when the going gets tough

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

A recent notice from Barry Popik offered a speculation regarding the
origin of the cliche "When the going gets tough the tough get going."
 I well remeber my delight during the Watergate hearings when one of
the CREEP stooges quoted John Mitchell, our felonious Attorney
General, using the expression.  What pleased me was the marvelous
ambiguity in the words "the tough get going".  Did he mean it perhaps
in the same sense as the folk saying "The only way to fight a woman
is with your hat; grab it and get going"?

I don't know how the rest of you reacted to Watergate, but for me, it
shattered my faith in Who's Who in America.  Mitchell and our
felonious Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans, still had entries in
Who's who in the late 1970s, which mentioned their service in the
Cabinet, but didn't mention their time in jail.  What can a librarian
trust?

GAT