[Ads-l] fall guy (1895)

Thu Aug 27 18:00:22 UTC 2015

My Wall St. Journal column this week is on the history of the term "fall guy":

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fall-guys-in-sports-crime-and-politics-1440692105

(As usual, you can Google the headline -- "Fall Guys in Sports, Crime
and Politics" -- if you hit the paywall.)

HDAS dates the term to 1904 and OED2 to 1906. Michael Quinion's World
Wide Words site inaccurately gives a cite dated as 1883 (which is
repeated in GDoS):

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fal1.htm

The Life Magazine article in question (confirmed by ProQuest's
American Periodicals Series) actually appeared in the July 1932 issue.
Google Books had previously misdated a snippet view of this volume as
1883 (the first year that Life was published).

The earliest cites I found in the newspaper databases start in 1895 --
clustered in Western cities, especially Denver. The majority of these
fit the definition 'person who is easily duped' (HDAS sense 2,
beginning with the 1906 cite also given by OED2 from Helen Green's _At
the Actors's Boarding House_).

Here are the pre-1900 cites I've come across.

---
Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Dec. 16, 1895, p. 8, col. 5 [GenealogyBank]
William Farragarger, who played the part of the "fall guy" in the
poker game which netted the Seventeenth street grafters $1,100 is now
a quasi prisoner in a Denver hotel, where he was stored away by Chief
Goulding, who advised him to keep in seclusion so that the bunco men
might not find him and rob him of the $140 returned to him by them to
enable the "sucker" to get out of the country.
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1896-03-27/ed-1/seq-8/
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 27, 1896, p. 8, col. 4
Earl Reese, commonly called the "Corduroy Kid," and Finch Vidler, a
well-known young man about town, played a match game of pool at the
Columbia beer hall Wednesday afternoon. Reese won by a score of 100 to
96, and walked away with a cool $100 that had belonged to Capt. Swift
of the steamer Mabel...
The business being over and Reese having obtained Swift's $100 from
the stakeholder, it is almost needless to say that the captain retired
to a secluded nook and commenced to figure out the meaning of the
words "double cross" and "fall guy." Finally he came to the conclusion
that he had been swindled...
---
Denver Post, May 8, 1896, p. 3, col. 1 [GenealogyBank]
The game which the Evans-Stevenson-Coe combine has set out to
accomplish is beyond any question the smoothest ever attempted to be
worked off on the people of Colorado. In this game Senator Teller is
to be used as the "fall guy," to use the choice term of the combine.
---
Denver Post, Jan. 15, 1898, p. 10, col. 4
Emerich said he had to wear whiskers once when O'Brien was chief, and
he thought it wasn't right for him to be what he termed the "fall
guy."
[The police chief wanted an officer to impersonate a woman for an
undercover operation.]
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-04-25/ed-1/seq-2/
Saint Paul Globe, Apr. 25, 1898, p. 2, col. 3
"Dere's goin' ter be trub, an' I'm duckin'," said Door Mat Jimmy last
night. "Bli' me, if dem petty larceny stiffs didn't leave Grif up in
de air, an' w'en he comes down its a bet dat he's goin' ter give some
ov dem an awful slap on de wrist wid a brick er sum'tin'. Dey comes
down here an' gets him in line wid de bull con, an' he's de real t'ing
an' dey'll fix der license gag an' all dat, an' w'en it comes ter de
blow off, an' Grif has de fall guy all stalled up fer de front at de
council, w'y dey kicks de barrel frum under him an' dere yer are, an'
dere he is!"
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-05-15/ed-1/seq-5/
Saint Paul Globe, May 15, 1898, p. 5, col. 6
Mayor Doran yesterday made a futile effort to close up "Mayor"
Griffin's saloon, 33 East Seventh street. Since "Mayor" Griffin
quietly submitted to the arrest of half a dozen of his bartenders in
the crusade inaugurated against him a week ago, he has changed his
mind about being made a "fall guy," as he expresses it, and is now
determined to resist the interference of the police with his business,
even to the use of force, if any of the police officers attempt to
make his place their headquarters.
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-08-28/ed-1/seq-4/
Saint Paul Globe, Aug. 28, 1898, p. 4, col. 4
Some one told Henry Johns the other day that he had never had but one
good race and then he lost it. Cochran, the fellow said, was put up
for a "fall guy" and John E. Hearn was a "frost."
---
Denver Post, Sept. 9, 1898, p. 5, col. 3
"Deep Disgrace. Well-Known Shell Man Arrested by a Common Dog Catcher."
Tom Keady, the three-shell man...was arrested this morning by the dog
catcher... He was charged with creating a disturbance and was soon
released on bonds furnished by Billy Malone. While in jail he said:
"What! Do you think I'm a fall guy for a common old dog catcher, and
all because I did not want to put on me collar."
---
Denver Post, Sept. 18, 1898, p. 19, col. 2
The contest was fought in private with not more than a dozen present
and for a $5,000 side bet. Wonder who was the "fall guy" for cunning
Charlie?
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059523/1898-09-25/ed-1/seq-10/
Saint Paul Globe, Sept. 25, 1898, p. 10, col. 2
The Third ward Democrats are out after the scalp of Andrew Holm, who
was nominated by the Republicans, as a "fall guy" candidate for the
legislature, and at a meeting last evening indorsed Patrick Conley for
the lower house.
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1898-10-28/ed-1/seq-12/
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 28, 1898, p. 12, col. 4
James Conway, who is a grocer on King street is regarded as the "fall
guy" on the ticket. This was the way a First warder put it yesterday.
A "fall guy" in the language of the Tenderloin, is a susceptible
individual who can be made to part with his money on small
provocation. It is said by First ward Populists that Mr. Conway is
contributing generously to the campaign fund: in fact that the chief
expenses for the whole legislative ticket in the First have been born
by the grocer.
---
Denver Post, Oct. 30, 1898, p. 18, col. 1
Hugh J.J. Smart says he is a prize fighter and an all 'round athlete
from the East...  "I won't stand for no touch like that; it's highway
robbery. If me friends knowed I'd stood for a fall guy I'd never get
another go with anybody. I'm a prize fighter and an all 'round athlete
but I ain't to be robbed that way."
---
Denver Post, Nov. 27, 1898, p. 13, col. 6
Say, dat Googy is a great fall guy w'en de Parson han's him de hot air.
---
Denver Post, Dec. 4, 1898, p. 14, col. 6
It's a lucky ting fer Plunk dat he is up nort' or dat elbow mob 'd be
makin' him de fall guy fer everyt'ing w'at's come off.
---
Denver Post, Jan. 2, 1899, p. 11, col. 1
And on this occasion no less a person than the shrewd and cunning
Charley Mitchell was the "fall guy" as it were.
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1899-02-22/ed-1/seq-7/
San Francisco Call, Feb. 22, 1899, p. 7, col. 3
O'Connell was also a starter in the race, but, to use a gambling
phrase, was only the "fall guy."
---
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1899-04-16/ed-1/seq-9/
San Francisco Call, Apr. 16, 1899, p. 9, col. 4
He fumed inwardly and fretted outwardly and got himself into such a
state of mind that he was not sure he was playing poker or was the
"fall guy" in a big mitt game. He played worse and worse, and finally
quit, thirty odd dollars to the bad, most of it in the possession of
"that soft mark, Bill Broderick."
---

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