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Who really said it

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

Not Theodore Roosevelt — a 1904 newspaper joke J. Adam Bede 1856–1942 · U.S. Representative from Minnesota · the House’s resident humorist
Disputed Free to reuse

Roosevelt has no documented connection to this line — Wikiquote lists it among his disputed quotations with no source attached at all, and in over a century of repetition nobody has produced one. The joke was already in American newspapers by March 1904, aimed at the New York legislature rather than the Senate and credited to nobody in particular. Within a year it had found its most famous mouth: from February 1905 the papers attribute it to J. Adam Bede, the Minnesota congressman whose stock-in-trade was exactly this kind of line. Bede almost certainly did not invent it either — he was, on the evidence, its best salesman.

Last verified 2 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'” Not Theodore Roosevelt. A newspaper joke attested from March 1904 — first about the New York legislature, unattributed — and credited from February 1905 to Rep. J. Adam Bede of Minnesota.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Theodore Roosevelt. 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 J. Adam Bede — U.S. Representative from Minnesota, 1903–1909 · newspaperman and humorist. Theme: "When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'". 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 "When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'". 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

Where the joke actually comes from

Earliest located printing
Portland Daily Press (Portland, Me.), 24 March 1904
Originally about
the New York legislature at Albany — not the U.S. Senate
Credited from Feb 1905
Rep. J. Adam Bede (R-Minn.), ‘the acknowledged wit of the House’
Roosevelt’s connection
None located in any period printing

This assemblyman of whom Mr. Shober tells is reported to have said that when the roll was called in the New York legislature, half the members did not know whether they were expected to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’ Portland Daily Press, 24 March 1904 — the earliest printing we located

Note what is not here: no Roosevelt, no Senate, and no named author — the speaker is an unidentified New York City assemblyman, described second-hand. The text above is transcribed from the Library of Congress scan with obvious OCR damage silently repaired (the scan reads ‘New Tork’); the wording is otherwise as printed.

Portland Daily Press, 24 March 1904 — Library of Congress scan

How we traced it

  • Start with the credit itself, because it collapses immediately. Wikiquote carries the line on Roosevelt’s page under Disputed — and unlike every other entry in that section, it is a bare bullet with no citation whatsoever: no book, no speech, no date, not even a bad secondary source to argue with Wikiquote, Theodore Roosevelt (Disputed) ↗.
  • So we went to the newspapers instead. Searching the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America corpus for the exact phrasing, the earliest printing we located is the Portland Daily Press of 24 March 1904 — and it is not about the Senate at all. It reports an unnamed New York City assemblyman joking that at roll call in the New York legislature, half the members did not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty’ Portland Daily Press, 24 Mar 1904 ↗. A week later a Nevada paper ran the same gag about its own statehouse Morning Appeal, 31 Mar 1904 ↗, and by September it had been promoted to the U.S. Senate, still with nobody’s name on it Minneapolis Journal, 2 Sep 1904 ↗.
  • The name that period sources do attach is not Roosevelt’s. In February 1905 the Wausau Pilot reports that ‘Adam Bede, the acknowledged wit of the House, said the other day that things had come to such a pass in the United States Senate that on roll call the Senators were uncertain whether to answer present or not guilty’ Wausau Pilot, 14 Feb 1905 ↗. That November an Iowa paper credits the same man again, ‘Adam Bede, the humorist congressman of Minnesota’ Denison Review, 29 Nov 1905 ↗.
  • And the credit stuck with him, not with the President. In January 1910 the New-York Tribune quotes a sitting senator describing his first roll call: ‘I heard my name called, and I knew it was my name, but in the language of Adam Bede, I didn’t know whether to answer “present” or “not guilty”’ New-York Tribune, 21 Jan 1910 ↗. Five years on, in the Senate itself, the joke was Bede’s — and Roosevelt, then the most quoted man in America, was nowhere near it.
Public domain

Everything quoted on this page is free to reuse. The newspaper printings cited here run from 1904 to 1924, all published in the United States well before the 1931 cutoff, and all are served as public-domain scans by the Library of Congress. The joke itself has no identifiable owner — which is rather the point of the page.

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

How Roosevelt got the credit

This is a clean example of a quotation drifting upward. A joke told by a mid-ranking congressman about his colleagues is a footnote; the same joke in the mouth of Theodore Roosevelt is a quotation. Somewhere in the twentieth century the line made that jump, and nobody wrote down when.

Unsupported by anything no source, anywhere

Wikiquote files it under Roosevelt’s Disputed heading as a bare bullet with no citation at all — no work, no speech, no date. Every other entry in that section at least names a book to be sceptical about. This one names nothing Wikiquote, Theodore Roosevelt ↗.

