Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1168
AUTHOR:
Boies Penrose (1860–1921)
QUOTATION:
I don’t see why we can’t get along just as well with a polygamist who doesn’t polyg as we do with a lot of monogamists who don’t monog!
ATTRIBUTION:
Attributed to Senator BOIES PENROSE.—Francis T. Plimpton, speech, quoted in Reader’s Digest, June 1958, p. 142.
These words were supposedly said in the Senate where a protest had arisen against seating Reed Smoot, the first Mormon senator, in 1903. Not verified in newspapers or accounts of that time.
Also attributed, with variation in the wording, to President Theodore Roosevelt, while he was campaigning in 1902.—Bennett Cerf, The Laugh’s on Me, p. 350 (1959).
