6
THE
LETTUCE CIGARETTE
CAPER
Jim Wright used to smoke three packs of Winstons a day. Like millions of other Americans, he tried time and again to quit. Unable to do so, he wistfully hoped somebody could at least come up with a safe cigarette.
That, of course, was not the main reason his good friend Congressman Graham Purcell invited him to speak at a big dinner in Wichita Falls, Texas. It was a good reason, all right, but not the main one.
The main reason was that many people regarded Jim Wright as the best orator in the House, and Graham needed a real stem-winding speaker to draw a crowd for the dinner he was planning.
The dinner had two purposes--to raise funds for Graham’s re-election campaign, and to welcome an innovative new company to Wichita Falls, the largest city in his Congressional district.
The new company was unique. When the U.S. Surgeon General warned in 1964 that cigarettes could cause lung cancer and all manner of other bad things, the company envisioned a great new business opportunity. It would manufacture and market an entirely new type of cigarette--a safe cigarette. Instead of tobacco, its cigarettes would be made of, er, uh, lettuce.
A lettuce cigarette?
Sure, why not? Practically every kid in Jim Wright’s day used to sneak out behind the barn and smoke such odd things as corn silk or cedar bark. Nobody ever heard of those killing anybody. Besides, Graham presumed that the new company had done its homework and determined that lettuce was considerably less toxic than tobacco.
Jim Wright readily accepted the invitation because Graham Purcell was his good friend and he wanted to help him in any way he could. And while he undoubtedly would have welcomed a safe cigarette, he certainly never gave much thought to smoking lettuce.
After all, it was quite a stretch to imagine a smoker walking up to a cigarette counter and saying, “A pack of king-size Romaines, please.”
Graham probably did not dwell at length on the subject, either. If people wanted to try to sell lettuce cigarettes, that was fine with him. He smoked cigars, anyway.
When Jim Wright invited my wife Eddie and me to fly up to the dinner in Wichita Falls with him, I wondered if this company had, in fact, come up with a genuinely safe, decent-tasting cigarette. If so, there should be no shortage of potential customers. Many people were addicted, then as now, because they grew up in a world where virtually everybody smoked.
It seemed to be such a simple pleasure. Besides, kids saw it as the sophisticated, grown-up thing to do.
In grammar school days, we used to snitch a cigarette, crawl under a bridge and light up. We would get a mouthful of smoke, blow it through a white handkerchief, and giggle about the yucky brown stain it left. Some men actually prided themselves on the nicotine and tar stains left on their fingers by years of holding lighted cigarettes. It probably never occurred to them that their lungs were about the same color.
Down deep, though, we probably knew they were deadly because we used to laugh and call them coffin nails. But we preferred not to think about it.
On the day of the dinner, Jim Wright, Eddie and I climbed into a little four-seat chartered airplane at Meacham Field in Fort Worth. No sooner had we taken off for Wichita Falls than Jim Wright lighted up his last Winston and wadded up the empty package. I knew what was coming, so I fished in my coat pocket for the Marlboros I smoked occasionally. The box contained only three cigarettes.
Within 10 minutes Jim Wright turned to me. “Marshall, do you have a cigarette?”
I handed him my Marlboros. “Take these,” I said. “I don’t need one right now.”
Those three cigarettes lasted until just before we landed in Wichita Falls, where Graham had a car waiting. Arriving at the convention hall, we found that waiters already were busily serving the food. Jim Wright was whisked immediately to his spot at the head table. Knowing he soon would nervously start rummaging through his pockets in a futile quest for a cigarette, I left Eddie at our table and started searching the building for a cigarette machine. There was none, and no stores were open nearby.
On the dais fifty feet away there already were signs of impending trouble. While most of the audience probably noticed only that Jim Wright was graciously making small talk with the fellow seated beside him at the head table, I detected something else. In a ritual I had seen many times, he already had begun now and then to reach up and pat his shirt pocket, subconsciously hoping to detect a pack of cigarettes he had overlooked. It was clearly time for desperation measures.
I turned to the eight people seated at our table. “Excuse me, folks,” I said, “but do any of you happen to have any cigarettes?”
