“The Wild Hogs of
Horse-Shoe Bend”
By
J.G. McDaniel, M.D.
I remember, as
a small boy in knee britches, going with my father to hear an address
given by the Honorable Stephen Pace, then Congressman from the old Georgia
12th District. It was on the banks of the Ocmulgee River. There was
a barbecue, and citizens, especially farmers from all the counties,
gathered - this was before the second World War.
It seemed that
someone in the Congress had introduced a bill that would give the farmers
some money provided they did something. The Congressman vigorously opposed
it. I have no idea what it was, because I was watching a "dirt
dobber" making a ball of mud. The Congressman snapped me back to
attention, however, when he said "I'm going to tell you a true
story about the wild hogs that once lived about forty miles down river."
"Years ago,"
the Congressman said, "in the great Horse-Shoe Bend down the river,
there lived a drove of wild hogs. Where they came from no one knew,
but they survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts and hunters. The
greatest compliment a man could pay to a dog was to say that he had
fought the hogs in Horse-Shoe Bend and returned alive. Occasionally
a pig was killed either by a dog or a gun as a conversation piece for
years to come.
Finally, a one-gallused
man came by the country store on the river road, and asked the whereabouts
of these wild hogs. He drove a one horse wagon, had an axe, some quilts,
a lantern, some corn and a single barrel shot gun. He was a slender,
slow moving patient man - he chewed his tobacco deliberately and spat
very seldom.
Several months
later he came back to the same store and asked for help to bring out
the wild hogs. He stated that he had them all in a pen over in the swamp.
Bewildered farmers, dubious hunters and store-keepers all gathered in
the heart of Horse Shoe Bend to view the captive hogs.
‘It was all
very simple,’ said the one-gallus man, 'First, I put out some
corn. For three weeks they would not eat it. Then, some of the young
ones grabbed an ear and ran off into the thicket. Soon, they were all
eating it. Then, I commenced building a pen around the corn, a little
higher each day. When I noticed that they were all waiting for me to
bring the corn and had stopped grubbing for acorns and roots, I built
the trap door. Naturally, said the patient man, they raised quite a
ruckus when they seen they were trapped, but I can pen any animal on
the face of the earth if I can just get him to depend on me for a free
hand-out.'"
We have had patient
men in our central government in Washington for years. They are using
our own dollars instead of corn. I still think about the trap door and
the slender, stooped man who chewed his tobacco deliberately, when he
spat and turned to the gathered citizens many years ago and said, "I
can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can just get him to
depend on me for a free hand-out."
• Congressman
Pace was born in Terrell County, Ga., near Dawson, March 9, 1891; attended
the public schools and Georgia School of Technology at Atlanta; was
graduated from the law department of the University of Georgia at Athens
in 1914; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice
in Americus, Ga.; also engaged in agricultural pursuits; served in the
State house of representatives 1917-1920; was a member of the State
senate in 1923 and 1924; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-fifth
and to the six succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1937-January 3, 1951);
did not seek renomination in 1950; resumed the practice of law in Americus,
Ga., and practiced until his death there April 5, 1970.
The
Price Of
Free Corn
The allegory of
the pigs has a serious moral lesson. This story is about federal money
and lies (promises) being used to bait, trap and enslave a once free
and independent people.
Federal welfare,
in its myriad forms, has reduced not only individuals to a state of
dependency. State and local governments are also on the fast track to
elimination, due to their functions being subverted by the command and
control structures of federal "revenue sharing" programs.
Study these links
-- "Our Enemy the State" by Albert J. Nock, 1935, His Classic
Critique Distinguishing 'Government' from the 'State', written about
the same time that Congressman Pace told this story.
And this written
150 years ago defining the process -- "The Law" by Stephen
Bastiat, 1850. What he had to tell us then is very much true today.
The Truth, that
will set us free, is in knowing that with so-called "free handouts"
lies the beginning and end-all of the whole mess in government that
we see today . . . but wild hogs will be pigs 'til the end . . . and
sheeple are easier to bait and trap . . . don't even have to use corn
or money or anything but hot air, myths, half-truths and outright lies
. . . and it all began a whole lot longer than 2000 years ago, and has
continued ever since.
Think about it,
the bacon you save may be your own.
Please copy this
page and send it to all your state and local elected leaders and other
concerned citizens. Tell them: "Just say NO to federal corn.”
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