The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1923-05-31
AARON SAPIRO TO ORGANIZE
IDAHO POTATO GROWERS

Arrangements are being made to
organize the Idaho Potato Growers
on the same basis as the Maine Po-
tato Growers association. Mr.. Aaron
Sapiro, the famous cooperative mar
keting attorney will come to Black
foot June to assist in organizing
Magazine writes of Mr.. Sapiro as
| follows:
Aaron Sapiro is a lawyer with
more than half a million clients
composing about one-tenth of all the
people in the United States who
make their living from the land.
Since most of the half million are
heads of families, it is safe to say
that Sapiro is the legal guardian of
the livelihood of between two and
three million human beings.
'"This sounds like an extraordin-
airy statement, but it is even more
extraordinary when you consider
that two or three years ago this
thirty-eight-year- attorney was al
most unknown to the public, save on
the Pacific coast, where he was rec
ognized as the genius of new CO.
operative movement among farmers
and fruit growers.
"Since that time he has organized
and became counsel for groups of
farmers, whose memberships tap
every state in the union, and who
raise and sell every conceivable pro-
duct, from milk to maple strip, from
potatoes to prunes, from berries to
sugar cane. Seventeen states have
changed old laws or enacted new
ones to make these enterprises pos
sible.
Cotton is the greatest single
staple crop in the United States. In
two years more than one hundred e
and fifty thousand cotton farmers in
nine Southern states have signed
contracts to deliver their entire crop
for the next five or seven years to
associations that Sapiro has organ
lied. In a normal year the cotton
raised by these growers is worth two
hundred million dollars which, incl
dentally makes theirs one of the
very largest business enterprises in
the United States.
Less than two years ago Sapiro's
first cooperative tobacco contract
tract was signed. Today he is the
moving spirit of five such organiza-
tons, having more than two hundred
thousand members, and raising and
selling more than two-thirds of the
American tobacco crop. And these
are only two of some three-score or
CARNATIONS that the dynamic West
srner has wound up and set going.
ITO HIS half-million followers
5apiro is Moses leading them from
he Wilderness to the Promised
Land His six fundamental princi-
)les of successful cooperation which
ire designed to put farming on the
;trictlk business basis of group pro-
luction and group marketing are
oday being quoted so generally that
1t least half of their protagonists
lave forgotten who worked them out
n the first place.
Sapiro is the most sought after
nan in the country and Idaho potato
growers are indeed fortunate in Sc
curing his services. His counsel and
ldvice is in demand from Maine to
in every state in the
Union and in Canada ''In Abilene.
Texas, twenty-five hundred farmers
Sapiro more than a mile
through the streets trying to find a
Meeting place big enough to hold
hem When arrangements were
nally made to use the First Baptist
hurch, the biggest building in town,
he crowd rushed there pellmell for
everal blocks, so anxious was every
ne to get a seat Once the farmers
we're damned into the church they
tuck there to the last man for three
ours while SapirO was expOunding
is gospel of cooperative marketing"
Sapiro did not originate coopera-
i've marketing, but those organiza-
ions outlined under his guidance
ave been very successful, while the
organizations formed before his
lans were outlined were unsuccess-
I'll, 10 out of every 20 being entire
ailures.