“None of us smoke,” one lady sniffed. All the rest gravely shook their heads. From their expressions I could see they thought it was I who wanted a smoke. Humph! they were thinking. If he wants to kill himself, at least he ought to buy his own damn cigarettes.
As the evening’s program got under way, I could see Jim Wright squirming in his chair. I was sympathetic, but there was nothing I could do. At this point, even if I had found a supply of cigarettes, it would have been impossible to make a discreet delivery to him on the dais. For a while I had hoped he might be able to bum a cigarette from one of his seatmates at the head table, but nobody up there was smoking. And then, out of the blue, came the answer to a smoker’s prayer--or so I thought.
Two pretty little girls, dressed in red, white and blue
uniforms, approached the head table. In
their arms they carried, of all things, what appeared to be cartons of
cigarettes. Eureka! I thought. Of
course! The lettuce cigarette
company! Handing out samples!
Jim Wright is saved!
Smiling sweetly, the little girls handed a carton of this new kind of cigarette to each dignitary at the head table. They didn’t know what to do with them.
Just ask yourself: You are a civic leader--a guest at an elegant dinner. You are seated in plain view of five hundred of your fellow citizens. They are watching your every move. Suddenly you are handed an exciting new hometown product--a carton of lettuce cigarettes. For Pete’s sake, what do you do with it?
Most head table guests coped with the problem pretty well. They waved the cartons aloft, smiled enthusiastically and clapped their hands to show their support for this great new Wichita Falls enterprise. Then they gratefully deposited the doggoned things under their seats. All except Jim Wright.
Like a hungry bear, he ripped open the carton and dug out one of the packages--an act which instantaneously captured the attention of everybody in the hall. He was the only person at the head table who seemed interested.
He was oblivious to the fact that the program had resumed. When the master of ceremonies noticed from the podium that every eye in the house was on Jim Wright, the emcee stopped talking and started watching, too. And why not? After all, what could be more beneficial to the new hometown product than to have it demonstrated in public by this most distinguished guest?
So intent on reaching his prize was Jim Wright that he failed to recognize, even now, that he held the rapt attention of the entire audience. Eagerly he tore open the package, snatched out a cigarette, and lighted up. As the smoke whooshed down into his lungs, a look of astonishment crossed his face and he emitted a loud, agonized gasp.
Echoing through the hall, the tortured wheeze was one you might hear from a fireman fleeing from a smoke-filled building, or perhaps a burning lettuce warehouse. Raw and rasping, it was the outcry of a man fighting for breath. Head down, shoulders heaving, coughing violently. I was thunderstruck.
I’ve killed him, I thought. I’ve
killed my boss. I
could have saved him if I had only found him some nice, tarry Winstons.
But then, in only a few seconds, it was all over. Jim Wright stopped coughing, wiped his eyes, regained his composure and gamely waved a hand to signal that he was OK.
Stunned, people in the audience didn’t know at first whether to laugh or call an ambulance. But then, grateful that their keynote speaker had survived this unexpected field test of the city’s newest product, the guests enthusiastically applauded his courage, pluck and resilience.
But it wasn’t the gasping and the coughing that worried me. Jim Wright would soon get over that. But he was, above all, a man of towering pride and dignity. When he arose to make tonight’s main speech, what on earth would he say to these people about their miserable lettuce cigarettes? But I need not have worried. As usual, my boss came through like a polished diplomat.
As he moved to the podium, he had fully recovered from the experience. From the looks on people’s faces they were sheepishly awaiting Jim Wright’s verdict on their product. Smiling, Jim Wright admitted to the audience that it might take people a while to get accustomed to lettuce cigarettes.
“But I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “I’d rather smoke a lettuce cigarette than eat a tobacco salad.”
The audience laughed and applauded. They liked Jim Wright. But I never heard any more about lettuce cigarettes.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should report that Jim Wright no longer smokes cigarettes of any kind. He gave up lettuce cigarettes that very night. Later, in 1978, he quit the tobacco kind, cold turkey. Then, in 1991, doctors discovered a small malignant tumor at the base of his tongue. He underwent surgery and four weeks of radiation treatment at M.D. Anderson cancer center in Houston. In the past six years he has suffered no recurrence and his doctors are optimistic about the future. He urges people to avoid smoking cigarettes. Even lettuce cigarettes. Especially lettuce cigarettes.
