THE THREAT OF OVERPOPULATION 199 



year. The Puerto Rican depends heavily on imported foods 

 from the United States, but the great majority of the fam- 

 ilies do not have sufficient purchasing power to satisfy their 

 hunger. It should have been apparent from the beginning 

 in 1898 that, even with the stepped-up food production, 

 there would be barely enough for all the hungry mouths. In- 

 creased production and technology were somehow vaguely 

 counted on to work out a solution. What actually happened 

 was that all the modern hygiene and epidemic controls, with 

 their great power to hold back the Malthusian death check, 

 released still more of the fertility potential, and the popula- 

 tion began to expand explosively. 



The little man of Puerto Rico might be filthy, ill, and 

 hungry in his stinking slums, the "Little Mire" and the in- 

 famous "La Perla," but he was never too feeble to beget 

 himself. In 25 years the population increased to a million 

 and a half and in 1948, just 50 years after the beginning of 

 American guardianship, the population reached 2,200,000 

 —a density on this tropical isle of 645 people to the square 

 mile. Now there is only one-third of an acre of overused 

 arable land for each Puerto Rican. Cook tells us that at the 

 present rate of increase the island's population will reach 

 4,000,000 by 1970 and there will then be 1,300 people for 

 every square mile and only one-sixth of an acre of arable 

 land per person. He points out that there is no w^ay now 

 known to science or economics by means of which such a 

 crowded mass of people in a situation like that of Puerto 

 Rico could achieve the good life. Soon, and more severely 

 later, starvation and disease will cut the numbers down. The 

 magic of industrialization, now under way to a limited ex- 

 tent, cannot be expected to stay the fate of these peoples, 

 some observers feel. Birth control would seem to be the 

 only hope. Recently through the setting up of clinics an 

 attempt is being made to introduce such control, but it is 

 not possible as yet to judge how effective it may prove to be. 



