Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1909 — “Them’s As Ain’t Idiots Turns Off the Tap.” [ARTICLE]

“Them’s As Ain’t Idiots Turns Off the Tap.”

The true remedy against our trusts is to sqek out the cause of a trust and to remove that cause. This is a perfectly simple and natural remedy, and lies close at hand. It applies to public matters the same rule of wisdom which men apply in their own affairs as to health, business and every private transaction in the world. If typhoid fever or some other epidemic is sweeping over your community and you find that it results from sewerage on some other physical cause, you will remove the cause and not rely solely upon the skill and remedies of medical practitioners. Some visitors who were being shown over a pauper lunatic asylum inquired of their guide what method was employed to discover when the inmates were sufficiently recovered to leave.

“Well,” replied he, "you see, it’s this way. We have a big trough of water and we turns on the tap. We leave it running, and tells ’em to bail out the water with pails until they’ve emptied the trough.” “How does that prove it?” asked one of the visitors.

“Well,” said the guide, “them as ain’t idiots turns off the tap.”