Even with a growth of 6.6 percent in population in the United States between 1929 and 1938, assessed valuations of property for general and selective taxes dropped during this 10-year period from $1,376 per person to $1,073, or 22 percent.

Total nation-wide assessed valuations for tax purposes decreased from $168 billion in 1929 to $139 billion in 1938, which represents a decline of over 17 percent in the assessment base for property taxes of State and local governmental units.

To report national and State trends in annual assessments, the Bureau of the Census has compiled and analyzed data on assessed valuations by States and the District of Columbia for a 10-year period, 1929 through 1938. The basic information was derived from the official reports of various State agencies, supplemented by other sources.

A Guide to Many Things

The subject of assessed valuations of property merits detailed attention, because these values touch upon so many processes of government and interests of citizens. Property valuations, as fixed by the assessors of the many local units of government, serve as the basis for a portion of the annual revenues of most of the States and a major portion of the revenues of 180,000-odd cities, counties, school districts, and other local units of government.

Although declining in use by States the property tax continues as the backbone of the local tax structure.

The assessed valuation of property serves as an index of the estimated wealth of the nation. It may not correctly be assumed that all wealth is assessed for purposes of taxation; on the other hand, all assessed values do comprise part of the nation's wealth.

In 1922, at the time of the latest compilation of national wealth by the Bureau of the Census, assessed valuations of taxable property comprised approximately 40 percent of

periods. The years 1929 and 1930 constitute the first period, when property assessments reflected the prosperous and often the speculative values of the 1920's. Assessed valuations reached their peak of $169 billion in 1930, when national income already had receded over 17 percent from the preceding year, or from $83 billion to $69 billion. Per capita assessments were $1,376 in 1929 and $1,375 in 1930.

The United States average of per capita assessed values, $1,073 in 1938, comprises a wide range in assessable wealth. From a low

Year

of $195 in South Carolina, the per capitas increase to a high of $2,205 in Rhode Island (exclusive of $2,895 in the District of Columbia.)

The five States with the highest per capita assessments, exclusive of the District of Columbia, are-in descending order of amount-Rhode Island, New York, Montana, Connecticut, and Nevada.

Lowest per capita assessments--stated in ascending order of amount--are found in the five States of South Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia.

by jewelry stores (39 percent) and furniture stores and motor-vehicle dealers, both with 29 percent gains.

Of the durable goods lines, only motorvehicle dealers failed to report increases that exceed those recorded earlier this year. Filling stations reported an increase of 11 percent compared with gains for the year to date of 9 percent. General stores were up 24 percent and drug store sales were 14 percent higher than in July 1940.

For the first seven months of the year, motor-vehicle dealers, jewelry stores and lumber-building materials dealers led all other kinds of retail business with increases of more than 20 percent from the first seven months of 1940.

The net reproduction rate decreased between 1930 and 1940 in all but one of the 43 States for which rates can be calculated from preliminary 1940 census data.

The net reproduction rate, a measure which indicates the extent to which a population is potentially able to replace itself, shows that over the period 1935 through 1939 only 27 of these 43 States had rates sufficiently high to maintain population growth.

In 16 of the States the rates were so low that their population would eventually decrease unless the expected excess of deaths births should be offset by migration.

over

Based on a preliminary tabulation of a 5 percent cross-section of 1940 census returns, the net reproduction rate for the United States

for the period 1935 through 1939 was 96 as compared with 111 for the 5 years preceding the 1930 Census. A rate of 100 is required to maintain a stationary population if birth and death rates remain unchanged.

The census returns also showed that urban areas in every State had net reproduction rates below 100, whereas the rural areas of almost every State had rates above 100. Striking differences appear in the rates for white and nonwhite population and in rates for the various regions and States.

The rate for whites in the country as a whole was 94 as compared with 107 for nonwhites, and the rates for the three major regions were: South, 111; West, 95; and North, 87.

20,000 females under 5 years old.

Some dealers, after learning that their Supplier would be forced to reduce deliveries, have said, "I'll sell what I've got while I've got it, and when that's gone, I'll close up." Without question, this is the easy way out. It eliminates arguments with insistent, uncooperative customers who believe they should receive all the gasoline they want regardless of the needs of others.

It saves the dealer from having to make any decisions as to how much this customer or that customer shall receive. It gives the dealer some time off for the many things he has wanted to do. It gives his salesmen time off, too, reduces their income, and puts them in mind of looking around for other employment. It saves some overhead costs.

And one more important thing that closing up does. It knocks hell out of the dealer's business.

This nation wasn't built by men and women looking for the easy way out. It was built by men and women who faced their difficulties squarely and made the best of them, whether those difficulties were created by themselves or forced upon them by circumstances beyond their control.

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Remember, too, that yours than a "gasoline filling station." a dairy store ran out of milk. You would rightly suspect the proprietor of being slightly off center if he closed up with all that cream, butter, pot cheese, and buttermilk there to sell.

You have oil, grease, tires, batteries, accessories and all of the services that go with those products to sell. You have regular customers to hold on to. A station that is open today and tomorrow and closed some other day looks like a pretty uncertain and unreliable operation.

New Service by the Weather Bureau

The U. S. Weather Bureau next month will place in full operation a second nation-wide teletype circuit, doubling facilities for reporting aviation and general weather conditions.

The new circuit, installed in cooperation with the Civil Aeronautics Administration is 24,000 miles long, connecting sending and

receiving teletypewriters capable of handling weather reports at the rate of 60 words a minute in more than 300 Weather Bureau field stations simultaneously.

Outlets of the circuit include Weather Bureau stations, Army posts, Navy bases, air transport offices, training schools, commercial agencies and airway control centers of the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Employment rates in the large cities of the United States during the last week of March 1940, showed wide variations from city to city, according to the Bureau of the Census.

Among cities of 100,000 inhabitants or more the lowest employment rate was in Scranton, where only 71.2 percent of the labor force was employed; on the other hand, in Charlotte, Washington, D. C., and Houston, slightly more than 90 percent of the labor force was employed.

These data indicate the extent to which the labor force was being utilized prior to the rapid increase in defense activities, and are pertinent to many of the problems involved in the continued expansion of the defense program.

The presence of large numbers of un

employed workers in some areas tends to favor the establishment of new plants or the speeding up of existing facilities; lower unemployment rates in other areas make industrial expansion contingent upon upon migration of workers to those areas or upon the attraction of new persons into the labor force.

The concentration of defense production in particular sections of the country has probably reduced unemployment sharply in some cities, while unemployment in other cities receiving few or no defense orders has probably changed little.

The census data on employment, unemployment, and the labor force establish benchmarks which provide a basis for future planning, and for studying the economic effects of the distribution of defense activities.

MARCH 24-30, 1940.