The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-31
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information. Bureau
THE QUESTION OF POPULATION
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director
Washington, d. G.


Washington, D. c.. Jan. 2s.-Soon
showing that another ten million or
OF these United States.
This rapid and steady growth of
our nation is commonly regarded as
what does it mean? Where does this
increase lead, and when will it stop:
Can you imagine a United States of
America twice as big as the present
one. with New York and Chicago
double their present sizes? Already
We are becoming accustomed to OYER
crowds and shortages. There is not
enough sugar TO go around; you have
to reserve a room a week ahead in a
New York hotel; there is a waiting
line at the door of every theater with
a successful play; the subway can't
run enough trains to carry it's rush
hour business. In way, there seems
to be too many of us already.
But the Optimists assure us that
science and industry can take care OF
US all. When there are four hundred
million of us, and the city of New
York is four times its present size,
the commuter will commute in an air
plane, leaving his office in downtown
New York at four in the afternoon.
and getting off at his farm in western
Pennsylvania thirty-seven minutes
later. When he goes to hear a IA
nous actor, it viii be in a theater
four times as large as any now exist
ing, but the acoustics will be so per-
feet that he can hear every word, and
he will view the star thru a glass so
powerful that he can see the paint.
The sugar shortage will be made up
by clearing the jungle out of the
Amazon valley and plating it to cane.
New York hotels will supply the de-
mand for a place on Manhattan Is
land by rising right up toward the
stars a half mile or more, apd quick
lunch will be served on the elevators.
The power to run all of these things?
The sun and the tide will have been
harnessed, and the last few chunks
of coal will have been placed in the
museums. The oil supply will be a
dead issue, for the motors of our air
planes will be operated on alcohol
made out of vegetation grown in
waste land like the Rocky mountains,
and produced at almost no cost at all.
In some such ways as these our
doubts are laid at rest by scientific
optimists like H G. Wells. Science,
they assure US, can do it all. And be-
yond doubt. science can do lot.
Yet good authority can be found to
doubt whether this rapid increase of
x.
There is no question upon which the
public has been more consistently
bamboozled and confused than that of
population. The first of the wise men
to throw a scare into the common
herd was old Nautilus. Nearly all of
US remember having heard something
about Nautilus. He was widely re-
puted to have said that population
was increasing faster than the food
supply and that we were therefore
headed straight toward universal
starvation. As a matter of fact. that
is not what he said at all. But that
is what he got credit for saying, and
he succeeded in diffusing an air of
gloom over the world for a while.
Then came the scientific optimists
above mentioned, who said that Mall
thus was all wrong, and there was
really nothing to worry about. These
gentlemen were followed by another
school of thinkers who went still far
ther. They asserted that as a matter
OF fact babies were not being born
fast, enough Race suicide" then be-
came term which everyone had
heard, and the exact meaning of which
very few had seriously considered.
France was widely exploited in the
public prints as an example of this
national catastrophe. We were told
that in France the population was not
increasing at all. and we were led to
believe that it was only a matter of
time until France as a nation and the
French as race would disappear off
the face Of the earth. 1t was said that
France was in a state of decay. The
righteous minded pointed to the de-
cadent state of its morals, showing
that it was in the same fix as the
Roman empire just before its collapse.
Military men declared that If it came
to = war, the French would be licked
all over the place by almost any of it's
more virtuous and fecund neighbors.
Administrators said that the French
government was dying organism. All
had to admit that French art and lit
erature showed beauty and vitality.
but this was asserted to be the very
flower Of decay. the beautiful orchid
that sprouts from a dying tree.
The French themselves were wor-
ried about themselves. They feared
that immigration would denationalize
France, and they also feared that the
nation could not weather a war. lola,
book designed to encourage people to
have more children.
Roosevelt was, of course, the great
race suicide alarmist in this country.
He was especially fond of pointing ITO
South America, bidding US note how
much faster the South Americans
were breeding than were we, and ask
ing how we expected to maintain our
predominance in the western hemis-
phere If we allowed the people to the
south to outbreed US SO rapidly.
What the colonel overlooked, among
other things was the fact that the
South Americans have constantly in
creasing food supply. and great will
derness to populate. We, too. in
creased rapidly in our pioneer days
when an empty wilderness of wealth
lay to the west of us. Our rate of
increase, at least by birth of native
citizens, showed a tendency to drop
off as that wilderness filled up. And
there is every reason to believe that
, Observation-Disclosures
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