J. Adam Bede

1856–1942 · U.S. Representative from Minnesota, 1903–1909 · newspaperman and humorist

James Adam Bede was an Ohio-born newspaper editor who settled in Pine City, Minnesota, and went to Washington as a Republican congressman for three terms, 1903 to 1909. He was known less for legislation than for being the funniest man in the House — a stump speaker of, as the New York Times put it, ‘dry humor’ and ‘droll manner’. That reputation is why the papers of 1905 attached this joke to him by name, and why a senator was still quoting ‘the language of Adam Bede’ five years later.

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1 quote we’ve traced

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'”

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