1908 article on "Spigotty" Land--origin of "spic"? Antedating of "spik"

[Sam Clements]

Spent a few hours at Cleveland Public Library. (No, Barry, I didn't have the time to do a search for your food terms.  I'll go back in Sept.)

I DID maage to copy the Sat. Evening Post article from 1908  "Life in Spigotty Land" to which I alluded in a previous post.  http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0308B&L=ads-l&P=R176

>From the March 14, 1908 issue of the Saturday Evening Post: page 1

     "All Americans are alike.  They do not bother to learn foreign languages when they go to a foreign country, but they force the natives to learn American.  So, when the Panamanians presented themselves, if the could talk English, they prefaced their attempts to cheat the Americans out of something--it really made little difference what--with the statement, accompanied by eloquent gestures:  "Spik d' English."  If they couldn't they said:  "No spik d' English."  One or the other was the universal opening of conversation, and those early Americans soon classed the whole race of men who could or could not "Spik d' Eng." as "Spikities," and from that grew the harmonious and descriptive Spigotty."

This article predates cites from OED and MW.

It sure lends credence to the theory that "spic/spik" comes from the pidgin English in the Canal Zone.