Posted on 09/21/2014 2:37:41 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
1924: Pep, “The Cat-Murdering Dog”
Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" was a black Labrador Retriever admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary on August 12, 1924. Prison folklore tells us that Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot used his executive powers to sentence Pep to Life Without Parole for killing his wife’s cherished cat. Prison records support this story: Pep’s inmate number (C-2559) is skipped in prison intake logs and inmate records. The Governor told a different story. He said Pep had been sent to Eastern to act as a mascot for the prisoners. He and the Warden, Herbert “Hard-Boiled” Smith, were friends. Pep was much loved, and lived among the inmates at Eastern State for about a decade. While the truth may never be known, in photographs Pep—with his head down and ears back--looks GUILTY.
"We always get our man … er, dog."
“Rowr ROWR-Rowr ROWR!”
(Translation: “Filthy SCREWS-Filthy SCREWS!”)
He may have invented character assassination as a Progressive technique (of course there had been earlier victims of slanderous accusations both in the US and elsewhere, but this is now one of the main tools of the trade of the Democratic Party).
Richard Ballinger was Secretary of the Interior in the early part of Taft's Presidency. He and Pinchot disagreed over something and Pinchot launched a smear campaign to paint Ballinger as corrupt. Taft stood by Ballinger and fired Pinchot, which was one of the things that led to the Taft/TR split that doomed Taft's effort to be re-elected in 1912 and caused the nation to be saddled with Woodrow Wilson.
In accepting Ballinger's resignation a while later, Taft said that he had been "the object of one of the most unscrupulous conspiracies for the defamation of character that history can show."
There is a national forest named after Gifford Pinchot in Washington State. I don't think there is anything named after Ballinger.
It is never a crime to kill a cat.
It is just the proper physiological response to a stimulus.
S/O
too funny! :)
Yeah, I figured one of you tough guys would show up.
Looks guilty, and he knows it. And he doesn’t care. Give him another cat, and he’ll do it again.
Shows the racial injustice. A black lab...
Get his puppies a big screen. And a cell phone.
There is a lake in WA State named after Ballinger. There is also a State Park , and a PSU dorm, among many other things in PA named after Gifford Pinchot.
I agree with the writer Walter Miller who said in his book A Canticle for Leibowitz; (Paraphrase) “People who like cats don’t know cats. The best cats are the ones that cat lovers don’t like.”
If you want a excellent moral argument against abortion and euthanasia I suggest you read that book and look for the story about the cat.
Poor baby. I can see the remorse in his eyes. (:
I’m sure it was a crime of passion...but if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime...don’t do it.
If he was a mascot (so to speak) you can bet he was loved by all.
I quickly put down two vicious dogs who killed my children’s kitten. They came right up into the doorway to attack the kitten. Shotgunned them both. No regrets. Even the neighbors supported me on what I did.
Somehow, Lynn-Dah-The-Dawg finds this convicted criminal somewhat attractive.
She better not write him any letters!
Notice they sent a black dog to prison while white dogs were allowed to run free.
If Eric Holder had been around back then, he would have opened up a civil rights investigation for racial profiling … Pep was after all, a Black Lab! Come to think of it, he might open up an investigation today anyways … there are always reparations to be had from the Eastern State Penitentiary museum!
“Cat lovers don’t know cats. You can’t love all cats if you know cats, and the ones you can love are the ones that cat lovers don’t even like. Zeke was that kind of cat.”
Sounds like someone who doesn’t know the subject very well, trying to put together an awkward quote on cats and people.
Pep didn’t do it. It was his sister Curiosity.
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