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In 1917, Charles G. Patterson, a Utah attorney, spearheaded the organization of the Intermountain Association of Sugar Beet Growers (IASBG) to serve as an advocate for beet farmers in the Intermountain West. With the advent of the First World War, the price of sugar had gone up, but Patterson believed that sugar companies were not passing the increased profits on to farmers and that someone needed to look out for the growers’ interests. He had previously published pamphlets castigating leaders of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, many of whom were also high leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons), which held a large amount of stock in the company. Believing that Utah-Idaho Sugar leaders were using their ecclesiastical connections to force Latter-day Saint farmers into growing beets for the company for whatever price the corporation dictated, Patterson wanted the IASBG to fight for fairer beet prices. Although other organizations such as the U.S. Farm Bureau already represented farmers’ interests in matters such as beet prices, Patterson believed they had largely been co-opted by sugar interests and that an independent organization was necessary.
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Organizing Farmers in Utah: Charles G. Patterson and the Intermountain Association of Sugar Beet Growers, 1917–1922
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Born in the midst of a battle over beet prices in 1918, the IASBG lasted only a few years before folding. This was in part because it was painted by ecclesiastical and business leaders as a radical socialistic organization—a depiction that prevented it from ever gaining much influence over farmers. Yet even though it operated for only a brief period of time, the agitation the organization made over beet prices pushed Utah-Idaho Sugar to increase the amount it paid farmers for the crop. Its brief history thus provides a window into power relationships between farmers and industry in the 1910s and 1920s—relationships that were complicated in Utah and Idaho by the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the sugar industry. It also suggests that even farmers’ organizations not heavily supported because of their “radicalism” could have an impact on the well-being of agrarians.
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