Aaron Leland Sapiro was a Jewish American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 cooperative activist and lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and major leader of the farmers' movement during the 1920s. One of the many issues he spoke on was cooperative grain marketing and was particularly active in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and Saskatoon

Saskatoon

Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....

 in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 where he addressed several meetings between 1923 and 1924.

Biography

Sapiro was born in Oakland, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in 1884. The son of Jewish immigrants his childhood was lived in relative poverty. Despite this, he was able to obtain a law degree and gain a position on the California markets board staff, where he became acquainted with the concepts of agricultural cooperation for the first time. He was active in organizing in the United States before being posted by the Farmers’ Union leadership to promote the Pool in western Canada most notably Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

. He also devised a plan for the "commodity method" of cooperative marketing, which became widely known as the "California Plan" or "Sapiro Plan". This plan involved developing farmer co-operatives in an effort to eliminate middlemen and wholesalers and, in the process, to dramatically increase farm profits, particularly for fruit sellers in California. By 1925, the Plan had a membership of some 890,000 farmers nationwide and had the endorsement of the National Council of Farmer's Cooperative Marketing Association. According to The New York Times, Sapiro was "the leader of one of the greatest agricultural movements of modern times."

Sapiro spent much of his time organizing cooperatives in California. He publicized the need for a uniform Cooperative Marketing Act and received widespread recognition for enabling many of the states of America to adopt the Act, as well as the endorsement of the National Council of Farmer's Cooperative Marketing Association.
While not on his promotional travels, he worked extensively as a lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 in both Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and San Francisco where, in April 1924, he became outraged with antisemitic remarks made by Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

 in his book The International Jew

The International Jew

The International Jew is a four volume set of booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist and automobile manufacturer....

. News reports at the time quoted Sapiro as being shocked by the content in particular the section "Jewish Exploitation of the American Farmer's Organizations: Monopoly Traps Operate Under the Guise of Marketing Associations," which attacked the band of Jewish-bankers, lawyers, advertising agencies, fruit farmers, market buyers, and office professionals which, according to Ford, contributed to the domination of Jewish people in the American cooperative marketing system. Many prominent Jewish professionals were cited including Bernard Baruch

Bernard Baruch

Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters and became a philanthropist.-Early life...

, Albert Lasker

Albert Lasker

Albert Davis Lasker was an American businessman who is often considered to be the founder of modern advertising. He was born in Freiburg, Germany when his American parents Morris and Nettie Heidenheimer Davis Lasker were visiting their homeland; he was raised in Galveston, Texas, where Morris was...

, Eugene Meyer

Eugene Meyer

Eugene Isaac Meyer was an American financier, public official, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. He was the father of publisher Katharine Graham.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, he was one of eight children of...

, Otto Kahn and Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...

 but the chapter was primarily directed at the influence of Sapiro.
Sapiro brought a lawsuit which publicly exposed Ford's antisemitism in the federal courts and put the substance of his allegations on national display. As the trial unfolded and combatants of antisemitism in California participated in court proceedings, Ford secretly commissioned the constitutional lawyer and Jewish activist Louis Marshall, to write his apology for his remarks. In doing so, Marshall ended the public controversy and foreclosed further legal action in the case in December 1927. The result of the case is seen historically as an act of repentance and a monumental event in Jewish history in the United States.

Sapiro spent much of his later life in California where he died in 1959.