Modern Proverb: Life is just one damn thing after another (1909 March 5)

[Garson O'Toole]

Many thanks to Bill Mullins, Dan Goncharoff, Charles Doyle, and Alison
Murie. Your informative and valuable responses are much appreciated.

Bill Mullins wrote:
> 3/5/1909 Wilkes-Barre Times p 6 col 6
> "Life:  (A new definition) One damn thing after another"

Wonderful cite! I asked about the database this citation came from and
now I know: Readex (NewsBank) Early American Newspapers, Series 3,
1829-1922 which is available through GenealogyBank.com.

http://www.readex.com/readex/titlelists/ahn3.cfm
http://www.genealogybank.com/

The phrase in the Wilkes-Barre Times citation is isolated from other
text inside a box and there is no indication of authorship.

Dan Goncharoff wrote
> I assume you mean the Bruce Calvert who was Editor and Publisher of The
> Open Road, "Official Organ of the Society of the Universal Brotherhood
> of Man" from 1908 until two months short of his demise in 1940 in the
> NYC subway system.

> Some additional thoughts:
>
> Hubbard and Calvert certainly knew each other. If Calvert wrote it, it
> would have been in The Open Road, which is not in GB except for one issue.
>
> Hubbard, through the Roycrofters Shops, would sell epigrams, and his
> books would indicate the price next to the epigrams.

Thanks for the pointer to Bruce Calvert editor of The Open Road. He
did have a high profile in the relevant time period. While trying to
connect this Calvert to the saying I read some passages describing his
philosophy. I think that if Calvert coined the saying then he may have
used it to describe an opposing philosophy.

Citation: 1910 December, Co-operation, Page 36, Co-operative Education Bureau.

The author (Bruce Calvert) therein tackles some of the problems of
life. We quote: "Life itself cannot be justified upon purely economic
or physical lines. Life is vastly more than merely a comfortable
existence. If this is not true, then man is but little higher in the
moral scale than the pig in the pen, with some slight difference as to
standards of living. Human life is not merely the struggle for
existence in the midst of a hostile environment. It is something more
than that. Life is the search for spiritual satisfaction.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pe8iAQAAIAAJ&q=Pigeon#v=snippet&

Charles Doyle wrote:
> It should be noted that the attestation in _The Practical Printer_ (Jul. 1909)
> is an instance of what Wolfgang Mieder has termed an "anti-proverb"--a
> parody or ironic contextualization of a proverb. In the present case, the
> saying occurs in an ad for a process of reporducing book-length text
> (somehow) by the use of carbon paper--"one after another." Of course,
> an anti-proverb constitutes evidence that the proverb itself is expected to
> be known to readers, who can then appreciate the irony.

Here is another 1909 advertisement suggesting audience familiarity
with the phrase.

Citation: 1909 May 19, St. Albans (Daily) Messenger, Page 2, Column 4,
St. Albans, Vermont. (Genealogybank)

           LIFE IS JUST ONE DARN THING
                      AFTER ANOTHER

A successful Coal business is just one good square ton of Coal after
another. Price is the lowest just now. May we enter your order?

Thanks again to all,
Garson

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