Annemann's stooges

[Mariano Tomatis]

"Ted Annemann once said that in a room of four people, if it took three stooges to fool the one person, he'd perform the effect anyway and feel justified in letting that party think he was a miracle man."
Linking Ring Vol. 17, No. 11, January 1938.

Any earlier reference to this (often cited) quote by Annemann?
"Once said" or "once wrote"? If the latter, where?
According to Goodliffe (Abracadabra, december 1976), it was the late Theo Annemann who said it.

Many thanks in advance!

[Gordon Meyer]

The quote below is from The Jinx 6. This is just a little extract from a larger paragraph, but maybe this is what The Linking Ring is trying to paraphrase:

"I don’t give a hoot or continental what or how much has previously been set or framed. If it fools those who were meant to be fooled it has served its purpose. If there were seven in the audience and the performer enlisted six to convincingly fool the seventh, I still think it the thing to do although that is a pretty drastic example and there would have to be a strong reason for fooling that seventh person."

Again, it's worth looking it up to get the full context.

[Mariano Tomatis]

Thank you Gordon, really appreciated!
Greetings from Italy by me and Ferdinando Buscema, who is with me now.