"But here I've come up with a third way: reduction in size. Can't you see what it means? As workers, these little people can produce as much as normal adults. Yet they need only half the food and yardage in clothes, smaller houses, smaller everything. Think of the tremendous savings in natural resources!"
He paused.
"I know you are terribly shocked," he resumed earnestly. "I was startled myself when the idea occurred. We've always thought progress meant bigness. The ideal man was six feet tall and all that. But it's bunk. Even when our standard of living was at record high, that ideal was still the exception. And since our time of trouble began, the average height has actually decreased by three inches."
Hackett was shaking his head.
"But dammit, you can't make 'em small all at once."
"No, it's a long haul and it will take all kinds of courage for Congress to pass the laws. But if we don't start now, soon it will be too late. Here is my plan:
"Some of us think the malnutrition and spreading disease are starting to stabilize the population at about one billion, which is still way too high. About fourteen million die each year; at present some fifteen million babies survive birth.
"I can't work it on children over two years old. By then they're too tall. But if we stop the growth, right now, of the thirty million in that age group, allowing for natural mortality, in twenty years we'll have over two hundred million small people—a fifth of our number. At least it will give us some elbow room to attack our miserable standard of living."
Still Hackett protested:
"It would be rough. Nobody wants to be peewees."