[Ads-l] "So much good in the worst of us" Quote

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is an interesting citation containing a claim by Hoch. Double
check text and metadata.

Date: January 26, 1905
Newspaper: The Evening Times (Bay City Times)
Newspaper Location: Bay City, Michigan
Article: Prayer Was Stolen
Quote Page  4
Database: GenealogyBank

[Begin excerpt]
"Does a stolen prayer reach the clestial
throne?" asked Governor Hoch. Then
he continued"

"According to the newspapers
Chaplain Couden, of the lower house
of congress, in his opening prayer
said: "There is so much bad in the
best of us and so much good in the
worst of us that it hardly behooves
any of us to talk about the rest of us."

"Now, the fact is, that the chaplain
stole that out of my Marion Record,
or out of some paper that stole it out
of the Record. More than a year ago
I thought that up, and printed it in
the 'Thoughts We Have Been Thinking'
column. However, I am glad that
the house chaplain knows a good
thing when he sees it."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 1:49 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> The Yale Book of Quotations includes the following poem under the name of Kansas Governor Edward W. Hoch:
>
>
> There is so much good in the worst of us,
>
> And so much bad in the best of us,
>
> That it hardly becomes any of us
>
> To talk about the rest of us.
>
>
> The attribution to Hoch is dated 1907.  I have now found a very similar quotation in the Brown County World (Hiawatha, Kan.), 14 Aug. 1896, without attribution to any individual.  What I need to complete the story is to find the earliest attribution to Hoch, and I would welcome citations pushing such attributions back as early as they can be found before 1907.
>
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org