The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-02-19
COOP WHEAT
SALESPLAN IN
Nd. is URGED
Aaron SapirO, Noted CalifOr.
MIA CoOperatist, Speaks
at Valley City
TELLS OF FAILURE
Past Efforts in North Dakota
Failed Because Coopera-
tive Plans Were Wrong

A&SSSSSSO
tive Plans Were Wrong
Valley City, N. D.. Feb. 19.-An
address on cooperative marketing
was delivered today by Aaron Sapiro,
famous cooperative counsel, who
said that cooperative marketing as
carried out in the northwest, before
the advent Of pooling, was bound to
fail because it was based on wrong
principles.
Mr.. Sapiro came to North Dakota
as representative Of the National
Wheat Growers Advisory committee,
of which Frank o. Lowden, former
Governor of Illinois is chairman.
The meeting here was held under the
auspices of the North Dakota Wheat
Growers Association, which is work
ing in conjunction with the national
committee in promoting wheat pool
ing in this state.
"You farmers up here have the
best cooperative spirit in the world,''
he declared, II know you have be-
cause you have stuck for two gener-
ations with cotysperatives that won't
work"
Mr.. Sapiro was referring to the CO.
operative elevator movements in the
northwest, which he declared were
organized on the Rochdale plan,
evolved in England for consumers
and not for the producers.
ut was a sorry day for North Da-
kota and for many other states in
this country when leaders attempted
to take the Rochdale system of CO.
operating and adant it to the needs
of farmers-who are sellers.
Ignored Experiments
"In your cooperative efforts you
have ignored the experiments and
the practical results that have been
obtained in the Scandinavian coun-
tries, particularly Denmark and in
Germany and in Switzerland. There,
cooperation has been developed to
serve the needs of selling &C. pie,
And so l say, you have been on the
wrong trac.. in Midwest states.
"Cut in California, as long as 20
years ago, farmers began experiment
ing with the Danish system of CO.
operation and they have carried on
their work to such an extent that we
now have system that has proven
itself in every particular and we are
able to give you a very definite set
of rules for real cooperative mar
keting. These rules have been bas-
ed on long experience, and it has
taken many failures to bring out the
factors that are right and those that
are wrong.
"There are certain essentials which
every cooperative effort must have
if it is to succeed.
First, it must aim right, and by
aiming right, I mean that it must
set out to remedy the fundamental
evil in the present marketing sys-
tenn.
1T must stop individual selling
dumping-and substitute therefore
plan Of orderly marketing or mer.
chandising the commodity with which
it is concerned.
Individual dumping of potatoes is
the greatest single damaging factor
in the marketing, plan of this COM
munity. What happens every crop
year? You growers worry along un-
til just before digging season and
then you begin to get anxious about
prices. You rush your potatoes on
the market because you know that
someone is going to get stuck wien
the movement to market starts and
you figure that it will be better for
you, if it is your 'neighbor who is
stuck than if it is yourself.
"And so it goes, you dump. Your
neighbor dumps, each against the
other. You dump here in this town
and all growers up and down the
line dump and you find yourself at
the mercy of the buyer. Prices are
smashed. You kick yourself and the
marketing system for a season and
then the whole rotten business be-
gins over again.
"Then, when we have aimed right,
We must embody in the plan six fun
damentals; leave one out and we
court disaster:
"First--We must provide for grad
ing. Grading is the reason that on
Aug. 6, on the Minneapolis market,
Minnesota field run potatoes were
selling for 35 cents hundred and
graded potatoes, after they had been
hauled all the way from Colorado,
were bringing 1885 per hundred. The
Colorado potatoes were moving and
those from Minnesota remained un-
sold. The potatoes were no better,
but they were in a. condition that in
vited the consuming public. Why,
folks, there is only one state in the
Union that placed on the market an
egg that is comparable with the Cal
ifornia egg, and that is Minnesota;
yet the California farmer, through |
his cooperative, is able to haul eggs
clear, across the eminent to New
York and get premium of two cents
a dozen over Minnesota eggs, simply
because when buyer purchases a
car of California eggs, he knows that
every egg in that car is Of uniform
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