for instance, how many people are dying of silicosis. Now the Department of Labor, which is close to the operations of industry, will see that, and they will say, “Let's find out how much of this there is.” Then you make your properly controlled sampling investigation, which is controlled by statistical and economic advice. Then you have a figure that means something.

I think that things should not be centralized according to method of use, but should be divided up according to subject matter. Everything that brings to the operating people knowledge of this subject, or of this area of society, or of this





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help