The theme of this symposium is An Integrated System of Statistical Intelligence. The subject of my paper, Proposals for a Federal Statistical System in the United States, should be understood in the light of this broader theme. This particular title seems to imply that the United States does not have a statistical system, nor any statistical intelligence, and this I certainly do not intend. Perhaps the paper should be entitled, instead, Proposals for Improvements and Further Integration in the Federal Statistical System. The statistical mechanism of the United States Government is an intricate one. It has evolved gradually, with all the idiosyncrasies of any evolving social mechanism. It is, in effect, a decelntralized system, in which collection and analysis of statistics are associated in large measure with the functions performed by the several departments and agencies. Thus it follows, in general, the functional lines of the Federal Government. In such a framework, it is appropriate that statistics of agriculture should be gathered and issued by the Department of Agriculture, and statistics of revenues, including shipments of liquor and tobacco, by the Treasury Department; that the annual duck census should be taken by the Fish and Wildlife Service; that labor statistics should emanate from the Department of Labor; that statistics of health should come from the Public Health Service; and that the reports on the niumber of persons covered by old age and survivors insurance should come from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. There are, to be sure, certain general-purpose statistics, which serve the government and people as a whole, whose present location is due partly to historical accident. Some of them are located in the Bureau of the Census, which collects data on such assorted subjects as family income, and drainiage and irrigation; some are in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose current economic indicators provide measures of trencds in a number of economic areas, ranging from employment and hours of work, to cost of living, wJTholesale prices, and housing; some are in the Federal Reserve System, which issues not only monetary and bankinig statistics, but also such general-purpose series as indexes of industrial production, department store sales and stocks, and makes the annual surveys of consumers' purchases of durable goods, and their liquid assets. In part, the location of these collection and assembly mechanisms is the result of historical accident, but none the less, the work is effectively done. It may appear to the uninitiated that this mechanism is nothing but a maze through wJThich only a skilled guide, with a statistical Baedecker well illustrated with maps, can find his way. Still, the United States statistical mechanism is a system of a sort. It works, and it has its virtues. Its prineipal virtue is that the collection of data, by and large, is in eharge of the people wlTho analyze, iinterpret, and use these data. However, we would not necessarily reeommenid it to other counities whieh are eonisidering setting up a new statistieal system, for it might not meet their needs. * The papers of this symposium were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association, December 28, 1953.