The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-24
OUR DEAR HOOKWORM
 IS STOUTLY DEFENDED

At dinner recently given in Washing ton. at which several notable persons were present, Carruthers Ewing. a leader to the toast 'The Hookworm: Is It Right to Take It Away from the People of the South?' The diners greatly relished his remarks, and this is what he said
 I hardly think 1t just, on so pleasant an occasion, to have attention ad- dressed to a subject which disturbs the poise and wrecks the calm. There are times when even a lawyer, though stand ing before judges, has a right to be happy and unalarmed.
 But a few months ago I saw much in the life of the south to dispel the darkness and the clouds. I saw my peo- pie unafraid of the future. and every man who owed dollar was willing to forget it and let it be forgotten. I saw reformers elated with reforms that in- terfered with no mans evil ways. I saw prohibitionsts passing laws that de- tracted from no mans ability to get a drink. I saw nearly all republicans hold ing and the balance hoping for an of flee, and every democrat was proud and pleased that MT. Bryan had been smitten with a flash of silence. saw happy and contented people, willing to neglect their own affairs. to give attention to their neighbors.
 Into this Eden crept MT. Rockefeller with a scheme to filch from my section its hallowed hookworn. I have brooded much over the atrocity and have come to regard it as an act so wanton and unpardonable that 1t brands him as lost to social obligations, and with a heart really bent on mischief.
 If he had craved and coveted that worm, if he had loved and longed for it, we would have opened our homes and hearts to him, for I say to you tonight that no man with as much real money as MT. Rockefeller ever yet went south without finding every home open and every heart and hope beating high.
 From the day when the rhetorical suggestion about the wonderful hospital ity of the south took it's rightfu place with kindred aphorisms, we, of the south have extended ardent welcome to every man with money, having nothing to en- liven us except the most nebulous notion that we might separate him from some of it.
 We have welcomed the wealthy with no plans more definite than seven-up; we have bade them goodbye with nothing to cheer us save the unreasoning hope that made Micawber's life so beautiful And you know and I know that greater kindness to strangers hath no section than this; 1t permitteth the rich alien to get away with his alien riches. We well come almost everybody. Why, six months ago we welcomed republican President And, in passing, I'll say that it looks like we are never going to have any other kind.
 Since Mr. Bryan got the hookworm in his vocal organs and Richard Croker took the veil, it is hardly worth while to be a democrat.
 "Reverting to MT Rockefeller's inva- sion of our traditional rights-and while the south is not so particular about It's rights. 1t is foolish about it's traditions I say to you that it was not because he loved or lusted for the worm, but because of his insatiate desire to crush something.
 Lust why he should have turned his evil eye upon the south and proposed to annihilate natures sure antidote to ef- fort do not know. We never sold any coal oil. And hope that fact will ob- trude itself upon his conscience. before the final tragedy, and cause the still. small voice-if there are any still. small voices left-to beseech him: Oh, Mister, spare that worm!'
 of he met that hookworm In the fair field of fight, competing with 1t for su- premacy-man to worm-our rage and resentment would not have mounted so high. But he subsidized scientists and marshaled the myrmidons or medicine applied to that worm the hideous epithet .uncinariassis,' and with no search war rant from on High proposes to forage our forms and probe our persons, and I tell you tonight that the peace of uni- yersal man is placed in peril.
 'I do not speak for the worm, but for the world That worm makes man subside, 1t stops the soaring purpose and makes the wild wave of tumult be as the still waters. If there ever was time in human history when the hook worm could have God-ordained end, 1t Is today. Dr. Stiles, one of Rockefeller's s Ma melukes of Medicine, says that just one little worm renders a man incapable of performing any great exertion. The crying need of the hour, then, is that worm.
 ..If one hookworm had been placed in Thomas w. Lawson before he went to | finance his frenzy, that cup would have surely passed from us. No man can say | that this small object of Rockefeller's s wrath, if well and wisely used. might not deaden, though 1t could not destroy, Uncle Joe Cannon's willingness to start | a rough house.
 .'We have one citizen whose system should be saturated with hookworms if l the serenity of the world is to be as- sured Think of the storm that would
 peryade the earth if our mighty hunter had some hookworms! While a coales- cing of Mr. Roosevelt and the uncinari- | esis might produce a result that would
 thrill thrones and shake the world, ] | believe that this; the supreme test the
 worm would finally triumph
 .No man with hookworm reposine | in him and producing repose ever shot
 wild beasts in an African jungle or lec-
 tured on archa eology beneath Egyptian tombs. No such man ever braved the bolts of the Vatican on one day and silenced a perfervid preacher on the next No such man could within week have | oa ,t,,red the dual empire of Austria and