The Potato Control Law (1929) was based upon an economic policy enacted by U.S. President Herbert Hoover's Federal Emergency Relief Administration at the beginning of the Great Depression. The policy became a formal act in 1935, and its legislative sponsors were from the state of North Carolina. Hoover's presidential successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed the Act into law on August 24, 1935. The law sparked considerable protest, as evident in the following 1935 declaration signed by citizens of West Amwell Township, New Jersey: