Nightfall for the wasps

What makes the Times great? Certainly the big things, like great reporters, editors and news judgment.

But also little things, like keeping editorial calendars where they make sure to follow up on their own stories.

Nine months ago, the Times' Sam Roberts wrote a story that started:

If the experts are right, some time this month, perhaps somewhere in the suburban South or West, a couple, most likely white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Hispanic, will conceive a baby who, when born in October, will become the 300 millionth American.

That day, apparently, has come. And, like clockwork, Sam's back with
The 300 Millionth Footprint on U.S. Soil:

By one count, more than half of all the people who have ever lived in the United States are living today. And their ranks are expanding. On any given day, 11,000 babies are born and 3,000 immigrants arrive, outnumbering the people who die or emigrate.

At the current rate, the person who tips the population past 300 million will emerge in a week or so.

The recent surge of immigrants actually makes America’s diversity closer to what it was in 1915, when the 100 millionth arrived, than in 1967, when the 200 millionth was born (chances are nearly even that a baby born today will be Hispanic). At all three milestones, the nation was either on the verge of war or already in one.

This second story is shorter than the first, but its accompanying charts are well worth checking out.

That first story inspired a post, One day 1/5th the Size of China, about the 200th million American, an Asian American according to Life magazine in 1967.

Too bad a magazine of Life's stature isn't around today to annoint the 300th millionth American. Whoever he or she is, it's a fair bet that they'll grow up speaking more than one language--maybe Spanish, or one day Chinese.

To again quote what might well be the unofficial anthem of our epoch, the times indeed are a changing. As the Times found out shortly after the first piece ran--an appended correction online reads:

A front-page article on Jan. 13 about the expectation that the United States population would reach 300 million in October misstated the proportion of Americans who are Anglo-Saxon Protestants. According to current surveys, about 40 percent of the population is white Protestant. Anglo-Saxon Protestants, therefore, do not account for "most Americans."

Photo of non-Anglo-Saxon Protestant baby found online.