COOPERATIVES, 1920-32 29 



Sapiro, besides speaking eloquently of the need for organizing com- 

 modity associations, also stressed the need for cooperative legislation and 

 even drafted a measure, a Standard Marketing Act, which he believed 

 would meet the needs of the farmers. He helped popularize the nonstock 

 feature in cooperative organization, something that had been placed on 

 the statute books of California as early as 1895. In 1921 measures based 

 on the experiences of Sapiro in California and Oregon were passed in 

 Arkansas, Idaho, Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, 

 North Dakota, Washington, Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky. It is to be 

 observed that a substantial amount of cooperative legislation had been 

 passed in the western Middle West before the appearance of Sapiro. 7 



Despite the whirlwind methods of organization that he recommended 

 and the confusion that resulted from differences of opinion, Sapiro helped 

 popularize the centralized type of cooperative association that had grown 

 roots in California. The Capper-Williams bill introduced in Congress 

 during the spring of 1924 embodied the centralized and integrated type 

 of marketing structure that he espoused. The bill sought to create a federal 

 marketing board consisting of seven members who would work out a 

 plan to handle and sell farm products on a commodity basis. If passed, 

 the measure would have placed the control of marketing in the hands of 

 the central government. 8 



The Republican farm program, which was of great aid to the coopera- 

 tive movement, also reflected this trend toward the more centralized type 

 of marketing organization. Coolidge, who was forever preaching that 

 farm conditions were about to "resume normalcy," favored a high pro- 

 tective tariff and the growth of cooperative marketing. He believed that 

 the government "must encourage orderly and centralized marketing. . . ." 



(August 8, 1923), pp. 553-56; Aaron Sapiro, "True Farmer Cooperation," World's 

 Wor\, XLVI (May, 1923), pp. 84-96; M. Crowell, "Nothing Could Keep This Boy 

 Down," American Magazine, XCV (April, 1923), p. 16; F. C. Linderman, "Sapiro 

 the Spectacular," New Republic, L (April 13, 1927), pp. 216-18. 



7. Edwin G. Nourse, The Legal Status of Agricultural Cooperation (New York, 

 1928), pp. 99-101; Bakken and Schaars, Economics of Cooperative Marketing, pp. 

 272-73; Monthly Labor Review, XX (February, 1925), pp. 192-202. 



8. For a critical analysis of the problems involved, see John D. Black and H. Bruce 

 Price, "Cooperative Central Marketing Organization," University of Minnesota 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 211 (St. Paul, 1924). Congressional Digest, 

 III (May, 1924), p. 264. 



