"A bayonet is a weapon with a working man at either end."

[Garson O'Toole]

Stephen Goranson wrote:
>
> "A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end." "Slogan of English pacifists, 1940" appears on p. 87
> in  A New dictionary of quotations on historical principles from ancient and modern sources / selected and edited by H.L. Mencken.      New York : A.A. Knopf, 1942. Confirmed on paper.

Nice work. The online The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations has
the same claim:

A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
British pacifist slogan, 1940

Garson

> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:31 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "A bayonet is a weapon with a working man at either              end."
>
> The following 1966 reference has a version of the saying, but it does
> not connect it to John Maclean.
>
> Cite: 1966, "Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations" edited by
> Robert Debs Heinl, Category: bayonet, Page 31, Column 2, United States
> Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. (Verified on paper)
> [Begin excerpt]
> A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
> Socialist slogan, early 20th century
> [End excerpt]
>
> The marxists.org website has a collection of speeches and articles by
> John MacLean. I tried a quick Google search in the marxists.org domain
> and could not find an instance of the quotation about bayonets. The
> saying may be worded differently, or I may have missed it:
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/maclean/index.htm
>
> Garson

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