XXXII. ANNUAL CRUDE DEATH RATES PER 1,000 PERSONS LIVING, 1901-1909 [Furnished by the United States Census.] Number of 1 Deaths are not registered in many states. The rates given are for that part of the country included in the "registration area" by the Census Office, and for which satisfactory returns are obtainable. All rates are based on revised estimates of population derived from the census of 1910 or state censuses of 1905, except as indicated. Includes District of Columbia. • Non-registration. 4 Exclusive of stillbirths. • Includes only municipalities having a population of 1,000 or over in 1900. III. PROBLEMS OF POPULATION W. F. WILLCOX THE THIRTEENTH CENSUS GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION inference that the United States OF POPULATION with its dependencies is now about as well settled as the average for the world as a whole. It might be thought that a fairer comparison of density of population would be with the inhabited land surface of the earth, which is approximately two-thirds of the total surface. But according to the estimates of the Department of Agriculture, the United States, exclusive of Alaska and the islands, includes more than 1,500,000 sq. miles, or 50 per cent. of its area, which is untillable. This might fairly be called desert. In Alaska nearly all the surface falls into this class. Hence the United States has at least the world's average proportion of desert as well as the world's average density of population. Density. The enumerated population of the United States April 15, 1910, was 91,972,266. This total is for the United States exclusive of Alaska, the Panama Canal zone, Hawaii and Samoa, as well as the islands acquired by the late war with Spain. With the addition of figures, some of them approximate, for these outlying districts the total population of the country is 101,738,000. As the population of the earth is estimated by the best authorities to be in the neighborhood of 1,600,000,000, the United States now includes about one-sixteenth of the population of the earth. And as the land surface of the United States, including its dependencies, is 3,690,714 square miles and the land area of the surface of the earth is about United States is roughly divisible 55,887,000 square miles, the United into a western two-fifths and an eastStates now embraces about the same ern three-fifths by a line following proportion of the earth's land sur- the eastern boundaries of Montana, face and of the earth's population. Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. To be sure, there is a wide margin of The region west of that line with error in the estimates of the earth's two-fifths of the area contains onepopulation, owing to differences of thirteenth of the population of the nearly 200,000,000 between careful country. The region east of that guesses of the population of China. line is subdivided by Mason and That there is also a wide margin of Dixon's line, the Ohio River and the error in the estimates of land sur-southern boundary of Missouri and face appears from the recent addi- Kansas into two nearly equal parts, tion of an area equal to that of the United States because Antarctic exploration has suggested that onealf the ice cap around the South is probably underlain by land. Distribution.-The the northern states and the southern states. Of these two sections, the northern has nearly twice the popula tion of the southern. The relation of these three in area and population appears from the following table: contain lation of the country. This shows that the most populous states as a class have been gaining numbers more rapidly than the less populous states. The Southern States about the same proportion of the population as they do of the area; the Northern States contain about twice the proportion of population that they do of area; and the Western States, about five times the proportion of area that they do of population. The states east of the Mississippi include about three-tenths of the area and seven-tenths of the population; those west of the Mississippi, about seven-tenths of the area and three-tenths of the population. INCREASE OF POPULATION Rate. The most surprising result of the thirteenth census which has yet been published has been the very large population reported. Between 1870 and 1900 the decennial rate of increase in the population of the United States steadily fell as follows: The preceding 11 states include all having more than two and one-half million inhabitants. Together they contain more than one-half of the population of the country and so more than the other 38 states. Three states contain nearly one-fourth; five states, more than one-third; and ten states nearly one-half of the country's population. The same 11 states in 1900 included only 47.9 per cent. and the 11 largest states (with Iowa in place of New Jersey) included 48.3 per cent. of the popu This series of figures led most persons to suppose that the increase 1900-1910 would not be above 19 per cent. The census results showed it to be 21.0 per cent. Even this figure is a little below the actual rate of decennial increase, because the census of 1910 was taken a month and a half earlier in the year than the census of 1900 and the interval between them was only 9% years. After allowing for this change, the rate of decennial increase 1900-1910 is found to be 21.3 per cent., or 0.6 per states be ranged in the order of their urban population, it appears that six states, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and New Jersey, all northern states east of the Mississippi, contain more than one-half