Uncle Sam's Tapeworm by Milton H. St. John

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 22, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 37.

Uncle Sam's Tapeworm

By Milton H. St. John

An Allegory

By MILTON H. ST. JOHN

THERE is no question but that Uncle Sam has a decidedly acute case of tapeworm, very long and many-jointed.

The tapeworm, we are told, is a parasite that fastens itself somewhere in the digestive tract, and eats or absorbs the food and nourishment that should go to the replenishing of brain and brawn. Thus it creates an abnormal appetite.

So with the liquor traffic. It has literally, as well as figuratively, fastened itself in the digestive tract of Uncle Sam's body politic, and like the literal tapeworm, it has absorbed and is absorbing the energies that should go to the building up of body, mind, and soul. This crooked, creeping, slimy, smooth denizen of the pit is indeed a parasite, which, very soon after being introduced into the human digestive tract, creates a very abnormal appetite, but does not furnish one atom of muscle or nerve food to supply the abnormal appetite that it has created.

Again, the tapeworm is made up of joints. We have heard of tapeworms that were over thirty feet long, and were made up of over four thousand joints; and as incredible as these figures may seem, reputable physicians vouched for them. These worms, which are very small when they first take up their abode in the human digestive canal, have been known to live and grow until the unfortunate victim has well-nigh starved to death.

So it is with Uncle Sam's tapeworm. The liquor traffic had a small beginning in America; but now it has become the largest and most malicious menace to our political, social, and religious life. It is indeed made up of many "joints." For instance, there are the first and most important of all, the brewery, distillery, and winery joints, where demons in liquid form are manufactured. These joints, being the largest and most important, are placed next to the head of this ugly vampire, and are vitally important to its continued life. Then there are the saloon joints, the most numerous of all the joints in Uncle Sam's parasite. And among others might be mentioned the dance hall joints, the grill joints, the hotel joints, and many others that will readily suggest themselves to the reader's imagination. Note the striking coincidence that these places are familiarly spoken of as "joints."

The head of the tapeworm is the only vulnerable part, and this parasite can not be destroyed by removing a few joints here and there; for as long as the head lives, it will quickly develop new joints, and the worm will soon be just as large and ravenous and many-jointed as before. To destroy the tapeworm, it is absolutely essential that the head be removed or killed. Then the whole worm, in all its joints, will die a natural death, and be cast out of the body.

So with the whole liquor business, from the brewery and distillery and winery joints to its most insignificant joint. To be destroyed at all, a death-blow must be dealt at its head, which we may say, in our analogy, is the legalizing, by our national government, of this iniquitous traffic. Thus the head of this allegorical tapeworm has tenaciously fastened itself in our national Congress.

Now while local option is good, and state prohibitory laws are better, more is needed to destroy utterly this blasting, blighting, burning, blistering, ravenous, body and soul destroying creature of hell. What is urgently needed is that all who believe that no man has a right to give or sell a poison to his fellows which robs the user of his judgment, and makes him a menace to himself and society at large, shall arise in their God-given manhood and womanhood and strike this worst of all human parasites a death-blow upon its head, by voting for a prohibition amendment to our national Constitution, and then electing men to office in city, state, and nation who will enforce such an amendment. And it can be done if the friends of humanity are united.

"The honor of God, the stability of the nation, the well-being of the community, of the home, and of the individual, demand that every possible effort be made to arouse the people to the evil of intemperance. . . . Let the voice of the nation demand of its lawmakers that a stop be put to this infamous traffic."

"If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, And those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we know it not; Doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? And He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it?"

And "what wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?"