One, Two, Three .. .

There were 3,929,214 people (including slaves, but not untaxed Indians) in the U.S. in 1790, when Thomas Jefferson ran off the first census. Seventeen censuses later, the U.S. population figures to tumble over the 180 million mark. Last week around the nation, the census takers --170,000 of them--were going through travail and triumph to bring in the exact figures. Predictably, the nosy head counters were sure to have their hands full, for it has always been thus:

P: In 1860, census takers were obliged to ask whether the respondent was perhaps a former convict, a pauper, or an idiot.

P: In 1890, Negroes were officially classified as either black, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon.

P: In 1930, an enumerator in The Bronx asked a woman questions about her husband. Her blast: "I haven't spoken to the big bum for 32 years, and I'm damned if I'll speak to him now for your benefit!"

P: In 1950, an Atlanta census taker climbed to the top of a flagpole to count Flagpole Sitter Odell Smith, and in California one hard-working enumerator discovered a murder victim.

Head of the House. Last week, the census takers, outfitted with cardboard satchels loaded (14 lbs.) with forms and pencils, were running into the same human problems behind the statistics. A Boston man caught up with his census taker to say that he had understated his annual income by $750; he did not want his wife to know about his extra pocket money. In Dellview, N.C., a census taker found that the town's population had decreased by three; the 1960 count: four. At Detroit's Statler Hilton Hotel, the census taker discovered that the reason that many a guest failed to answer up in the poll of transients was that 400 conventioneers in the hotel were deaf-mutes.

(The census taker quickly printed his spiel on cards.) And probably the easiest count took place at the White House, where the head of the household informed the census taker that the place was regularly occupied (not owned or rented) by himself, his wife and her maid (all white), and that the house has running water, a flush toilet, and 132 rooms.

Similar questions were asked in the other 60 million households around the country as census takers defied barking dogs, splashed through floods, endured insults and threats to earn their $13-a-day fee. At one dwelling out of four, the census takers left long questionnaires to be filled out and mailed. From these, the Census Bureau hopes to count freezers, radios and TV sets, etc., will make a study of transportation habits, age groups, in come and population shifts.

Reapportionment. The chief reason for the census, as laid out in the U.S. Constitution, is to ensure equal representation in Congress. The earliest census fixed the ratio at one representative for each 33,000 people, gave the House 105 members. The ratio kept changing through the years, un til 1929 when Congress froze maximum House membership at 435 (raised tempo rarily to 437 with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii) and fixed representation merely by dividing the population by that number: in 1950, it was one member for 345,000 people.

This year, after the Census Bureau no tifies the President of its final count, Ike will transmit the information to Congress, which, in turn, will tell the Governor of each state the new ratio (roughly 414,000 people per representative). It will then fall to the state legislatures to reapportion their districts accordingly in time for the 1961 Congress.

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