Roosevelt passed the Pure Food and Drug Act today. Finally. When I think back to the day that I came home to find my Ma ill after eating the filth the government let the companies label as meat, I find myself burning up with anger at the corrupt businessmen who protested this act with everything they had.

They could not be unaware of how bad the conditions were at their plants. The workers knew. I never got the chance to ask my father, but I'm sure it's safe to say that he knew, too. I don't think there was a blessed soul on this earth that didn't know. But with what our laws are,there was very little a body could do about it, regardless of how much they might have wanted to do. The Lord knows so many wanted to do something about it. Many of them did, in their own ways. They tried to avoid the worst of the meat and fed their children the best of the pickings. Those who were well-educated wrote and publicly outed the worst of the lot of corrupt businessmen who pushed the limits of what was healthy and safe.

Ma recovered from the bad meat she had eaten, but Pa didn't. He grew too sick to eat or drink. He grew too sick to get up anymore. He soiled himself. He went without a shred of dignity left, all because the businessmen wanted to make an extra buck. I was the one who tended to him in his last days. Ma slowly grew better, but she never was the same again. Especially after Pa passed away.

Even as the government makes its first steps towards the right path, I find my heart hardening against their efforts. They should have begun putting restrictions on the Laissez-Faire attitude they had years ago. If they had, everything would be different. I wouldn't have lost Pa to the meat, nor be forced to watch Ma become so weak and helpless. I wouldn't have to watch my Pa's old employer go home at night, headed for the fancy mansion he had custom-built for himself in the country, knowing that I was headed back to the tenement I share with Ma and a half dozen other families like ours. While he feasts on more food in a night than I will see in a year, I at least have the knowledge that he won't be doing it at Ma's and my expense no longer; from here on out, every can of food we buy is labeled with its contents plain as day for all the world and the Heavens to see, too.