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Show TO DAY : tomorrow 0?ItOBIfSO I' mitTIIItATH .... decline I For years statintif:ians have been trying to net us excited about tills country's declining birthrate. They have predicted that unless something Is done about it, the United States will some day be about as populated as the North Pole. Hut with most of us, such theories (40 in one oar and out tint oilier. In fact, when we go for an automobile ride on 11 nice Sunday afternoon we think that there are entirely too ninny people In America. Ever since this country was taken tak-en away from the Indians the population pop-ulation has increased every year. It will continue to do so for a few more years and then the decline will begin. After studying tho figures I can foo why there is reason for alarm particularly in tho cities. The most recent fig-urea fig-urea show that, if present birth and death rates continue in cities, tho urban poimlution will decline 2 t per cent in one generation, losinnin right now. That means, if it continued con-tinued for J OO years, a city which now has a population of J 00,000 would then have a population of around 25,-OOO, 25,-OOO, unless people migrated from rural areas. In the rural areas the birthrate lias declined over 10 per cent in 10 years, but it is still great enough to supply both city and country with population Increases for a few more years. After that comes the decline unless, by that time, the city people peo-ple revert to normal child-raising or invent a population producing machine. I' ARMING sport Looking into the future is fun, even if you look at it through the eyes of a fake fortune-teller. But it's most thrilling to me to look at it through the eyes of a smart scientist who really holds some of the keys which will open the doors 1 to the years- ahead, i Dr. Francis J. Curtis of the .Monsanto Chemical company, is such a scientist and he i did some predicting the other day that will make most farmers farm-ers want to live as long as Methuselah, if necessary, just to get a glimpse of the world lie pictures. For in the future, says Dr. Curtis, Cur-tis, farming, as we know it today, will be a sport rather than labor a sport like hunting, fishing,-rowing fishing,-rowing and other such activities that we now go in for for fun but used to pursue because our existence exis-tence depended upon them. The raising of food, Dr. Curtis predicts, will gradually gradual-ly pass into a factory stage where there will be no guesswork, guess-work, mostly machine labor, no worry about the size or quality of crops, no fear of Hoods, drouth or frost, and positive knowledge about what eacli seed will produce. Labor w'ill be qon fined Ito controlling farm machines, working hours will be short, health foods will be so abundant abun-dant that sickness will be a disgrace and all sorts of new entertainments will be devised devis-ed to occupy the long hours of leisure which the farmers will enjoy. It all sounds like a bed of roses for the farmer. And the interesting in-teresting thing about it is that Dr. Curtis isn't just dreaming. He's basing his predictions on the expected results of problems which , scientists are now striving to the big problem in defense production. pro-duction. They are difficult and slow to make, workmen skilled in making them are scarce and the demand for them in defense industries indus-tries is greater than can possibly be supplied. Therefore, wliile the continued con-tinued production of automobiles automo-biles is considered essential to keeping our economic system sys-tem in order, the production of new models would seem to be an extravagance. And most automobile manufacturers manufac-turers agree. Joseph W. Frazer, president of Willys-Overland, has stated that the public won't object if no changes whatsoever arie made for 1942 cars and has indicated indi-cated that his company will not make any. The New York Automobile Auto-mobile show, which has been held every year since 1900, has been called off to discourage any major ma-jor changes. So don't feel unpatriotic if you buy a new automobile but don't be disappointed, either, if, when you buy a 1942 model, it looks exactly like the 1941 edition. solve. AUTOMOBILES . . . defense Some patriotic - meaning Amei-i-cans, who want to see the defense program go ahead at top-rate speed, have suggested that automobile auto-mobile manufacturers stop making cars for private use altogether and concentrate on planes, trucks,' tanks, and tractors. If it would speed defense, a majority of people would agree to such a program, even though it would mean great personal sacrifice. But actually actual-ly any such plan would be an irreparable mistake. The automobile Industry is one of the main pillars of today's economic eco-nomic system. Last year its sales totaled over $5,000,000,000. If this business suddenly stopped, even temporarily, it would disrupt the lives of millions of people including in-cluding the large force of newly employed defense workers ' - who are dependent upon a reliable automobile au-tomobile to get to work. Transportation, and that seems mostly auto transportation, transpor-tation, is on the Average American's Am-erican's spending list. It is out-ranked oidy by expenditures expendi-tures for shelter and food. When an industry is that important impor-tant to us we should make every effort to keep it operating normally. nor-mally. It would be ridiculously short-sighted to disrupt our leading lead-ing means of transportation as part of a plan to strengthen our defenses. MODELS changes It looks as if there may be no new models of automobiles for 1942. To turn out a new model requires new machine tools and dies. Machine tools and dies are |