An unnamed New York assemblyman, March 1904 about Albany, not Washington

The earliest printing we located is the Portland Daily Press of 24 March 1904, reporting the crack second-hand about the New York legislature. No author is named, and the U.S. Senate does not enter into it the 1904 printing ↗.

Rep. J. Adam Bede (R-Minn.) the real quotable name

From February 1905 the papers put the Senate version in Bede’s mouth by name, and were still doing so in 1910, when a senator quoted it as ‘the language of Adam Bede’ New-York Tribune, 1910 ↗. Bede was a professional funny man — a newspaperman turned congressman, remembered for exactly this register J. Adam Bede ↗.

Senator Copeland, 1924 the same joke, a new owner

Twenty years on, an Alabama paper reports Senator Copeland telling a bottlers’ convention ‘that when they call the roll in congress, the members don’t know whether to answer “present” or “not guilty”’. A joke this portable acquires a new author roughly every decade, which is how it eventually reached a President Birmingham Age-Herald, 24 Nov 1924 ↗.

Roosevelt is the one name the period record never offers. The line is a newspaper joke about a state legislature from March 1904, and the man his own contemporaries credited for the Senate version was Rep. J. Adam Bede of Minnesota Wausau Pilot, 14 Feb 1905 ↗.

Context

Why it sounds like Roosevelt

The joke belongs to a very specific moment. In the middle of the decade a run of United States senators were genuinely under indictment or serving sentences, and the papers of the day worked that fact hard. The Iowa paper that printed the gag in November 1905 sets it directly beside a note that ‘Senator Mitchell is serving time for his delinquencies’ and a tally of ‘the entire body of convicted senators at this time’. The line was not a general sneer at politicians; it was a topical crack about men who were, at that moment, actually facing juries.

Which is also why it reads as Rooseveltian. Roosevelt was the era’s loudest scourge of corrupt wealth and crooked politics, and he had the verbal manner to match — punchy, contemptuous, quotable. An unattributed joke about crooked senators drifts naturally toward the most quotable anti-corruption voice of the decade. It is the same mechanism that hands Churchill every good wartime line and Twain every good one-liner: the quote goes to whoever it sounds most like, not to whoever said it.

A joke this portable acquires a new author about every decade. Roosevelt was simply the biggest name it ever reached.

Who was J. Adam Bede?

James Adam Bede (1856–1942) was a Minnesota newspaperman who went to Congress as a Republican, serving three terms from March 1903 to March 1909 — precisely the years this joke was circulating with his name on it.

He was famous in Washington for being funny, which in 1905 was a distinct political speciality. The New York Times, writing on humour in Congress in 1912, called him ‘one of the most popular stump speakers and spellbinders of the present generation’, whose speeches were ‘full of dry humor’.

Sharing a name with the title character of George Eliot’s 1859 novel did him no harm on the stump, and is one reason he is easy to lose in a search today.

He lost his renomination in 1908, went back to Pine City to publish and lecture, later served a term in the Minnesota House, and died in Duluth in 1942.

Explore

Filed under

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

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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.

Wikiquote — Theodore Roosevelt (Disputed)en.wikiquote.org

Where the Roosevelt credit lives, and how thin it is: the line sits in the Disputed section as a bare bullet with no citation attached.
Portland Daily Press, 24 March 1904loc.gov

The earliest printing we located — the joke told about the New York legislature, credited to an unnamed assemblyman.
Wausau Pilot, 14 February 1905loc.gov

The first printing we found that names anyone: 'Adam Bede, the acknowledged wit of the House', applying the joke to the United States Senate.
New-York Tribune, 21 January 1910loc.gov

A sitting senator quoting the line five years later as 'the language of Adam Bede' — evidence of who contemporaries thought said it.
J. Adam Bede — biographyen.wikipedia.org

The Minnesota congressman (1856–1942) the period press credited: a newspaperman noted for his humour, in the House 1903–1909.
Chronicling America — the searchable newspaper corpusloc.gov

The Library of Congress archive this page's dating rests on. Every printing cited here can be re-found and re-read there.

Who period sources credit

About J. Adam Bede

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.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented printing (Chicago)

Portland Daily Press (Portland, Me.), 24 March 1904. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Earliest printing located; the joke is told of the New York legislature and credited to an unnamed assemblyman. The Senate version is credited to Rep. J. Adam Bede in the Wausau Pilot (Wausau, Wis.), 14 February 1905.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'’?” Last verified 2 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-they-call-the-roll-in-the-senate-the-senators-do-not/

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