The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-02
LAND HUNGER CAUSE .OF EUROPEAN WAR
 IS STATEMENT MADE
Large Audience Hears Dr. GoOde Lecture-Strength of England and Ger
 many Compared

Last night Dr. J. Paul Goode of the University of Chicago and distinguished authority on economic geography, ad- dressed perhaps the largest and most. keenly interested audience that has as- sembled in the Central High school audi torium during the present fyceum course.
 Dr. c. A. Brown. chairman of the ly- ceum committee, attributed the unusual interested manifested to Dr. Goodes widespread popularity in educational cir cles and the acute economic conditions now affecting not only the people of the belligerent countries, but every man, woman and child in this country as well.
 The subject of Dr. Goodes lecture was "The Geographic and Economic Foun- dations of the Great War"
 This weghty topic was transformed by the speaker into a gleaming web of scientific facts, epigrams, historic facts, brilliant paradoxes, with skillful over- lures of statistics. The audience was charmed.
 The speaker laid down the fundamental proposition that the sovereignty of a na- ton over territory is not like the private ownership of property which an individ- ual may uphold in court of law: that it is not pretended that one nation will acquire or hold permanent control over territory except by the superior asser- tion of the will of that nation that the conflicting wills of the nations of Europe wills depending upon and supported by force of arms, are all directed toward the problem of shifting the boundary lines of Europe's map to subserve their con4 hicting greed
 This war" he declared, lis the result 1ar, 1a afa
 Each of the leading countries-the Uni- ted States, England, France, Russia and Germany-were illustrated by enlarged and illuminated maps, charts, diagrams and tables of statistics.
 "Of all the economic considerations of this conflict" he said, "the two controi- ling ones are coal and from He said if the question is asked who are the lead- ing nations of the world. the geologist has already answered by showing the chief coal and iron deposits of the world are in the United States, the United King dom and Germany.
 In comparing the strength of England and Germany. the speaker emphasized what Germany has done with her nor- mally unproductive soil He dweit upon her sugar beet industry, and showed the figures which prove that Germany pro- duces more than twice as many potatoes to the acre as the United States does upon the richest soil on earth
 Germanys railroads came in for great emphasis; how government ownership was effected and why; how the entire frontier of Germany is girdled by double track and accommodated with strong platforms for use in shipping munitions of war. Then followed the discussion of the food problem in Europe. Four men out of every five in England have to be fed by some other country, while up to now Germany is and has been patiently self-sustaining.
 France came in for the speakers bou- quets. The phrase, decadent France " he declared, was manufactured in Ger many" He defed any man to contem- plate Frances part in the present war and then conscientiously use the term ''decadent France"