As everyone knows, I hope, I am a student of politics, particularly at the national level. For a time of about four years, I had the opportunity to be a lobbyist for AT&T in Washington. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to meet Senator Claude Pepper from Florida during that time. But as age has descended upon my shoulders, I have come to appreciate a remark that Senator Pepper made as his life was drawing to a close.
Claude Pepper was a lively person with a good deal of wit. He was born in 1900 and died in 1989, which will tell that he enjoyed or endured a long life span. As his life drew to a close, the witty Senator Pepper once observed that he no longer bought green bananas, because he did not necessarily expect to live long enough to eat them when they were ripe. I suppose that old codgers such as myself have come to appreciate the remark about green bananas as enunciated by Claude Pepper.
Pepper was born in Alabama and soon found himself living in the state of Florida. As you may know, Florida is an elongated state with a great variety of inhabitants. Miami on the southern end is a bustling, reasonably sophisticated city. Orlando, one of the main cities of the middle of the state, is a hub of right-wing philosophy. Further to the north in the panhandle, the inhabitants generally reflect the point of view that makes them allegedly similar to the inhabitants of Alabama. Politicking down in Florida is a tricky business in that one must need to know what would play well in Homosassa in the north and then to Miami in the south.
In any event, Claude Pepper was elected to the United States Senate in 1936. He served there until 1950 when he was opposed by George Smathers and was defeated. During the campaign for Senator Pepper’s seat in the Senate, it is alleged that Smathers made the remarks below in a series of meetings in the backwoods sections of Florida. Smathers and Pepper have over the years neither conceded that the remarks were made nor that the story is a hoax. I have no way of knowing whether Smathers made the remarks. In any event, it is a pretty good story which I will relate in a minute. I hope that you will remember that these remarks were made to backwoods types in northern Florida, not to the sophisticates of Orlando or Miami. If Smathers made the remarks, and I suspect that he did, he was perfectly attuned to the political tastes of his constituents in the panhandle.
Here is what Smathers is alleged to have said about Senator Pepper.

“Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law. He has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage practiced celibacy and are you aware that Claude Pepper vacillated one night on the Senate floor?”

I guess the appeal to the yahoos of the northern Florida precincts was successful because George Smathers defeated Claude Pepper. Pepper’s career did not end there in that later on he became a member of the House of Representatives in Washington. I simply thought that the Smathers denunciation of Claude Pepper is classic and should serve as an inspiration to politicians of the current era.
Later on, when Claude Pepper was reaching the end of his life, he made the remark about the green bananas. I have known that remark for many years and I find myself in the final years of my life tending to live for the day or for the hour rather than making long-range plans. In former days I would find myself figuring out which suits I was going to wear in the following week with what shirts. I don’t wear suits and shirts much anymore and I do not plan that far ahead. And so it is that in these latter stages in my life, I take comfort from what Claude Pepper said a good many years ago about green bananas. And I also take a good bit of comfort from the remarks of George Smathers who accused Claude Pepper of some atrocious acts.
Perhaps if Barack Obama runs against Sarah Palin in 2012, he may well use some of the alleged speech that George Smathers made in 1950. Or perhaps Sarah Palin will use the Smathers speech to further defame Mr. Obama. I suspect we will have to wait and see.
E. E. CARR
August 29, 2010
Essay 491
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Kevin’s commentary: Pop is always such a cheery fellow, don’t you think? His essays about aging just make it so difficult to have to wait to get old the, er, old-fashioned way.
My advice would be to keep buying the green bananas, both because optimism is good and because Judy might enjoy them.