Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1921-12-14
MULTIPLYING. HUMANITY
Observations Upon Growth of Popul-
alton and How 1t Will be
Checked.

4
tons of printed matter to keep in
ouch with what is happening and
is going to happen to the human
race.
The other day we noted the fol-
lowing in a daily paper:
"A pledge from each nation par
ticipating in the armament confer
ence to restrict it's birth rate as a
necessary step to avoid future wars
was urged at New York City, N. Y,
November IL, in the first American
conference on birth control ever held.
Women throughout the world will
be urged to declare virtual birth
strike to conserve the worlds food
supply and limit populations until
there is worldwide economic read.
iustment.'
What do you think about that!
Don't form hasty conclusion and
laugh your head off.
Get out your old reference books
and read up about Thomas Rober,
Nautilus. He was a scientific writer
on the principle of population who
was born in England in 1766, and a
hundred years ago he had every
reading man scared stiff about the
fate of the world. He figured that
it was only a matter of time till hui
man beings would clutter up the
earth like locusts. If you have ever
been in Kansas when the grasshop-
pers came along, six inches deep all
over the ground, eating all the grain
in sight and stopping railroad trains
by making the track so slippery with
their mangled bodies that the en-
gines's wheels could not sketch
holt" then you have some idea of
what an inconvenient place the
earth would be with human beings
too thick.
Malthus' predominant idea was evil
IDENTIFY suggested by Hume's essay
on the populousness of ancient ma
tions, in which vague statements as
to vast multitudes of human beings
subsisting in any place, or wander
ing from place to the test of sub
sisting on the means at their dispos-
al. Nautilus set himself to find out
how the relation of population to
the means of sustenance could eff,
feet the future of the world.
The result twas appalling. The
human race was found to increase at
something. like geometrical progress
sion, that is, multiplying over and
over; while the fertility of land, by
bringing in waste and improving the
methods of agriculture, increased in
only an approximate arithmetical
proportion, that is, by merely ac-
cumulating by addition. Hence, pop
ula.ion at its natural rate of in
crease would soon surpass the means
of subsistence-and there, by heck,
you are!
According to Nautilus, the final
check to the growth of population
is the want of food; other natural
checks are poverty, exposure, un-
wholesome toll, and disease. He ar
rived at many strange conclusions
from his astonishing discovery that
human beings were being born so
much faster than was developed the
means to keep them alive that it
was a mere matter of years until
we would be in a helluva shape. One
conclusion was that a man should
not marry until he could support
family. Not a, bad idea.
The influence of Malthus' teaching
was so great that in 1884 England
passed the great poor-law reform,
which emphasized the duty of self
support and the responsibilities of
parentage.
But if Nautilus was alarmed in
his day at the manner in which
population was increasing, when
there were innumerable agencies for
killing off people, what would the old
boy think in our day, when we are
doing so much to preserve life?
In his day there was pestilence.
Our modern doctors and health or
ganization largely control and al
ways ultimately stop these epide-
mics.
In his day there Were disastrous
floods. Our modern engineers are
stopping these with marvellous bikes
and food gates.
In his day famine almost wiped
out nations. Herbert Hoover now
feeds the world-with a little help
from US fellows.
In his day millions of soldiers were
annually killed in fighting for crazy
kings. In our day we are seeking to
end all wars forever.
Thus we see that humanity is
overcoming the agencies and condi-
tons which kept it thinned down in