Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1937-03-26

lnS1uI glanceS at ner loSC African
colonies and at Russia. What
tentative date, then, can be set as
the time when Mother Earth can
support no more?
In the "New Outlook" for March,
1888, Louis I. Dublin asserts that
in only a few more decades we
shall reach our maximum numbers
in the United States, likely never
to exceed $50 millions. The 1880
census indicated a population of
1913 million, an increase in ten
years of over II millions but
the rate of growth during the last
ten years was about as low as for
the preceding decade, when because
of the World War and the influenza
epidemic, it was the lowest for any
ten year period in the history of
the country. Then too, we have an
ever diminishing excess of births
over deaths. In the last ten years
our birthrate has declined nearly
25 per cent while the mortality rate
has remained fairly stationary. The
best guess is that in 1910 our pop
ulation will not exceed 131 mil
lions.
Dublin further prognosticates
that the population will probably
reach its maximum of somewhat
less than $50 million about 1870,
and will then go into a rapid de-
cline, falling to 140 million by the
year 1000 and to rs million by
2100. In other words, our pOpula-
ton will fall so per cent in only
100 years!
Harold Calender, in the Febru-
airy, 1885, issue of the New York
Times Magazine, states that the
population of this country will
reach its peak in 1860 of about 148
million and decline in 1000 to 140
million. It is pointed out that the
British population will undoubtedly
reach it's maximum at the same
time along with that of Germany.
The French population has been
for several years approximately
stationary.
But if this is true for the West
ern world, it is not likely to hap
pen in Asia, India, and the rest
of the East where large families
still prevail and where education
and sanitation are gradually re-
ducing epidemics and their re-
sultant death-rate. This would in
dictate that the world will be pre-
dominantly yellow or brown with
in the next three centuries if it
were not for the assumption that
by that time, changes such as are
now occurring in the Western
world will have begun in the East.
Moreover, in spite of the facts,
figures, and predictions given by
the foregoing experts, the World
Almanac gives the earth's popula-
ton as two billion and the rate of
growth as 80 million a year. At
that rate the population of the
planet will double itself in &c
years! In 1910 the number of in
habitants per square mile in the
United States was 4.3, in 1870,
1870. Thus, during that period it
would seem our population more
than doubled itself. immigration,
however, makes population stats
tics, at the least, uncertain and not
entirely indicative.
In view of the above information
we might then conclude that there
may never come a time when the
world will be overcrowded. Per-
haps an even rate of births to
deaths may prevail and the popu-
lation be distributed evenly over
the surface of the globe. At any
rate, following the unfailing law
of averages it seems that we are
destined never to have to face the
problem of finding more room.
EDITORS NOTE.-David M.
Hall of st. Paul is a student at
West Virginia State College, In
stituta Vast VIRGINIA