Except for Jim Wright, I never met a Congressman I admired more than Graham Purcell. Over the years we became good friends, and I worked as a volunteer in several of his campaigns. I’d like to tell you about some of his political experiences--and mine, too.
To me, Graham always brought to mind old-me cowboy star Gary Cooper. Rawboned and leathery, he looked to me as if he might have just moseyed in from the OK Corral--quiet and tough but not hankerin’ for no trouble.
Born and raised in the prairie country around Archer City, he entered the Army just after Pearl Harbor and fought in Tunisia and Italy as an infantry captain. Far from the cartoon version of a loud-mouthed, back-slapping politician, Graham was friendly but reserved, almost shy. He spoke sparingly, but when he did it was with an imperious voice deeper than a Panhandle water well.
In politics he made his mark first as a no-nonsense District Judge. Whenever he pronounced sentence on a drunk driver or a thief, his words rumbled through the courtroom with the same awesome finality many of us are fearful we may hear from Saint Peter upon our arrival at the Pearly Gates.
The respect Graham won as a judge paved the way for his victory in a special election to Congress in 1962 from the 13th District of Texas. It was a race to succeed the incumbent, Frank Ikard, who was retiring. In a runoff Graham beat Bailey Meissner, one of five Republicans originally in the race, by a margin of 2 to 1. In his district, which lay in the sprawling ranch and farm country northwest of Fort Worth, most voters shared Graham’s politics as a conservative to moderate Democrat.
In Congress, he was appointed to the House Agriculture Committee and worked his way up to Chairman of the Livestock and Grains Subcommittee—a position important to the farmers and ranchers he served back home. Yet when it came to elections, Graham seemed to be snake-bit. In six consecutive elections, he drew a new opponent every time.
In 1964 he faced a particularly uncertain race because the Texas Legislature had just redistricted the state and given him a chunk of Dallas County. Voters here were far more conservative than those he served in the area around Wichita Falls, and Graham didn’t really know what to expect from these Dallas folks.
Since I knew Jim Wright considered Graham a good friend and an exceptionally able member of Congress, I asked if I could use my vacation time to work as a volunteer in his campaign. In less time than it takes for the driver behind you to honk when the light turns green, Jim Wright said yes, by all means. He knew that for Graham it might be a tough fight against a determined and well-heeled Republican opponent.
In his campaign in North Dallas, Graham allowed me to try out what, in 1964, was a wild idea. Since most people in that growing and affluent area had never even heard of Graham Purcell, I suggested that we send each of our prospective new voters a personalized letter, zeroing in on the precise hot button that would energize him or her on election day.
To do this we organized a boiler room where teams of Purcell volunteers conducted thousands of personal telephone interviews with individual voters. Each was asked to select, from a prepared list, the issue he or she considered America’s gravest national problem. Based on these interviews, Graham’s people then cranked out by computer to each voter a carefully-crafted letter, addressing the particular issue which that voter regarded as most important—and, moreover, telling the voter how Graham planned to handle that issue.
Today such amateurish efforts would seem laughable, but they didn’t in 1964. Even with the conservative areas of Dallas in the district, Graham won that election by a margin of 3 to 1 over Republican George Corse. (Campaign motto: Corse, of course.)
Once again in 1966 I volunteered to spend my vacation time helping Graham. This time I found out that folks out in West Texas sometimes don’t get too picky about election matters.
Four days before the Tuesday general election, I was at our campaign headquarters in Wichita Falls when Graham unexpectedly received an important invitation. He was asked to speak that day before the city’s top-level movers and shakers—bankers, lawyers and assorted fat-cats—at a downtown civic club luncheon. This was an opportunity too good to pass up. Trouble was, Graham was scheduled that day to lead a Vote-for-Purcell motorcade out through the dusty hinterlands west of Wichita Falls. He asked me if I would substitute for him on the trip.
