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Who really said it

I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise

Not Chauncey Depew — most likely William Allen White William Allen White 1868–1944 · American newspaper editor, author and Progressive-movement leader
Disputed — the Depew credit is posthumous, and even the leading alternative is offered tentatively. Free to reuse

Chauncey Depew died on 5 April 1928, and Quote Investigator ↗ finds the joke credited to him only from 1930 onward. Its earliest instance of the gag is the Kansas newspaperman William Allen White, in the Evening Republican of 14 January 1925: he got his exercise “by acting as pallbearer for golfers who exercise to prolong useless lives.” QI calls White the leading candidate — and says plainly that any ascription would be tentative.

Last verified 9 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise” popularly credited to Chauncey Depew, but the joke was in print by 1925 and the Depew credit only appears from 1930, two years after his death. Quote Investigator's earliest evidence points to the Kansas editor William Allen White. · Verbatim: “I get my exercise by acting as pallbearer for golfers who exercise to prolong useless lives.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Chauncey Depew. Use the credit shown above instead.

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Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of William Allen White — American newspaper editor, author and leader of the Progressive movement. Theme: "I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Earliest documented form
Evening Republican, 14 January 1925
Attributed by QI to
William Allen White — as the leading candidate, tentatively
Depew credit first appears
1930 — two years after his death on 5 April 1928
Popular wording
A later, smoothed retelling — no period source prints it in exactly this form

I get my exercise by acting as pallbearer for golfers who exercise to prolong useless lives. The earliest documented form, 1925

That is the 1925 wording Quote Investigator gives for William Allen White in the Evening Republican — the earliest instance of the joke it documents. The smoother line people repeat today is closer to Senator Royal S. Copeland’s 1926 version in the Chester Times: “The only exercise I take is acting as pall-bearer to my friends who have indulged in strenuous exercise!” We could not reach scans of either newspaper ourselves; both wordings and both locators come from QI’s chronology ↗

Quote Investigator: the pallbearer joke, from Lardner and White to Depew and Twain

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s survey of the joke ↗ lays out the chronology. It opens with a looser precursor — Ring Lardner, in Cosmopolitan in August 1922, on locals who “get plenty of exercise dodging Flivingos and acting as pall bearers” — then the joke proper: William Allen White in the Evening Republican on 14 January 1925, and Royal S. Copeland in the Chester Times on 26 June 1926. Its conclusion: “the earliest evidence currently points to William Allen White as originator because he expressed the core of the joke by 1925.”
  • The same page dates the two famous credits: “By 1930 the humorous remark was credited to Chauncey Depew, and by 1950 the jest was assigned to Mark Twain.” QI is blunt about both — “Depew was credited with the jest after he had been dead two years” and “the first citation for Mark Twain occurred in 1950, forty years after his death.” Wikipedia gives Depew’s dates as 23 April 1834 – 5 April 1928 ↗ and Wikiquote gives Twain’s as 1835–1910 ↗, which is exactly what those two intervals come to.
  • We read Wikiquote’s Chauncey Depew page ↗ in full. It does list “I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise” — but its only citation is a 1958 collection, Four Talks for Bibliophiles, page 70, thirty years after Depew died. It offers no contemporary source, and the page carries no Misattributed or Disputed section at all.
  • We also checked Wikiquote’s Mark Twain page ↗, which maintains large sourced, disputed and misattributed sections: the pallbearer joke appears in none of them.
Public domain

Every documented appearance of the joke that this page relies on — Ring Lardner in 1922, William Allen White in January 1925, Royal S. Copeland in June 1926 — was published in a United States newspaper or magazine well before 1931, so those wordings are in the public domain and may be quoted freely. The smoothed modern retelling has no single fixed source of its own.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

Two famous names collected this joke after their deaths, and a third used it in life without ever claiming it.

Chauncey Depew Posthumous credit

Depew — senator, railroad president and celebrated after-dinner speaker — died on 5 April 1928. Quote Investigator ↗ records that “by 1930 the humorous remark was credited to Chauncey Depew,” and traces the joke itself back to 1925, in another man’s mouth. Even Wikiquote ↗ can cite the line to him only through a 1958 book.

Mark Twain No source

Twain is the default owner of any orphaned American wisecrack. QI dates the Twain ascription to 1950 ↗, and Wikiquote’s Twain page ↗ — which tracks his disputed and misattributed lines carefully — does not carry it in any section.

Royal S. Copeland Early user, not the author

Copeland, a physician and United States senator, gave the joke its smoothest early form in the Chester Times on 26 June 1926. But QI notes he did not claim authorship ↗, and White’s 1925 version came first.

Best evidence: William Allen White, in the Evening Republican, 14 January 1925 — the earliest instance Quote Investigator ↗ documents, though it calls the ascription tentative and White himself was uncertain.

Context

Why it mattered

The 1920s were the first decade when ordinary Americans were told, in newspapers and advertisements, that they ought to be exercising — and the joke is the backlash, arriving almost immediately. Its target in the earliest versions is specifically the golfer, the new suburban enthusiast whose devotion to his own health struck older men as faintly ridiculous.

It travelled the way newspaper jokes did: a wisecrack printed once under a real name, reprinted without one, and then reassigned to whichever famous wit the reprinting editor thought of first. That is how a Kansas editor’s gag about golfers ends up in circulation as Mark Twain’s.

By 1930 it was Depew’s. By 1950 it was Twain’s. Both of them were dead.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Mortality Time

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigatorquoteinvestigator.com

The full chronology, 1922 to the modern retellings, and the conclusion naming William Allen White
Wikiquote: Chauncey Depewen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under Depew — but cites only a 1958 book, thirty years after his death
Wikipedia: Chauncey Depewen.wikipedia.org

The senator and after-dinner speaker who collected the joke: 1834–1928
Wikipedia: William Allen Whiteen.wikipedia.org

The Kansas editor QI names as the leading candidate: 1868–1944
Wikipedia: Royal S. Copelanden.wikipedia.org

The senator and physician who told the smoothest 1926 version without claiming it: 1868–1938
Wikiquote: Mark Twainen.wikiquote.org

Twain’s sourced, disputed and misattributed sections — the joke is in none of them

The author

About William Allen White

William Allen White

1868–1944 · American newspaper editor, author and leader of the Progressive movement

William Allen White (1868–1944) was an American newspaper editor, politician and author, and a leader of the Progressive movement; from 1896 until his death he was read as a spokesman for middle America. He was a fixture of the Kansas press — at a 1937 banquet in his honour the Kansas Editorial Association called him “the most loved and most distinguished member” of it. The pallbearer joke is not one of the things he is remembered for, and he did not firmly claim it — Quote Investigator notes that “White himself expressed uncertainty in his 1940 letter.” His 1925 line is simply the earliest instance anyone has yet documented.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

White, William Allen. Quoted in the Evening Republican, 14 January 1925. Earliest documented instance of the joke, per Quote Investigator ↗, which calls the ascription tentative. A smoother version is credited to Royal S. Copeland in the Chester Times, 26 June 1926.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I Take My Only Exercise Acting as a Pallbearer to My Friends Who Exercise’?” Last verified 9 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-take-my-only-exercise-acting-as-a-pallbearer-to-my/

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