AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 275 



Besides these rival ambitions, there were conflicting views regarding 

 the course that the national marketing program should take. Some wanted 

 an arbitrary price-fixing program based on the principle of "cost of pro- 

 duction plus a reasonable profit." Others sought the abolition of private 

 grain exchanges and the building of public warehouses to serve public 

 needs. Still others had only hazy conceptions of the principles of coopera- 

 tive marketing. 



By far the most popular demand was for cooperative marketing. The 

 representatives of the Farmers' Grain Dealers Association expressed their 

 satisfaction with the local cooperative marketing association, and asked 

 that more progress be made along these lines. Taking direct control of 

 the marketing function, it was felt, would hardly increase materially the 

 profits of the producers. It was argued that, because of the volume han- 

 dled, greater savings could be realized through better handling, shipping, 

 marketing, weighing, grading, cleaning, drying, and selling methods. 51 



More radical was the marketing plan of Aaron Sapiro. He favored 

 fastening monopolistic control over the wheat crop, a plan that he had 

 been working on since his entry into the legal profession. Before his ties 

 with the American Farm Bureau Federation, he had been building up a 

 reputation as a cooperative-marketing authority in California. His plan 

 operated from a legalistic base. Farmers who raised a particular crop 

 were to form an association and pool their crops; the pooling member 

 was to bind himself by contract to deliver his products to the association 

 for a period of years, usually five. 52 



Sapiro was undoubtedly influenced by Harris Weinstock, the director 

 of the California State Marketing Commission, to whom he was related 

 by marriage. Weinstock had hopes of integrating the marketing activities 

 of the California producers into a single marketing agency. He, in turn, 

 was influenced by David Lubin, his half-brother and business partner for 

 many years and also the founder of the International Institute of Agricul- 

 ture in Rome. Weinstock had been to Europe in 1913 as a member of the 

 American commission that visited Europe to study cooperation and agri- 

 cultural credit and had even formulated a plan to establish "a national 



51. Kile, The Farm Bureau Movement, pp. 149-51; H. C. Filley, Cooperation in 

 Agriculture (New York, 1929), p. 148. 



52. Ibid., p. 149; Kile, The Farm Bureau Movement, pp. 150-51. 



