Maryland Population Predictions Provoke Sceptical Responses

Predictions by a geography professor at the University of Maryland yesterday that a United States weakened by luxury and a falling birth rate could provide no resistance to the vigorously expanding populations of Russian-dominated Europe and Asia were received sceptically by experts here last night.

Within a century, O.E. Baker warned in a pamphlet on "the population prospect in relation to the world's agricultural resources," America will face an Orient doubled in population, and a united Europe with ten times more people. This country will be supporting a smaller, more aged population, "weak-ened by the love of luxury and ease."

Leland C. DeVinney, lecturer on Sociology and population specialist, observed that "it is impossible to see so far into the future." He added that "current trends reverse," and that last year the national birth rate reached a maximum for the previous decade.

Donald V. McGranahan, lecturer on Social Psychology, termed the professor's fears "of no immediate concern for the present."