Understanding cross version problem

[Francis Belliveau]

I have encountered something that does not make sense to me.
I am normally running version 23.1 but my OS command line binds to 22.1

I have the following line in my .emacs file
  (if (boundp tool-bar-mode) (tool-bar-mode -1))

I put that there to eliminate an error from 22.1 about the missing variable.  
However, when I -debug-init I am still being told:
  "void-variable tool-bar-mode"
I thought that is what "boundp" was checking?

What have I missed?

Fran