Tobacco Documents Online

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n the development of the tobacco industry to its present-day proportions Missouri had an important share. Some phases of its participation in the national tobacco commerce were, indeed, unique. Not only was Missouri a producer of desirable leaf but St. Louis became for a while the center of tobacco manufacture in the United States. Missouri's ingenious backwoodsmen evolved a product which was long the dominant form of tobacco used in America and thus brought a new phrase into the English language: "plug tobacco." Its farmers created a novel pipe - the corncob - an article which found its way around the globe. A petite and pretty citizen of St. Louis became the first lady ciga- rette drummer and made headlines in her time. The most famous smoker of his day-a world citizen-was a Mis- sourian. No one writing on the development of the tobacco industry in America can ignore Missouri's contributions. Today, together with some 60 million fellow Ameri- cansy most people of Missouri have a high regard for tobacco. The extent of their interest in one of the most 1

widespread of social habits has been recorded for vari- `~~~ instance, Missourians purchased over 550 million pack ._ , ous periods. In the year ending June 30, 1959, for ""'~~ a small part of the broad, complex pattern of the tobacco This reported segment of retail sales is, obviously, but ages of cigarettes. industry's activities in the United States. America's economy. Many major and a great number of minor industries participate in various phases of the national tobacco trade. promoting, distributing and merchandising the finished commodity weaves throughout the intricate pattern of Thebusiness of producing andmanufacturing tobacco; - treasuries. some $2.7 billion to federal, state and municipal for nearly $6.8' billion in 1959. And these sales brought -products sold in the retail markets of the United States farmers in America for the world's finest leaf. Tobacco turers have paid a billion dollars and more to tobacco Annually, for the past few years, tobacco manufac- 1!'lissouri's contributions range from leaf to cigarette machines Missouri shares& in almost all of the activities of the tobacco industry. Its farmers grow fine Burley tobacco, an essential ingredient in cigarettes, smoking and chew- ing tobaccos and some snuffs. Its factories produce many million cigars and nearly 131/z miluon pounds of smoking and chewing, tobacco. I' , has over 37,000 retail outlets which dispense tobacco products. In 1958 these had a

wholesale value of $100 million. Important to the total picture in the state is the production of automatic mer- chandising devices. St. Louis now leads the country in the manufacture of cigarette-vending machines. The direct state tax on cigarettes alone, between 1956 when the levy was established and June 30, 1959, has brought more than $35 million to Missouri's treasury. Additional to income from this source is the yield from the current sales tax applied to cigarettes sold at retail. The consumer demand for tobacco gives employment to many people in Missouri. Among them are the farmers and helpers on more than 4,000 farms whose tobacco produce brought growers about $2,250,000 in 1958. A census of that part of Missouri's working population whose income in whole or in part derives from the tobacco trade would make an impressive total. That the trade is not entirely intrastate is shown by the most recent figure for goods shipped out: $11,843,218. The value of raw materials (some of which are of local origin) required by tobacco manufacturers of the state totaled about $7,400,000. Part of the cost of conducting this business came to $1,348,208 for rent, taxes and insur- ance. Production workers and other employees earned $1,840,000 in wages, salaries and commissions. The facts and figures briefly reported give some indi- cation of the economic value of tobacco to Missouri. Its fiscal value has taken visible form in new roads, new schools and other constructions important to the general community. For many years Missouri has been a con- siderable taxpayer on manufactured tobacco products. In the decade from 1872, for instance, its yield to the federal treasury totaled over $18 million. (This was in a

period when a major concentration of tobacco factories was taking place in St. Louis. ) That yield was but a small part of the state's contribution to the Treasury Depart- ment since the tobacco excise was established in 1862. Missourians never had prohibitory laws against to- bacco. While concerted attacks were being made against the cigarette, notably in the 1890's and early 1920's, state legislators realized that cigarette smoking could not be legislated out of existence or smokers frightened into abstinence. The experience of sister states with prohibi- tory or restrictive laws against the cigarette had proved this. All such legislation, some of it of brief existence, turned out to be a futile invasion of privacy. Cigarette users gave convincing evidence that their right to smoke was not one which free people are willing to relinquish. Leaf grown by early settlers m sells in New York The modern story of tobacco in Missouri goes back to the first white settlers in the territory, French-Canadians from villages across the Mississippi. They were chiefly snuff-takers, though there were some pipe smokers among them. Not for them the rank, tough tobacco native to the area. For a while they obtained twist, and roll tobacco called "carottes," from the scenes of their emigration. Soon they were growing their own leaf and curing it. : . . :: Before the Louisiana Purchase there were many thou- sand American log-cabin pioneers in Missouri' territory. After 1804 more Americans began to drift to the rich, fertile land, many coming from the crowded eastern sea- 4

