Modern Proverb: Be nice to those you meet on the way up. They're the same folks you'll meet on the way down (antedating Walter Winchell 1932 July 8)

[Garson O'Toole]

Thanks to Bill Mullins for searching and finding the 1935 cite.

Thanks to Dan Goncharoff for responding and mentioning the multipart
profile of Wilson Mizner in the New Yorker. I did know about that
useful cite. The online New Yorker archive has it.

Victor Steinbok wrote
>  The thought remained unfinished in the post, it seems, but let me try
> to complete it. Two GB hits, both supposedly in 1933, place the quote in
> Reader's Digest and in "Golden Book Magazine". Both snippets clearly
> show attribution to Walter Winchell (In Golden Book the attribution
> fronts the quote, in RD it follows). Checking for "1933" shows August
> and October 1933 issues for Golden Magazine and June 1933 issue for
> RD--it's no guarantee of placement, but it does suggest authenticity.
>
> In any case, full credit here to Garson.
>

Many thanks Victor. A part of my post was inadvertently cut out. The
1932 July 8, Pittsburgh Press cite was followed by two cites in 1933.
All three cites attribute the quote to Walter Winchell. However, I
have not been able to obtain a paper or microfilm copy of the Reader's
Digest cite. So it's date is unverified (to me).

I was able to check the Golden Book magazine 1933 cite on paper.

1933 August, The Golden Book Magazine, "So They Say", Page 116, Volume
XVIII, Number 104, Review of Reviews Corporation, New York. (Google
Books snippet view; Verified on paper)

Walter Winchell: scandal master, on a life philosophy

"It pays to be nice to the people you meet on the way up, for they are
the same people you meet on the way down."

http://books.google.com/books?id=U5cXAQAAIAAJ&q=Winchell#search_anchor

Garson

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