A California-born lawyer and spellbinding orator who campaigned against poverty, organized agricultural co-operatives and was once indicted (and acquitted) alongside Al Capone is arguably one of the most influential figures in the history of prairie agriculture.
Aaron Sapiro – called by some the father of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool – first came to the Prairies in 1923 at the invitation of farm groups trying to organize a wheat pooling and marketing system.
The 39-year-old firebrand had a history of organizing agricultural co-operatives in Scandinavia and the United States, working with such groups as cotton farmers in Alabama, tobacco growers in Kentucky and potato farmers in Maine.
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He was known as “the lawyer with 500,000 clients,” referring to the number of farmers who were members of farm groups with which he worked.
One story told of him leading a group of 2,500 farmers through the streets of Abilene, Texas, looking for a hall big enough to hold a rally.
The colourful and charismatic Sapiro, along with his ideas, were introduced to prairie farmers through a series of articles published in 1920 in Grain-Growers Guide (later to be known as Country Guide).
After he successfully organized dairy producers in Ontario in 1922, prairie farmers began to pressure farm groups to invite him to come west to speak on wheat marketing issues.
After a frustrating series of false starts, with the Farmers Union of Canada, the Saskatchewan Grain Growers’ Association, United Farmers of Alberta and Calgary and Edmonton newspapers getting involved, Sapiro finally made his prairie debut in Calgary on Aug. 2, 1923.
Speaking to a crowd of 3,500, he said prairie farmers were on the verge of creating an organization that would give them better prices and control of their own destiny.
During a series of speeches in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Sapiro didn’t promote a particular pooling proposal or endorse any of the rival prairie farm groups who were involved in the debate.
His message to farmers and farm groups was to set aside their differences and work together for the greater good.
As he told one audience of Saskatchewan farmers: “I am against a farmer union movement to pool wheat. I am against a Grain Growers’ movement to pool wheat. I am against a government movement to pool wheat. I ask only for a wheat pooling movement by the farmers of Saskatchewan.”
Following his speaking tour, rival groups agreed to set aside their differences and form a Saskatchewan contract wheat pool for 1923.
Much work remained to be done, and many others besides Sapiro were crucial to the eventual success of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and other farmer-run grain marketing co-operatives.
But as historian and journalist Garry Fairbairn wrote in From Prairie Roots, a history of Sask Pool published in 1984, Sapiro’s speaking tour of Saskatchewan that summer “helped change the nature of the province’s society and economy.”
R. H. Milliken, a Saskatoon lawyer who played a significant role in starting the Pool, had this to say:
“All credit for the much-talked-of wheat pool is due to Aaron Sapiro, undoubtedly the clearest thinking and most brilliant speaker who ever addressed a gathering of farmers in Saskatchewan.”
