The earliest catfish?

Another reference to the catfish joke has been found.

This one dates to a Congressional hearing before a House subcommittee on appropriations in 1964. In the more genteel language of the era, a representative of an Alabama Electric Cooperative told the joke:

"Bouldin, Vogtle, and Pulley remind one of the fisherman who held a small, wriggling fish in his hand, preparatory to cleaning it for eating, and said: 'Hold still, little fish. I'm not going to hurt you—I only want to gut you.'"

Because of Google's frustrating "snippet view," it's hard to provide the context, but the discussion appears to be about an electrical generation and transmission program that "Bouldin, Vogtle and Pulley" were surreptitiously trying to kill.

As we've written before, this joke was probably old even at the turn of the century. Dome is beginning to believe if we pursue this any further, we'll soon be reading the Apocrypha. Anyone have a copy of the Book of Catfish?

Correction: Michael Van Fossen at UNC-Chapel Hill looked up the reference for us, and Google Books had it wrong. The entry does not date to 1904, but to 1964.