of the urban population of the country, and so more city dwell Distribution. This shows that in places having at least 2,500 inhabieach decade the Southern States in-tants and in New England also that creased in population faster than the of all unincorporated towns of the Northern, and the Western faster same size. Of the population of the than either of the others. The rate entire country in 1910, the number of of increase both of the North and of urban residents was 42,623,383, or the South, however, in the later dec-46.3 per cent. of the total. If the ade was notably less than in the earlier, the decrease for the North being 1.3 per cent. and for the South 2.6 per cent., or twice as great. The fact that the rate of increase of the United States was slightly greater between 1900 and 1910 than it was between 1890 and 1900 was due entirely to the fact that the Westerners than the other forty-three states States as a whole grew in the later combined. The rural population is decade more than twice as fast as in distributed much more evenly than the earlier. Disregarding the West- the urban. Arranged in order of deern States, the increase of the rest creasing numbers of rural populaof the country 1890-1900 was 20.1, tion the twelve states which together and 1900-1910 it was 18.4, or about contain one-half the rural population what would have been anticipated. of the country were Pennsylvania, The Western States raised the aver- Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, New age for the rest of the country 1890-York, Missouri, North Carolina, Ala1900 by 0.6 per cent. and 1900-1910 bama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virby 2.6 per cent., or more than four ginia. Five of these are Northern times as much. states and seven are Southern. The The Growth of the West.-Every rural population of the South, one of the 11 states and territories 22,765,000, is almost exactly the in the Western Division, including same as the rural population of even Nevada, which for the 20 years the North, 23,087,000; but the urban 1880-1900 had been the only state in population of the entire South, the Union to lose population, in- 6,624,000, is only one-fifth the urban creased more rapidly than the aver-population of the North, 32,670,000. age for the entire country. Every The urban population of the entire one of these eleven, except Montana, South is materially less than the uralso had a higher rate of growth ban population of New York State 1900-1910 than the same state had alone. 1890-1900. The growth of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states in its effect upon the growth of the country is the surprise of the cen sus. Increase. The total increase of sixteen millions (15,977,691) in the population of the United States, 1900-1910, was divided as follows: increase in cities 11,036,000, increase in country districts 4,942,000. Thus 5 per cent., less than half the avernearly seven-tenths (69 per cent.) of age for the rural population of the the growth was urban growth and country. only three-tenths was rural growth. If the states be arranged in the In the preceding decade the increase order of the rate of growth of rural in the cities of 2,500 or more was population from Iowa, with a loss of 8,024,000 and the increase in the 7.2 per cent. to Oklahoma, with a rural population was 5,023,000. The gain of 90.7 per cent. in rural popuactual growth of city population lation, and a total made to include 1900-1910 was 37.5 per cent. greater just enough states to have the inthan 1890-1900 and the actual creases and decreases balance, it apgrowth of rural population was 1.4 per cent. less. Of the total growth of population 1890 to 1900 about sixtenths was in the cities; of the growth 1900 to 1910 about seventenths was in the cities. It seems safe to predict that by 1920 more than one-half of the population of the country will be living in cities. The increase of urban population 1900-1910 was at the rate of 34.9 per cent., that of the country districts, at the rate of 11.1 per cent. The cities as a class are growing three times as fast as the country. Outside of the rapidly growing Western and West-South-Central States the cities in different parts of the country are growing with approximately the same rapidity, ranging only from 21.5 per cent. for the cities of New England up to 33.1 for the cities of the Middle Atlantic States. The rural population, on the other hand, shows much wider differences from an actual decline in New England and the Eastern-North-Central States to an increase of 12.3 per cent. in the rural districts of the South Atlantic States. Seven states, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, register an actual decrease of rural population. Seven others, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, have an increase of less than pears that there are 16 states in CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING The population of the United States in 1910 was classified by race, according to the preliminary results of the Thirteenth Census, as follows: The proportion of whites rapidly increased between 1900 and 1910 and that of Negroes and of other races (Indian and Mongolian) decreased. Negroes. The proportion of Negroes in the United States in 1910 was little more than one-half as great as it was in 1790 and apparently in 1920 will be just about onehalf. For this decrease there is one important geographical reason-the more rapid growth of population in the Northern States. The following figures show the proportion of Negroes in the population of the United States at each census: |