PRI Weekly Briefing: In Thanksgiving to God for People

Dear Colleague:

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday, I would
like to give thanks. I would like to thank our supporters for believing in
our mission, and for providing the resources, financial and spiritual,
that we need to carry through with it. I would like to thank my talented
staff for their diverse contributions to our work. And, above all, I would
like to thank our God, without whom America and its people would not
exist. People are our greatest resource, and each one is a unique gift
from God.

Steven Mosher
President
 

ACTION ITEM: Please pray for the on-going work of PRI. If you are
materially blest please consider making a tax-deductible year-end donation
at our secure Website at https://pop.org/donate.cfm.
 

PRI Weekly Briefing
25 November 2003
Vol. 5 / No. 37

 
In Thanksgiving to God for People
By Steve Mosher

The history of our nation reaffirms the blessing of people. 

In 1621 the pilgrims gathered for the first Thanksgiving, giving thanks to
God for their bountiful harvest. They also prayed for more people to share
it with them. As the Plymouth colony wrote to England: "By the goodness of
God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our
plenty.. The country wanteth only industrious men to employ, for it would
grieve your hearts if you had seen so many miles together by goodly rivers
uninhabited."(1)

More immigrants came, and more babies were born, and the uninhabited river
valleys were gradually peopled. By 1750, the population of the American
colonies was over a million, with 400,000 in Greater New England, 390,000
in Greater Virginia, 230,000 in Greater Pennsylvania, and 100,000 in
Greater Carolina. These new population centers, in Paul Johnson's words,
served as "the main engines of demographic increase, attracting thousands
of immigrants every year but also ensuring high domestic birth-rates with
a large proportion of children born reaching adulthood, in a healthy,
well-fed, well-housed family system."(2)

An eight-child family was the American norm, wrote Benjamin Franklin. With
the American birthrate double that of old Europe, "our People must at
least be doubled every 20 Years." This doubling was a very good thing,
according to Franklin, for ". . . notwithstanding this Increase, so vast
is the Territory, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully" and
"many Thousand labouring People" more will need to be imported.(3)

New immigrants came, and native-born Americans multiplied, and a new
nation was born.

Still, America's vast empty spaces beckoned. In 1801, President Thomas
Jefferson stated in his inaugural address that America has "room enough
for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation." By 1832,
the number of immigrants entering our country each year passed 50,000.

By the time of the Civil War, America's population had reached 40 million.
In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863, Abraham Lincoln expressed hopes
for a continued increase of our nation's human numbers and its freedoms:
"Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has
been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country,
rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is
permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of
freedom."(4)

By 1950, America had reached 158 million people. A half century later, our
numbers had nearly doubled again, reaching 283 million in 2000.
 
Throughout this time, the naysayers decried continued population growth.
There were too many Americans, wrote Lincoln and Alice Day in their 1964
book by the same name.  They warned of the danger to "diet, housing, work,
play, security, freedom, and personal liberty" of a growing population.
"How much will we have to sacrifice," they asked rhetorically,
"materially, ethically, politically, aesthetically . . . before population
growth is halted?"(5)

The Days predicted that we would be eating stale crusts of bread by now,
if not actually starving. Instead, we have thrown a banquet the likes of
which the world has never seen. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, 61%
of American adults are overweight.(6) We eat so well that we have to take
drugs to unclog our arteries. We live in houses the rest of the world
regards as mansions. Computers serve as our personal secretaries, and cars
and planes take us wherever we want to go, quickly and cheaply. Thanks to
the Internet, we enjoy almost unlimited access to news and information.
 
By nearly every measure of well-being, from infant mortality and life
expectancy to educational level and caloric intake, Americans are better
off than ever before. The economy continues to expand, productivity is up,
and pollution is declining.
 
Those like Negative Population Growth (NPG) who claim that America is
overpopulated have been reduced to making essentially silly arguments
about the dangers of "sprawl" (whatever that is), and whining about such
things as the time lost commuting to work (Hint: Build more roads).
 
This Thanksgiving, we wish to invite even the population controllers to
the banquet table. We invite them to see the cornucopia that is America
for what it is: The end result of the efforts of tens of millions of
God-fearing Americans to better themselves and their families. America is
not now, or ever likely to be, overpopulated.
 
So, as at the first Thanksgiving, we at PRI say: Be fruitful and multiply!



Endnotes

1. Letter from Edward Winslow, Plymouth in New England, December 11, 1621.
2. Paul Johnson, "A History of the American People," 1997, p. 90.
3. Benjamin Franklin, OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE INCREASE OF MANKIND,
PEOPLING OF COUNTRIES, ETC. Written in Pennsylvania, 1751.
4. Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863.
5. Lincoln and Alice Day, "Too Many Americans," 1964, p. 7.
6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release, "Overweight
and Obesity Threaten U.S. Health Gains," 13 December 2001.

__________
Join with Population Research Institute as we work to make the world safe
for families and babies. Make your tax-deductible donation at our secure
Website at https://pop.org/donate.cfm

__________
Steve Mosher is the president of Population Research Institute, a
non-profit organization dedicated to debunking the myth that the world is
overpopulated.

__________
© 2003 Population Research Institute.
Permission to reprint granted. Redistribute widely. Credit required.

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__________
The Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights
abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending
counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of
"overpopulation."


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