Our Public Debts [pp. 205-222]

0 UR P UBLIC DEB TS.
,blank was issued, and in some of the townships and school dis-tricts a postal card proved effective and secured answers to the
seven important questions. The extent of this correspondence,
and the difficulties of securing lists, not only of the names of
financial officers, but of the municipal corporations themselves,
'were great. The preliminary work was as difficult as the actual
-work of gathering the statistics. The authorities of every county
had to be applied to for the names of the municipal corpora-tions within its area; and after replies had been received from
-the twenty-four hundred counties it was found that in many
.States the entire work must be revised, and circulars addressed
,directly to the places named by the county clerks or auditors
asking the question, "Is an incorporated village or not?"
tn this way hundreds of the names originally placed on the lists
-were excluded. The lists of the minor civil divisions of the
-United States are formidable documents, as the reader may
-imagine when he realizes there are about 2400 counties; 3II
cities and towns with a population of 7500 and upwards; about
.o000 incorporated cities, villages, and other small places with a
population below 75oo; about I2,000 townships having a finan
diial existence, and Io05,ooo0 school districts possessing a debtcreating and tax-levying power. To some of the larger and
more important of these places as many as twenty letters were
written before the schedule could be absolutely declared complete. There were others, probably fifty per cent, that replied
with both accuracy and promptness. In several cases the edit,rs of newspapers and prominent individuals were addressed
and requested kindly to call the attention of the local authorities to the importance of this work. Almost unanimously did
these letters meet with response. Editors called attention to
the delinquency in their newspapers, governors and State auditors touched the State pride of the delinquent officers, and in
some instances prominent btisiness men dropped their work
:end filled out the schedule with their own hands.' With suchi
-an awakened interest, and thousands of willing assistants in all
parts of the country, it is not surprising that this class of statis
a One city schedule sent to this division of the Census was filled out by an exTice-President of the United-States.
213