Pies & Pigs

Last winter when thousands of men were working at Passamaquoddy Dam in Maine, the U. S. Government contracted with bakers for 500 pies and 800 loaves of bread a day. When Congress denied further funds for 'Quoddy. thousands of men were laid off until only a corporal's guard was left. Six pies and eight loaves were all this remnant could consume in a day. Since New Deal regulations failed to provide for distributing food to the poor, the balance of the daily order went to the garbage heap and "Farmer Ed Pottle of Perry, who keeps a lot of pigs, has the contract to remove 'Quoddy garbage, and that is how he has been able of late to feed his pigs on pie--eight kinds."

Such was the story that appeared last week on the front pages of the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and in many another newspaper. Citizens chuckled throughout the land. Without waiting to check the facts the Republican National Committee broadcast the yarn in their daily press release and embroidered it with verse:

This little pig went to market, At a price too fancy and high, This little pig went to heaven (Or where pigs go when they die); This little pig had taxes galore To drain and condition its sty, And this little pig dined in grandeur and state On eight different kinds of pie!

Boiling mad, the Democratic National Committee burned up the wires to 'Quoddy to get the facts. The War Department, in Charge of the Maine project, issued denials. Army officers declared that only no loaves of bread a day had been purchased at 'Quoddy in July, denied that any pie had ever been purchased, got an affidavit from William Doyle, 'Quoddy's garbage contractor, who solemnly swore: "At no time have I ever seen pie in the garbage or swill."

Next day, with the story thoroughly deflated, Democratic pressagents had their fling. In their daily press release they accused the Republican National Committee of attempting to besmirch "the sterling character and unblemished reputation" of "one of the finest officers of the U. S. Army," directly accused the GOP publicity staff of concocting the whole story. As usual, though, the corrections never made the front pages, never caught up with the canard.

The facts which neither the editors who published the story nor pressagents, Republican or Democratic, were at pains to find out:

1) There are two Ed Pottles at Perry, Me. Said one: "I don't have any pigs and I never heard tell of anything like that." Said the other: "I have only one pig but I certainly don't have to depend on 'Quoddy to feed it. I never went to 'Quoddy to get anything."

2) The story of pigs' pie was originally broadcast to various newspapers by the arch-Republican Boston Herald. The Boston Herald received it from Lawrence Thomas Smyth, of the Bangor, Me. Daily News, who got it from John McFaul, an oldtime News correspondent in Calais, Me., who got it from a "farmer over in Perry." Said Newshawk Smyth in Bangor:

"The way the yarn came in from McFaul it was written in a kind of wooden style. So I polished it up a bit before sending it along to the Boston Herald. Of course, if I was writing for the New York Sun, I'd have polished it up a bit more. ... As a matter of fact the way the story came through it said six kinds of pie, but I jacked it up to eight. I figured the story must be pretty near right. There isn't anybody in Washington County [_i. e., 'Quoddy, Perry, Calais] with enough brains to think up a thing like that."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.