Quote: I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members (antedating Groucho attrib 1949 October 20)

[Garson O'Toole]

One of Groucho's most famous lines was delivered when he resigned a
club membership. Here is the version given in his autobiography
"Groucho and Me" (1959):

PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT
WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

In Groucho's apocryphal account he sent the "Delaney Club" a wire with
the words above. "Delaney" was employed as all-purpose pseudonym.
Ralph Keyes discusses the saying in the Quote Verifier with evidence
from Arthur Marx's "Life with Groucho" (1954) and other sources.

The ADS list archive contains messages on the topic back in 2005. The
earliest previously known citation I have seen is in Look magazine
March 28, 1950 given in the Yale Book of Quotations. I have located
reports by three syndicated columnists in 1949: Erskine Johnson,
Jimmie Fidler, and John Crosby. These reports were duplicated in
multiple newspapers, so I will only list one excerpt from each.

Cite: 1949 October 20, Dunkirk Evening Observer, In Hollywood by
Erskine Johnson, Page 22, Column 5, Dunkirk, New York.
(NewspaperArchive)

Groucho Marx's letter of resignation to the Friars' Club: "I don't
want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its
members."

Cite: 1949 October 27, Oregonian, Stanley Kramer Praised For Making
Economy Films by Jimmie Fidler, McNaught Syndicate, Page 6 [GNB Page
26], Column 4, Portland, Oregon. (GenealogyBank)

Groucho Marx, irrepressible wit. In resigning from the Friars club Mr.
Marx, incapable of passing up an opportunity for a gag-line, wrote: "I
don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

Cite: 1949 November 2, St. Petersburg Times, Marx Badgers Contestants
by John Crosby, [Unreadable Page Number; Maybe 12] GN Page 14, Column
6, St. Petersburg, Florida. (Google News archive)

(The word "as" is repeated in the original text.)

Grouch Marx. a vertebrate of indeterminate origin, recently, I'm told,
resigned from the Friars Club with the simple, chilly explanation: "I
don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as as one of its
members," That's a fairly typical example of the Marx wit—succinct,
crushing, and, in a rather terrifying way, sensible.

Even in 1949 the wording was variable, but Johnson and Crosby (without
the typo) present the same quote. (Crosby may be reproducing Johnson's
version.) The 1950 Look Magazine instance in YBQ is different: "I do
not care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
The Reader's Digest, a major nexus of propagation, cites the
Johnson/Crosby version in 1950 and credits "John Crosby in New York
Herald Tribune." There are many more versions in 1950 and later but I
will stop here.

Garson

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