Two great fighters against the worldwide population control movement died recently. Dr. Julian Simon, whose tireless efforts documenting the importance of human population to authentic development helped spark a small but growing counterrevolution in economic and social thinking, died on February 8 at the age of 65. And James Arthur Miller, who regularly contributed to the Population Research Institute in general and to this page in particular, died almost exactly one month later. Both men’s work, enthusiasm, persistence and sense of humor will be sorely missed.
In many ways Jim Miller belonged to another age. Hardboiled, compassionate and meticulous, Jim brought a deep strain of humanitarianism to research which, all too often, space and time forced him to restrict primarily to numbers — which were his strength and forte. Born before the computer, database, fax machine or modem, Jim was a walking spreadsheet of information about the worldwide anti—fertility effort. If you wanted to know how many Indian women had been sterilized in 1968, or how much money the one or another foundation had given to help make that happen, Jim would know. Or he would know where to go to find out.
Despite growing up in New York City, Jim maintained a deep respect for human beings and for the notion that individual lives cannot be reduced to being little more than numbers on columns — even though he loved calculating and documenting those numbers. Jim spent much of his career as a pit bull of truth, seizing on a statement made by one population control advocate or another and extrapolating from it its logical — but rarely admitted — conclusion. The general public’s inability to comprehend statistics and its willingness to choose style over substance would sometimes deeply frustrate him. Two years ago, when the PRI Review underwent an editorial and design change, Jim was the lone holdout in favor of the old format which used no pictures and laid its text into only two columns per page. Pictures, subheads, pull quotes and cutlines were all mere fluffy mash potatoes to someone who desired the red meat of facts as much as Jim did.
No appreciation of Jim, however, would be complete without including his institutional role as the Father of Footnotes. Jim was enthusiastic and determined, but he was also a realist. He understood very well the weight of power, money, prestige and dishonesty the population control movement could bring to bear in any given battle. He also instinctively understood that when you are trying to wake a world to a reality it may not want to hear you had better have your facts straight. Jim was a determined and eager footnoter. Wherever possible he would let the population control advocates speak for themselves. An ideal article, in Jim’s mind, would simply present footnoted numbers and facts and let the readers draw their own conclusions about the perfidy of the institutions involved.
Finally, to honor Jim, PRI will continue to call this page Popcorn in each issue. We hope every two months to provide some of the same jabbing, irreverent, and well footnoted prose for which Jim was well known.
Steven Mosher and David Morrison
