Intelligence, Not Numbers, U.S. Need

Date

1922-12-21

Spatial Coverage

Source

Washington Times, Dec. 21, 1922, p. 20

Description

No draft versions were found. Editors have omitted the nespaper's introduction.

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Text

INTELLIGENCE, NOT NUMBERS, U.S. NEED

If the population of the United States increases during the next 100 years as it has during the past century we shall have a population in 2023 of 1,000,000,000, or half as much as the earth's present population.

If the population of the earth increases in like proportion, it would run up to more than 10,000,000,000. It is doubtful whether a food supply to feed such masses could be produced.

The population of such countries as Japan and the United States have been increasing quite rapidly. In other countries, such as China, it is standing still. And in certain portions of Europe it is receding. Hence it is difficult to forecast for the whole world with accuracy.

Danger Recognized.

The increase of population in the United States has been 110 per cent in forty years, the result of flooded immigration. The dangers of the rapid increase have been recognized and now we have selected immigration.

If our population and the population of the earth were to run ahead in proportion to the figures quoted above, the result would be catastrophic for the race. It would mean a race where the struggle for existence would wipe out culture and intelligence.

If, however, the United States combines selective immigration with selective breeding, the average of intelligence, at present fourteen years, could be raised to twenty-five years at the end of a century. There would also be an increase in our population, but not a flooded increase.

Every grown person in our country would have the intelligence of present day university graduates. Each, for instance, would be able to understand and enjoy Wells' "Outline of History."

Quantity or Quality.

The standards of intelligence throughout the world could likewise be raised by selective breeding. The burning question for the United States and world during the coming century will be, "Do we want quantity or quality?"

In all the world there is a battle between two groups. One represents the scientists, the thinkers, the poets, the idealists, forward-looking, practical people. These want a selected population of raised intelligence.

Massed against them is the militarist-commercial group, which wants vastly increased populations, increased territory and the wars that accompany them.

This group includes the majority of the men who make up most of the governments of the earth. They are the self-centered, backward-looking people whose social consciousness and vision are undeveloped.

Japan as Example.

Japan at present offers perhaps the best example of this battle. The military party there wants to build up the present population of 67,000,000 to 100,000,000. Then they believe they can demand more territory from the world and get it. Without war, if possible, for they have learned a lesson from Germany.

But their theories are questioned every day by another group that grows rapidly in Japan. This group challenges with:

Why not be satisfied with a population of 50,000,000 and bend your energies to raising the quality of the people you already possess.

Man is supposed to reach fullness of development at twenty-five. Really, he achieves only physical development at that age. There are two other factors in human development, the mental and the psychic. By 2023 man could be so improved that he would present a harmonious, full development of the three factors.

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