Political Quotes

“Mr. President, change is very hard in this country and in this Chamber. Change is always hard. I was thinking, as we have been blocked from proceeding on the Wall Street reform bill, which is a very important issue, about what probably was the case on another big change at the turn of the last century, when Upton Sinclair wrote about the meatpacking houses in this country. He wrote a book called ``The Jungle'' and described his visit to the meatpacking houses in Chicago and the unbelievably unsanitary conditions in those meatpacking houses--rats all around those meatpacking houses. But that was all right because they poisoned the rats. They took loaves of bread and soaked them in poison, laid them around and then there were dead rats and all the other things that existed in those meatpacking houses that went down the same chute, and out the back side came meat right to the grocery store and to the American people, an unsuspecting public--the most unsanitary conditions in the world. As a result of publishing the book, ``The Jungle,'' there was a public outcry demanding that something be done. The Congress finally, at last, at long last, beat back the opposition of a very strong meatpacking industry and passed safe food laws, creating the Food and Drug Administration. Change is so very hard. But people knew then something had to be done about that, and the American people know now something has to be done about this.…”