As the number in the bread line in the early part of May represented two-thirds of the population of a city that had been raised to a high degree of prosperity by the industry and thrift of its citizens, there would have been rapid decrease in the number of applicants for rations even had there been no concerted plan to reduce numbers. Pressure was brought from without, however, which, as is shown in the following paragraph, did accelerate the citizens’ return as a body to the normal means of making provision for creature needs.
In order that the smaller traders might be encouraged to resume business and the funds be reserved in a great measure to give permanent relief, the representatives of the army and the American National Red Cross co-operated during late April and early May in a strenuous effort to lessen the number supplied with rations. The attractiveness of the free food issues was diminished by reducing the ration items to meat, bread, and vegetables for all applicants in sound health except such as were living in the camps under military control. The number of the stations was rapidly reduced, as shown by [Table 5]. After the middle of May, except in cases of invalidism, rations were issued but three times a week, and an offer was made of a final issue of a month’s rations to any one who would accept that in place of the regular allowances. These measures served to concentrate in the permanent camps those refugees who were to continue as charges on the relief administration. The work of concentration was hindered, however, by the numerous private relief stations throughout the city which could be persuaded only gradually to send their patrons to the public relief stations. An Associated Charities worker who knew well the people in one large section of the city went through the tents with a soldier and demanded the return of extra bacon, canned goods, and potatoes, which had been laid in by thrifty refugees who had made use of both public and private food stations.
The Red Cross began within the first week of the disaster a general registration of the refugees. As substantially every one in the city was at that time dependent on the relief stations for food, the natural way of getting access to the refugees was through the distribution of rations. Carl C. Plehn, professor of finance in the University of California, whose experience as director of the census of the Philippine Islands suggested special fitness for the work, undertook to prepare a plan, organize the force, and superintend the work of a registration bureau. The force consisted of some 200 volunteers from among the public school teachers, an intelligent and capable, even though inexperienced, group of enumerators. Their regular employment stopped on April 18, but their salaries were paid to the end of the school year. Though the service given was very unequal and largely unsatisfactory, if judged by the standard of a census bureau or a charity organization society, it is doubtful whether at the time so high an average of efficiency could have been obtained in any other way.
On April 27 Professor Plehn submitted a tentative plan for the registration. By May 7 the cards[51] and instructions had been printed, a force of 175 persons was in the field, and the work was well under way. Ten days later 20,000 cards had been filled out and the canvass was practically completed as far as it could then be carried.
[51] See [Appendix II], [pp. 425] and [426].
After excluding duplicates as far as they could be detected, the 19,438 cards, which represented the same number of families or household parties, distributed the 84,703 persons included among the seven sections as follows:
TABLE 7.—FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS REGISTERED IN THE SEVEN CIVIL SECTIONS, MAY, 1906
| Section | FAMILIES OR PARTIES REGISTERED | INDIVIDUALS REGISTERED | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | |
| I | 2,590 | 13.3 | 10,206 | 12.1 |
| II | 813 | 4.2 | 3,076 | 3.6 |
| III | 3,097 | 15.9 | 12,473 | 14.7 |
| IV | 2,577 | 13.3 | 10,737 | 12.7 |
| V | 2,220 | 11.4 | 8,384 | 9.9 |
| VI | 2,876 | 14.8 | 14,896 | 17.6 |
| VII | 5,265 | 27.1 | 24,931 | 29.4 |
| Total | 19,438 | 100.0 | 84,703 | 100.0 |
The 84,703 individuals were 28,319 men, 32,650 women, 22,795 children, and 939 persons who were entered under the heading, “Aged, etc.”[52]
[52] This classification was adopted for the purpose of determining the number of rations required by the family, and for that reason the dividing line between children and adults was placed at twelve years, the allowance for a child under twelve being placed at half the standard ration. “Men” and “Women” meant respectively the number of males and females twelve years of age and over, who were not aged and infirm. The heading, “Aged, etc.” (see card, [Appendix II], [p. 425]), was an unfortunate one for statistical purposes, especially as on some of the cards it was printed “Ages, etc.” It was intended to be used, as the instructions to the enumerator clearly stated, for recording the “number of persons so old, sick, or crippled, as to be presumably unable to support themselves by labor.” This information would have had much practical value, but the cards show plainly that the ambiguity of the heading on the card was not corrected in the enumerators’ minds (as such ambiguity can rarely be corrected) by the careful explanation in the instructions. In many cases, when an entry was made under it, it was the ages of the children; in other cases it was apparently the number of adults in the party who were not immediate members of the family. The figures which have been tabulated are only of significance as recording so many additional adults. They do not indicate the proportion of aged and infirm, or the amount of physical disability among the refugees.