Unable to imagine anything more exciting than accompanying a group of ladies in funny little campaign hats handing out Purcell circulars in a bunch of remote little West Texas towns where dogs slept on the courthouse steps, I said certainly.
Once we got rolling through the little towns, though, I was kind of ashamed of my thoughts. True, the ladies wore funny hats and the towns were tiny, unsophisticated and sleepy. But in these little towns, in the barber shops and the courthouses, lived real, honest-to-goodness people. True, they had never dined at Lion D’or on Connecticut Avenue, and they wouldn’t have known Madeleine Albright from Dear Abby—but they were people I’d doggoned sure trust with my wife, my books or even that yellowed copy of my 1943 orders to report to Fort Sam Houston. Better still, these people were solid supporters of Graham Purcell—money, marbles and chalk, as Texas politicians used to say.
It was late afternoon when our motorcade reached the tiny Stonewall County seat of Aspermont. As we pulled up to the courthouse on the town square, I was tired, bedraggled and sweaty. For a moment I toyed with the idea of staying in the car. But the ladies, still perky and enthusiastic after 130 miles, shamed me by storming this last courthouse like the Marines going up Mount Suribachi. Led by Mrs. Purcell, they enthusiastically carried our campaign into every cranny of the courthouse.
As I stood waiting in a hallway, one of Stonewall County’s top officials, who shall remain forever nameless, approached me and introduced himself. He was a portly guy in the unmistakable uniform of an old Texas political pro--white shirt, damp around the armpits, a tie hanging forlornly from an unbuttoned collar, and a frayed blue vest. His expression indicated clearly he was carrying some sort of heavy burden. He edged me into a nearby corner.
“You work for Graham?” he whispered.
“Yes, I’m helping him with the campaign,” I said.
He looked at me closely. “Has Graham got an opponent this year?” he asked.
The question startled me. “Yes—of course,” I said. “That’s the reason for this motorcade. Graham’s got a very serious Republican opponent. He’s spending a lot of money trying to beat us, too.”
My friend looked troubled. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.
“What kind of problem?”
“We haven’t got the other fellow’s name on the ballot.” he said.
I was stunned. This was a Friday afternoon before the election Tuesday. In Texas in 1966, voting machines were used mainly in big cities. Like scores of other rural counties, Stonewall used paper ballots.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you telling me you really haven’t got Buddy Norwood’s name on the ballot?”
“Is that the fellow’s name--Buddy Norwood?”
“Actually it’s D.C. Norwood, and he puts Buddy in parenthesis. How on earth could you leave his name off the ballot?”
“Weren’t expecting Graham to have an opponent, I guess. I don’t know how it happened. What do you think we ought to do?”
“You better have the ballots reprinted—right now,” I said.
“Can’t do that. The people over in the newspaper office say they can’t get new ballots printed before Tuesday. What should we do?”
“This is terrible. This could really hurt Graham,” I said. “You’d better get some clerks together right away and have them print Norwood’s name on all the ballots as clearly and legibly as they can.”
“You really think they would notice, then?”
“That Norwood’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot? You’re damned right they’d notice. Somewhere in the county there must be at least one Republican, and he for doggoned sure would notice that his man’s name is missing.”
“I guess you’re right,” he mumbled.
“Don’t you see?” I demanded. “You’re liable to get every single ballot in the county invalidated. And this election could be close. Graham’s going to need every last vote he can scare up.”
“OK,” he promised. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Still shaken, I climbed back into the car. As we started to pull away from the courthouse, my friend came waddling down the courthouse steps, waving at me.
I nodded.
“Tell him the absentee ballots already are in—and all counted!” he said, winking.
Just prior to the election, Norwood’s name was added to the ballot with a rubber stamp. But then, on election night, we learned that both Graham’s and Norwood’s names were left off the ballot in Baylor County, another of the 19 counties in the district. At any rate, Graham won this election 4 to 3.
He went on to win two other elections, in 1968 and 1970, before being defeated in 1972--the year our Democratic nominee for President, George S. McGovern, carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
Today Graham is doing what he likes to do best--presiding over a courtroom. As a visiting District Judge, he serves on temporary assignments in various cities around the state. I’m glad he’s enjoying life, but I wish he were back on the Hill.
.