(Jewish Daily Bulletin)
With a subtle irony that brought frequent subdued laughter from the crowed courtroom, Aaron Sapiro, testifying in his own behalf in his million dollar libel suit against Henry Ford, today told the jury of receiving the aid of Senator James A. Reed, chief of Ford counsel, in 1918, when Sapiro organized the tomato growers of California.
“After all the Government agencies refused to help the tomato growing farmers during the war,” Sapiro said, “I appealed to Senator James A. Reed of Missouri and he did something.”
“Was he one of those ‘Gentile fronts’ referred to?” asked Mr. Gallagher.
The spectators roared with laughter.
Reed arose and addressed Gallagher. “I would like to explain I did not know whom I was representing,” he said.
Another outburst of laughter brought a rebuke from the Judge.
Sapiro first took the stand in his own behalf late Monday afternoon. The preliminary questions directed to him by William H. Gallagher, Sapiro’s chief counsel, were designed to give the jury a comprehensive history of his life, special attention being drawn to his education and early law training. Gallagher brought out the fact, over Senator Reed’s objection, that Sapiro had tried three times to enlist in an officers’ training corps at the outbreak of the war and was turned down on each occasion.
Today, Gallagher concentrated on Sapiro’s activities, in organizing the farmers of several states throughout the country. Sapiro’s early testimony today told how he had made a study of farm marketing problems as far back as 1912, when he was a lawyer in California. He told of studying the successes and failures among early cooperative organizations.
“What did you find from this study?” Gallagher asked.
“I found the chief characteristic of cooperatives which failed,” Sapiro replied, “were that they were organized on the locality basis, in small communities. Those that succeeded were organized on the commodity basis. Among the first cooperatives, nearly all were organized locally and nearly all failed.”
Sapiro then explained how he had made a careful study of the contracts between early cooperative associations and their farmer members. These contracts, he said, were not giving the farmer everything they should and he drafted a new type of contract from which grew what is now known as “The Sapiro Plan” of cooperative marketing.
“I took ideas wherever I could find them and when new cooperatives were formed I combined the ideas of the successful cooperatives in the new contracts.”
Sapiro was about to explain the meaning of his “sale and resale” contracts, when Senator Reed arose and declared testily, “I object to this lecture on cooperative marketing. The comments of the witness are not in order.”
Gallagher protested that Sapiro had a right to explain the type of cooperative market which Ford’s articles had attacked.
“The Plaintiff contends the idea of a ‘sale and resale’ originated with him,” Judge Raymond said, “he is explaining it to the jury. I’ll let the answer stand.”
This plan, a complicated system of buying crops from the farmer and selling them for him at a higher profit than he could secure himself, was declared by Sapiro to be his own idea and far superior to those that had preceded it.
Sapiro’s activities, he told the Court, took him all over the country, into nearly every agricultural field known and even into Canada, where he was invited by the Minister of Agriculture to straighten out the difficulties of the wheat growers.
It is expected that Sapiro’s testimony will take until Thursday. Following him Henry Ford will take the stand.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
