Word: states
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...apparently simple arithmetical problem of computing the proper assignment of a specified number of representatives to the forty-eight states in proportion to their populations was an unsolved problem in Congress for over a hundred years. Up to 1921, no scientific tests of a good apportionment were known; a variety of empirical methods were tried and later discarded, and the decennial debates in the House were often bitter. On one occasion, after a long speech by Daniel Webster, the Senate reversed the action of the House on purely mathematical grounds. If the House is to be kept at its present...
...method called the Method of Equal Proportions became available, which provides for the first time a simple and obvious test of a good apportionment--that is, a test which shows at once whether each state is as nearly as possible on a parity with every other state in the matter of representation, as the Constitution intended...
...disparity" betwen two states is defines as the percentage by which the congressional district in one state exceeds the congressional district in the other state, then an apportionment made according to the Method of Equal Proportions is one which cannot be improved by any transfer of a representative from any state to any other state; that is, in such an apportionment, any proposed transfer will be found to increase, rather than decrease, the "amount of disparity" between the two states...
This is all that any Congressman needs to know about the mathematics of apportionment in order to protect himself and his state against any injustice in the matter of representation. There is a short-cut process of computation used by the experts in the Bureau of the Census to turn out, in two or three hours, a correct apportionment of any number of representatives on the basis of any given populations of the states; but this is a matter of technical detail. The result is the important thing, and the result can always be checked up, in case...
...probably demands stern repressive measures when the population is so lacking in inner harmony. Obviously it is impossible for every group of nationals irrespective of size to set up its own government. Nevertheless the Croats, who are the most strenuously malcontent, must feel that the establishment of the new state was merely an exchange of alien governors. It will be a tribute to the Serbians and the progress of humanity in general towards liberalism if the-rule of the Hapsburgs, does not rise in retrospect to the dignity of that of a King...