countable for market conditions, were tlireatened with 

 bodily harm. But out of tliis disastrous situation came a 

 steadsing (though temporary) influence in farmer sup- 

 port and in marketing. It took form in the Burley To- 

 bacco Growers Cooperatixe Association. 



The principle of the cooperative plan was hardly new. 

 And insofar as Kentucky farmers were concerned, it was 

 an old idea, having been expressed more than a century 

 before by Gen. James Wilkinson. In December 1789 he 

 and his partner, Peyton Short, addressed a letter to Col. 

 Isaac Slielby, a tobacco farmer wlio later became Ken- 

 tucky's first governor. One sentence in that letter was 

 basic in the formulation of group action. It read: 



1000 Iio^islieads of tobacco in the hands of one 

 man will stand a much better chance for a 

 good market than the same quantity in twenty 

 hands at any market. 



restige pool 



An association of Buvley growers had already l)een 

 formed before tlie bottom dropped out of the auction 

 market in 1920. The growers' association was de\eloped 

 into a practical cooperatix e chiefly througli tlie hard 

 work and influence of Judge Robert W. Bingham, editor 

 of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Samuel Halley of Lex- 

 ington, a noted tobacco planter and warehouse operator, 

 and Arthur Krock, then editor of the Louisville Times. 

 They had the support of financier Bernard Baruch and 

 they made effecti\e use of the legal talent of Aaron 

 Sapiro, an experienced man in forming cooperatixes. 



The fiist president and general manager, James C. 

 Stone, became a ke\- figure in building the Association 

 and maintaining its liigh prestige. There were more than 

 55.000 members by Xo\ ember 1921; by 1924 member- 

 ship went owv llie 10(),(X)0 roster. For the 1921 crop an 



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