making a federal case of it

[Sam Clements]

Newspaperarchive has two 1948 cites for the phrase as a euphemism.  Both are
by Walter Winchell; May and Dec.

SC
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Thompson" <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 11:58 AM
Subject: making a federal case of it


> Some time ago Fred Shapiro and Barry Popik posted messages regarding the
expression "to make a federal case" out of something = to make a big issue
out of something trivial.  The end result was several citations found by
Barry from 1951.  I had thought that I had posted a message at the time
suggesting that the expression might allude to the Mann Act, passed in the
mid 1910s, making it a federal offense to bring a woman across a state line
for the purpose of fornication.  Modestly, I acknowledged that the only
barrier between this insight and its general acceptance was the lack of any
evidence to support it.  I don't find my message in the archives through a
search for postings on "federal case", though.
>
> Here is a slight antedating from the Proquest Washington Post of the
expression in its figurative sense:
> "I'm not trying to make a Federal case of it, but Mi Scandal and Petty
Larceny won the two chief races on the Friday program"  [The lead to an
article on the horseraces at the Charles Town track.]  Washington Post,
December 30, 1950, p. 11.
>
> Here is an interesting use of the expression, apparently with reference to
the Mann Act, from 15 years earlier, found in Proquest's Chicago Tribune
files.  The context is an elopement from Colorado to Chicago by a 21 year
old rodeo cowboy and a 16 year old girl.  Quoting a message from the Sheriff
of Sterling Colorado to the Chicago police:
> "Please arrest and hold these parties, as the girl's folks are about
crazy.  If there is no law to hold Bartlett on we'll make a federal case of
it."  Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1936, p. 1
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.
>