The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-07-18
THE sAPrRo MOVEMENT

4
President Harding told the agricul-
turaI conference last January that in
cooperation was the door to farmer
success. Congress in February passed
a law permitting a breadth of ac-
tivities on the part of farmer cooper
hators never before permitted by leg
islation. The United States depart
ment of agriculture, functioning thru
paid agent in almost every agricul-
tural county, is aiding the work of
cooperative marketing and buying.
Once before the United States has
passed thru a similar period, lacking
then, however, the tremendous power
of the government, which is now a
large factor.
This was in the early part of the
decade between 1870 and 1880. when
THE Granger Movement" was at its
height At that time. under the
leadership of a group OF forceful and
active farmers, who gathered about
oliver Hudson Kelley. founder of The
National Grange. farmers from Min
nesota southwark. and then spreading
east and west. organized a vast fra
ternity and entered into cooperative
stores, cooperative selling, co-opera-
tive warehouses and cooperative
manufacture on a scale which has not
been OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
under the present stimulus of govern
ment aid. No one knows how many
cooperative organizations were formed
in the seventies, nor how long they
survived.
Tn "a Of 70
was asked if he had bought or sold
thru q cooperative organization in
1919 and. if so, how much. Out of 4
total of s,44S.34S farms in the United
States, S2e.449 reported as buying
thru a cooperative. and 511,3SS be-
longed to or did business with sell
ing cooperative. Their total pur-
chases were ss4.615.669 and their to-
tai sales S721.9s3,sss.
But these figures" declares A NJ
Loomis, secretary of the National
Dairy Union, writing in the Nations
Business" interesting as they are, do
not bring us up to date. The reason
is because of a new development in
cooperation since 1919. This devel-
opment, for want OF a more descrip-
type of cooperation. This brings M.
Aaron Sapiro into the picture.
He may or may not have conceived
the idea. Whether he did or not is
not material except to historians |
What he did to 1t has Siamese-
twinned his name to the idea of a !
cooperative selling organization, with |
out functioning local units, whose |
members sign a contract turning the |
sales agency of their product or prod |
ucts over for a term of years to a sales !
agency under the direction of the best |
sales exports that ample financing |
will procure. The members then go |
home and proceed to grow as much |
and as fine crops as their collective !
judgment, plus expert sales advice, in
dictates can be marketed for a profit
able price and the cooperative does
the rest
All previous co-operatives, the
writer points out, were based on small |
local units growing out of local needs. |
then gradually learning to work to-
Gether and coalescing under more or
less stable legal forms, to sell prod /
ucts or to buy SUPPLIES.
The Sapiro type of co-operatfves
grew up in Mr.. Sapiro's home state.
where, under his personal
leadership. producers of eggs, raisins,
walnuts, prunes and other California
staple crops Except the citrus fruits).
have organized into "Sapiro Cooper
atives.' Sapiro has within a little
over a year blazed a meteoric path
across the central west and parts of
the east. His inspirationaI oratory
was a moving factor in the organiza-
ton of the United States Grain Grow
ers. Inc Later he inspired and prob
ably guided into life, the new Cotton
Growers association. The Burley to-
bacco growers are now organized and
have succeeded in a large measure in
handling the last crop under his tute-
lage. The peanut growers of North
Carolina and Virginia are STRUGGLING
to form q Sapiro organization. East
ern producers OF poultry products are
learning from him the success of his
Pacific coast organizations Other
commodity groups are taking up this
plan.
Mr.. Sapiro in fact has led 8 revolu-i
ton that promises to make the agri-
culturist master of his own business.
a position which he never has occu-
pied before. Instead of trying to
make a price on the other fellows
product he will name the price on his
own.