Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401170076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And not only because the 1991 redistricting turned Allen, then 7th District representative, into a politician in need of a job.
The redistricting plan also spurred Lawrence Lewis Jr., one of the capital's Main Street monarchs, to put his checkbook and his clout at Allen's disposal.
"What started it was that I felt he got gypped when they did this hatchet job of redistricting," the outspoken 76-year-old financier said last week, tracing the steps that made him perhaps Allen's primary benefactor and corporate booster.
It was Lewis who called Jimmy Wheat, Allen's treasurer, soon after Allen's nomination to say - literally - meet me at the bank. Without being asked, Lewis provided a $100,000 loan, putting Allen on television at a time when his opponent had a $2.7 million-to-$288,000 fund-raising advantage.
Then, too, it was Lewis who gave Allen more than $50,000 outright, put his private airplane on loan to the campaign, and introduced Allen to a skeptical Main Street crowd. When 20 of the city's leading money men held a straw poll on the three-way GOP gubernatorial contest last February, Allen got three votes - including Lewis'.
Allen acknowledged the debt at a business leaders' luncheon last week, noting, "He has been with me every step of the way."
That tribute brings to a fitting close more than a decade in which the white-haired multimillionaire has been a bulwark for oft-struggling state Republicans. "He's been the No. 1 financier to the state party and the Republican caucus," said one GOP insider.
In many ways, the sometimes-courtly, sometimes-brusque Lewis is unique in Virginia politics. Romance and intrigue color the fortune he and his sister inherited from their great-aunt, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. Third wife of Henry M. Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil and a developer of Florida, Mary Lily was once the richest woman in America.
Her untimely death and a disputed will, in which she left her second husband, Judge Robert Worth Bingham of Louisville, Ky., the $5 million he used to launch a newspaper dynasty, remains one of the mysteries of the publishing world.
With typical bluntness, Lewis dismisses relatives who had Mary Lily's body exhumed as "crackpots."
Such frankness sets Lewis apart from many in his crowd.
Consider his explanation for why he backed Republican Marshall Coleman against Democrat Douglas Wilder in the 1989 governor's race, for instance. "Both of them were SOBs. He happened to be my SOB," said Lewis.
Nor is he penitent about an annual stag party/fund raiser held at his house for politicians, including Allen in 1992. This year the crowd was mixed, and "we see young, pretty faces, but the mood has changed. The jokes are not as raucous, there's less drinking, and less money," he said.
In other ways, Lewis - a leader in historic preservation in Florida and charitable causes in Virginia - epitomizes the crowd that surrounded former U.S. Sen. Harry Byrd Jr.
One of the last of that group to wield political influence, Lewis huffily rejects the notion that there might be a quid pro quo for his service to Allen. He helped because "it's my duty," Lewis said. The reward is "for the commonwealth and the nation to have decent, conservative government."
by CNB