Science-Fiction

Millikan turned from the facts and figures to muse for a while about "science-fiction" type solutions for the problems.

He thought it not unreasonable to think that the untapped resources of the ocean would be used in the future to make up for the limitations of the land.

Stamp told his audience that "Indians actually have less food to eat today than they did twenty and thirty years ago because advances in medical science have been able to prolong longevity and reduce the infant mortality rate." In a country already highly overpopulated ths is fatal, he said.

"Danger exists in merging usually independent small states," Richard Hartshorne said Monday at the opening ses- sion of the conference. Hartshorne, Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin, told a Burr Hall audience that "diversity in political units weakens". The separate areas of a political unit must have a "common set of values in government," he said.

Medaris Disputes

Major General James B. Medaris disputed Hartshorne's thesis. "Peoples tend to divide," said Medaris, commanding officer of the U. S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency. "Unity must be imposed by force," he added.

The primary concern of political geography is "The political organization of an area is influenced by all the cultural and physical aspects", Hartshorne said.

Positive Accomplishments Needed

"Unity of a political area demands that the central government provide positive accomplishments," he added, "to resist the strength of outside ties and internal divergence among the sub-divisions."

Carleton S. Coon, Curator of Ethnology and Professor of Anthropology at the University if Pennsylvania and William Y. Elliott, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science, joined General Medaris on a panel following Hartshorne's talk.

Malnutrition

Malnutrition, over-population, and racial differences are major factors in disunity, according to Coon's anthropological approach.

Elliott queried the contribution of geography itself to an understanding of the unity of political areas.

Geography's place is "to keep an eye on the stage on which political organization is played", concluded Edward A. Ackerman, Director of the water resources program of Resources for the Future, Inc