1896: National Reflector, 26 September

National Reflector, 26 September, 1896

PUTTING RINGS ON THE RIGHT HOGS

I was passing through Iowa some months ago, and I got an idea from some hogs. [Laughter.] An idea is the most important thing that a person can get into his head, and we gather our ideas from every source. As I was riding along I noticed these hogs rooting in a field, and they were tearing up the ground, and the first thought that came to me was that they were destroying a good deal of property. And that carried me back to the time when I was a boy I lived upon a farm, and I remembered that when we had hogs we used to put rings in the noses of the hogs, and then the thought came to me, "Why did we do it?" Not to keep the hogs from getting fat. We were more interested in their getting fat than they were. [Laughter.] The sooner they got fat the sooner we killed them; the longer they were in getting fat the longer they lived. But why were the rings put in the noses of those hogs? So that, while they were getting fat, they would not destroy more property than they were worth. [Laughter and great applause.] And as I thought of that this thought came to me, that one of the duties of the government, one of the important duties of government, is the putting of rings in the noses of hogs. [Applause.]

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