Presidential Statement of the Day
By Franklin D. Roosevelt, speaking to farmers in Washington, D.C., 14 May 1935
It is high time for us to repeat on every occasion that we have not wastefully destroyed food in any form. It is true that the Relief Administrator has purchased hundreds of thousands of tons of foodstuffs in order to feed the needy and hungry who have been on the relief rolls in every part of the United States.
The crocodile tears shed by the professionals mourners of an old and obsolete order over the slaughter of little pigs and over other measures to reduce surplus agricultural inventories deceive very few thinking people in this country, and least of all the farmers themselves.
I have always supposed, ever since I was able to play around, that the acknowledged destiny of a pig is sausage, or ham, or bacon or pork. It was in those forms—as sausage, ham, bacon or pork—that millions of pigs were consumed by vast numbers of needy people who otherwise would have had to do without them.