University of Virginia Library

Tydings Calls On US To Lead
In World Population Control

Joseph D. Tydings, former United
States Senator from Maryland, said
Saturday night that the United States
must take the lead in alleviating the world
population crisis.

Mr. Tydings' speech, before an
audience of about 200 persons,
concluded a two-day symposium on the
world population crisis held at the
University's School of Law.

The former Democratic Senator, defeated
by Glenn Beall in November's elections,
claimed that, "sooner or later, no reasonable
man can deny that we need to stabilize our
population. The mathematics of it makes it
inevitable."

Mr. Tydings supported his claim by citing
figures showing that if the present growth rate
continues for the next 150 years, "our
population will be 3 and one-half billion
people. We must move now, not tomorrow, to
stabilize the population."

Mr. Tydings, sponsor of the Family Planning
Act adopted by Congress last year, said the
movement to control the U.S. population was a
political rather than a biological issue. "The
debate centers around having voluntary or
compulsory family planning," he noted.

An advocate of a libertarian approach to
population control, Mr. Tydings claimed that for
the next few years, the U.S. could rely upon
libertarian population control methods and
avoid depriving a person of his rights unless it
would impair the security of the nation.

The Family Planning Act is one example of
such a libertarian policy, allowing each family
to dictate its own family planning. The act
authorized $325 million for medical service,
research and contraceptives to fight
overpopulation, but this legislation, Mr.
Tydings warned, is "only a foot in the door"
since no funds have been appropriated for the
act.

Mr. Tydings said that the states must initiate
population control steps by taking the abortion
issue head on. "States have no right to order or
constrain abortion," he added.

The symposium's featured speaker said that
the straight, cold facts should be enough to gain
the necessary popular support for a successful
struggle against overpopulation. "Congress and
national institutions support the general
principle of population stabilization," the
former Senator claimed, and so there is really
no need to stress the "famine tomorrow
arguments" to build up the population control
movement.

Mr. Tydings concluded his remarks, and the
symposium, saying, "We are in a period of life
where we have the means, knowledge and
opportunity to face a difficult problem of our
own times. It's a pressing problem and we have
the opportunity to do something about it. The
only limits (in combating the problem) are our
own."

The symposium was sponsored by the John
Bassett Moore Society and the American
Society of International Law. Along with Mr.
Tydings, population specialists and
international law authorities participated in the
discussions.

Mr. Tydings was a member of President
Richard Nixon's Commission on Population
Growth and the American Future and was a
leading supporter of the development of a
population and family planning agency in the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The former Senator is author of Born To
Starve, a book recently published dealing with
the problems of overpopulation, especially in
rural areas.