Quote: wheel that squeaks the loudest ... gets the grease (Cal Stewart as Josh Weathersby 1903)

[Garson O'Toole]

The squeaky wheel gets grease, squeaking wheel gets the grease

This saying was discussed on the ADS list in 2004, 2005 and 2007. I
think Sam Clements found the earliest cite dated 1910 in the Wall
Street Journal. That's the cite given in the Yale Book of Quotations

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;J77f9A;200505040804310400A

YBQ also notes that Josh Billings is often credited with crafting a
verse titled "The Kicker" that contains the saying, but no one has
actually found this quatrain in the corpus of Billings.

Here is a 1903 cite with a version of poem credited to another
personage named Josh, Josh Weathersby, the alter ego of the writer Cal
Stewart.

Cite: 1903, Uncle Josh Weathersby's "Punkin Centre" stories by Cal
Stewart, Page 6, Regan Printing House, Chicago. (Google Books full
view; also HathiTrust)

"I don't believe in kickin',
   It aint apt to bring one peace;
But the wheel what squeaks the loudest
   is the one what gets the grease."
          —Josh Weathersby.

http://books.google.com/books?id=nTzYAAAAMAAJ&q=squeaks#v=snippet&
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.39000005804922


In 1880 the following interesting couplet was used in a poem.

Cite: 1880, The Telephone of Labor by George Marshall Sloan, Page
Title and 265, Publisher Unknown, Chicago. (Google Books full view)

This wagon's creaking ne'er will cease
While its fifth wheel gets all the grease.

http://books.google.com/books?id=IFg1AAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+grease%22#v=snippet&


Sam Clements found a thematically relevant cite in 1853:
17 Jan. 1853 Gettysburg (PA)  _Republican Compiler_  1/5
Maxims of Dr. Franklin
The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;0wCSyg;200404021946500500A

Stephen Goranson found a thematically relevant cite in a speech dated 1796:
There was no possibility of doubt but that some of this oil of
influence had been sent to grease that squeaking wheel in the city,
called the mercantile interest!
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;%2FcRr4w;200701090621480500B

Garson

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