Congressman Brown
Spoke Out Against “Skyrocketing” Line Speeds

George Brown, the distinguished California Congressman who was elected for the first time in 1963, led the long fight for justice for animals. Brown, who died on July 15, 1999, was a particularly outspoken advocate for farm animals. In a 1998 letter to the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, Brown wrote that he was “deeply troubled” that the USDA was not properly enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act (HSA), resulting in “additional suffering to millions of farm animals who otherwise would have been assured more humane treatment.”

Brown specifically referred to stimulated line speeds in the slaughterhouses: “With fewer slaughterhouses killing a growing number of animals, slaughter ‘line speeds’ have skyrocketed.” Brown continued: “Today, as workers struggle to kill as many as 1,100 animals per hour, or one animal every three seconds, they often find themselves resorting to unbelievable brutality to keep the production line running uninterrupted. Workers in these operations describe the common practice of pounding away at cows’ heads with ineffective stunning equipment; of ‘piping’ or beating disabled animals to death with lead pipes. They report the standard practice of ripping frozen animals from truck walls, after transport in winter months, leaving chunks of flesh behind; sawing off the legs of live cattle to extricate them when caught between planks on unloading docks. In short, slaughter workers admit to routinely strangling, beating, scalding, skinning, and dismembering fully conscious animals in violation of the HSA.”

Congressman Brown’s leadership for farm animals, laboratory animals, animals trapped for their fur, and animals killed painfully as predators will be sorely missed.