board. There were good farmers among them and they improved the methods of limited tobacco cultivation in the area, bringing in seeds of the excellent type growing in Kentucky and Tennessee. The plant was grown and cured only for personal use until about 1820 when it began to be commercially cultivated on a small scale in what is now Howard County. The culture spread~ to other areas. Emigrants from Virginia planted tobacco in Pike County in 1822. In 1824 the St. Louis Enquirer reported that "38 hogsheads of Missouri tobacco were sold in New York City at the highest price, being pronounced superior to any other description of tobacco in the market!"-an item which also appeared in the Missouri Intelligencer. Similar re- ports were coming in from the markets at New Orleans, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Within a decade tobacco had become the staple crop in Charlton County. Exglorers sooth redskins with tobacco Some years before this, when Missouri was still called Louisiana, St. Louis was the starting point for expedi- tions to the greater areas of the West and Northwest. Lewis and Clark made their winter headquarters near that settlement in 1804 before beginning their memora- ble exploration. In their essential stores they carried tobacco in twist and i_n cured leaf. On the road back Clark's men ran out of the valuable supply. Chewers among them were re- d::ced to the bitter "bark of wild crab"; smokers to "the inner bark of the red willow." The victims of scarcity could hardly wait to reach the places where tobacco had 5

been cached for use on the return trip. ::.The stores of tobacco proved to be of even greater value than the satisfaction of personal needs. It was the most important single article in barter with the Indians. And hostile natives, on mischief bent, could always be placated by a present of the most coveted of white man's gifts. Those were the days when a leaf of tobacco painted red sentby messenger from an Indian chief was a warning of immediate war. But a portion of good, cured Missouri leaf placed in the hands of a belligerent Indian meant peace. It was not the first time that tobacco had served to further friendship and soothe the tempers of angry men. .. . _,.. Spaniards in the territory, in the 18th century, were chiefly cigar smokers. Cigars were coming into Louisiana from Havana and later were being manufactured at New Orleans. For snuffers and pipe smokers a fine new sort of tobacco became available after the 1830's, the Periquee of Louisiana. Pug cornes out of a log The equipment required for both snuff and pipes was, however, too burdensome to frontiersmen and pioneers from otheir states. Tobacco pressed into small slabs could be much more conveniently carried. As a practical mat- ter, therefore, these early Missourians turned to "eating tobacco," the comforting chew. Those were the days when a man could stand in his front yard and spit twenty feet without trespassing on his neighbors. As chewing tobacco grew in popularity 6

local users concocted a distinctively American method for giving the chew a special flavor. This homemade process may possibly have been known a little earlier in Kentucky but settlers from there perfected the method in a Missouri setting. A portion of tobacco leaves, treated with wild honey and homemade peach or apple brandy, was wedged with a mallet into a hole bored in a log of green maple or hickory. The hole was then plugged. In a little while both log and tobacco had become properly dry. When the log was split, the leaves had been cured to a desirable flavor. This special sort of chewing tobacco promptly acquired the logical name of "plug," and rapidly became the people's choice. Local manufacturers with better equipment than boring knives or chisels, mallet and logs and with ready access to a variety of flavoring sauces put plug in mass production. The toothsome chew, treated with Iicorice,, honey, sugar, rum, spices and other pun- gent flavors, soon became the chief output of St. Louis tobacco factories. American manufacturers during the chewing tobacco era were offering a choice of 12,630 brands to their strong-jawed customers. This abundance of products put an extra strain on sales departments searching for a dis- tinctive brand name. Some of the labels were sensible but unimaginative, some were designed for laughs, somee were provocative and unexpected. As examples of fancy gone far afield these were among the choice items offered around the turn of the century by manufacturers of chewing tobaccos in Missouri: My Wife's Hat, Revenge, Lock and Chain, Sweet Buy and Bu y, Wiggletail Twist, Scalping Knife, Toss Up. 7

St. Louis-once America's ~ leading tobacco market By 1890 Missouri was the major tobacco manufactur- ing state, the industry there having had its start in St. Louis in 1817. For many years the greatest quantity of manufactured plug came from Missouri. Its chief ingredi- ent was Burley from the OhioValley, a leaf which readily absorbed the flavoring sauces consumers demanded. In 1914 the state's factories turned out more than 70 million , pounds of the commodity-almost 40 percent of total national production -then worth around $35,000,000. Missouri held third place in tobacco production by 1873, being exceeded in the agriculture only by Ken- tucky and Virginia. It maintained that rank for some time. A dozen years before World War I it had been observed that Tobacco may be grown success f ully in every county in the State. St. Louis is the leading tobacco market in the United States, and there is no reason wh y this industry should not be developed until Missouri is the leading tobacco producing state in the Union ... In some counties farmers sell their tobacco crops for more than $100 an acre. Good tobacco was then ielling for about 10 cents a pound. (In the latest reported' year, 1958, Missouri' farmers were selling their tobacco for a fraction under 64 cents a pound. ) The expectation that Missouri's to- bacco agriculture might be expanded, as expressed by 8

The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce in 1876 the author quoted, was not realized. Tobacco chewing declined noticeably after the war's end and factories moved closer to raw material supplies of cigarette leaf.. Corn produces a famous pipe bowl Corn in great quantities had long been grown on Mis- souri's farms. ('Before the opening of the 20th century more than one-tenth of the world's crop of the grain was Missouri-grown. ) I With all that corn available it was only to be expected that some imaginative person would discover uses of the cob other than fodder or fertilizer. Cornsilk was already being surreptitiously smoked by numerous boys as a preliminary to the delights of real tobacco, still forbid- den them by their elders. ~.~ :,.,.. _..,.