Ring Lardner

Evansville Journal/August 26, 1923

To the editor:

Am in receipt of a letter from the U. S. dept. of Agriculture at Washington, D. C., which I will copy down a part of its as follows:

“Dear Sir: Among the various problems allotted to this Bureau is included that of rat control. There is a constantly growing demand for relief from the depredations of rats.” Which indicates an awakened realization of the great economic importance of controlling these pests.”

Then the letter goes on to say that the dept. is conducting a publicity campaign to try and get antirat movements started all over the country and then the letter winds up like the following:

“This campaign is proving successful, but additional posters and press material are greatly needed and we feel that one of your rhymes would prove a valuable addition to this work and should you feel inclined to contribute it would be very much appreciated.”

Well friends, I ain’t wrote one of my rhymes in many a moon and further and more I don’t know what kind of a rhyme would kill any rats unlest you wrote them with a poison pen and then left them lay around where the rats might read them personly but still and all the dept. must justified and you might say that we have always had our rats under pretty good control and they have staid in there place and very seldom come upstairs, but at the same time I know a good many families where the rats done a lot of damage and eat up a great deal of food including cheese which I might say at this pt. that as far as I am concerned the rodent tribe can have all the cheese in the world.

Gibbs Imitates the Pie-Eyed Piper

But what I started to say was I know places where rats has acted vary annoying and had to be either got rid of or controlled so I may as well give the dept. and the public the benefit of my neighbors experience in handling the situation.

Well, they was one neighbor who we will call Gibbs, who the rats around his house got to be absolutely impossible. They would not know there business and any way when I get a call for help from the old U. S. I am the kind of a man that won’t turn them down provided they aint fighting Germans or something.

But would Iike to state first off that some of my best friends has been rats and lived right in the house with me and I never heard a squeek out of them that was not do nothing, he said, and was running wild all over the house and even using his bathtub.

This man and his wife entertained a good deal of Co. that wanted to take baths and it kind of worried them to go in the bath rm. and find the tub occupied by a couple of dirty rats. So Mr. Gibbs got mad at his rats and made it up in his mind that he would give them the air but how to go about it was the next question.

Well, when he was a boy he had read a story about a Pie-eyed Piper in Hammond, Ind., that bought himself a pipe and played tunes on it out of a pipe as he did not realize that they was a musical instrument called a pipe, but all the pipe he and walked out of town and all the rats followed him on acct. of how they could not resist the music.

Mr. Gibbs was kind of puzzled as to how the Piper had got any music and the only pipe he knowed about was the kind you smoke but he thought if the Piper had learned to play on one why he would, too, so he went on and bought himself a tobacco pipe and he tried to learn to play it but could not, so he smoked it instead and in about wks. of steady smoking the pipe was in such a condition that they couldn’t no rats live in the same house with it and they all ducked. 

This Was a Mean Trick

The other neighbor is a man we will call Buck and a great cheese fancier but could not keep no cheese fancier but could not keep no cheese in the house over night without the rats making a bum out of it. He bought himself a iron safe and tried locking the cheese up in that but in some way or another the rats got a hold of the combination and it was good-by cheese. 

Then he had a great idear namely he instructed his wife and son and the servants to go around to different part of the house where they knowed the rats could overhear them and keep making remarks like “The Schwobs have got a whole lot better cheese than we ever had around here.” and “I wonder where the Schwobs gets ther wonderful cheese,” and etc. 

Well it was not more than 2 or 3 days when all the rat had left the Bucks house and went looking all over Kensington for the Schwobs house and the rats had no sooner went when Mr. Buck put screens on all his windows and kept his doors all shut and locked and now he is in the enviable position of being able to sing “Yes we have no rats today.” 

These couple of incidence may be of service to the dept. of Agriculture, and to individuals who is anxious to get rid of rats and now in regards to the rhyme, why I feel like they might be a slight possibility that a rhyme appealing to the rats sence of shame might have a effect on the situation if the rhyme was printed in large type and copies of it was posted in places where rats is want to congregate like the basement, the pantry, the bath rm. and in barns and silos and etc. And here is the rhyme I would suggest: 

Rats, rats, you animal pests! 

Have not you gotten no hearts in your breasts? 

Knew ye full well that you’re un-welcome guests 

In barns or in houses or flats! 

Have ye no pride that you won’t go away  

From places where nobody wants you to stay? 

No wonder the people speak of you today 

As rats, Rats, RATS!