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HW-1  7/8"  Henry Wallace for President 1948 campaign litho button
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HW-11  7/8"  1" in diameter Celuloid Pinback "6,000,000 Piglets Squeal "Hank Wallace's Raw Deal!". Back marked The Whitehead & Hoag Co., Buttons, Badges, Novelties and Signs, Newark, NJ.
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One of collectors' favorites is this Willkie slogan pin, a one inch cello in blue on white. It reads, "6,000,000 Piglets Squeal, 'Hank Wallace's Raw Deal.'" This button refers to an incident from the early New Deal, when at the direction of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, 6 million young pigs were slaughtered. At the same time, cotton and other crops were plowed under. This was done under the auspices of the new Agricultural Adjustment Administration (or AAA). New Deal critics complained that the Roosevelt administration was trying to end the paradox of poverty amidst plenty by destroying the plenty.  It did seem cruel to destroy cotton plants when many impoverished people around the world--and in America--were wearing rags. It did seem unjust to slaughter baby animals when poor people in Asia and in America could benefit from increased meat production. Yet Secretary Wallace knew that the greatest problem of American farmers was overproduction, and the only way to end that overproduction was to plow under crops and slaughter piglets as the New Deal got under way. In future years farmers could curtail the production before the year started--by planting fewer acres for example. Wallace claimed that "The people who raise the cry about [feeding] the last hungry Chinaman are not really criticizing farmers or the AAA, but the profit system." Under capitalism, lower supply meant higher profits. Small farmers would soon be earning more money, spending more money, and helping to end the crippling depression.  Wallace was especially irritated by Republican complaints about the killing of the baby pigs. He thought the Republicans seemed to be claiming that "every little pig has the right to attain before slaughter the full pigginess of his pigness. To hear them talk, you would have thought that pigs were raised for pets." To his credit, Wallace did see to it that the pork from the slaughtered animals was distributed to the poor.  One last question--if the slaughter of piglets happened in 1933, why does this slogan appear on a 1940 button? The answer is that Wallace had just been added to the ticket as Roosevelt's new vice-president designate, and the pig incident was the one thing Wallace was most famous for, among Republicans anyway.

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