Life, 1915-07-01 · page 29 of 44
Life — July 1, 1915 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains satirical rumors ("It Is Probably Not True") mocking prominent 1910s figures during World War I tensions. **Key references:** - **Theodore Roosevelt** and William Barnes Jr.: satirizing rumors of vaudeville tour - **The Kaiser**: mocking German preparedness efforts - **King George and "Billy" (Kaiser Wilhelm)**: British-German royal family tensions; the "Order of the Golden Noose" joke references Wilhelm as an enemy - **Vice-President Marshall, Bryan, Kitchener, Winston Churchill**: mocking American neutrality debates and military preparedness - **Count von Bernstorff** (German ambassador): joking about German propaganda warning Americans not to speak English—referencing real tensions over American aid to Britain **The cartoons** (B and P, signed "Cesare" and "Rea Irvin") illustrate nursery rhymes applied to contemporary figures: "Baby Bunting" shows someone going hunting in a limousine; "Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater" depicts domestic confinement, possibly satirizing political imprisonment or control. The humor relies on readers recognizing these public figures and understanding pre-WWI American political debates.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“S\Y, OLD WOMAN, HOW MUCH WILL YoU TAKE INVENTION ?” It Is Probably Not True HAT William Barnes, Jr, and Theodore Roosevelt have formed a partnership for a tour in vaudeville next season in a little farce to be called “ Showing Each ther Up”. That the Kaiser is taking lessons in the American ver- a's gone acl nacular, and learning how to run a jitney bus, as a measure get a limousine of preparedness for a possible future. That Herman Ridder is shortly to retire from his edi- al labors to embark upon a tour of the United States lecture entitled “Is the Hyphen the Missing That Brand Whitlock, Henry Van Dyke and Thomas Nelson Page have made a compact with each other not to write a word about the war after the expiration of their ambassadorial and ministerial terms. That King George, after having withdrawn the Order of the Garter from the calf of his Imperial Cousin Billy of Notsdam, has repented his haste and has now offered him the Order of the Golden Noose, for the adornment of his instead, at Vice-President Marshall is knitting ear-tabs for he Esquimaux as a positive intimation of his unalterable + as well as of the pacific bovinity of his general tent, That ex-Secretary Bryan, torn betwixt love and duty, s requested the President, in the event of war with rmany, to put him in command of the army of defense, h headquarters on the summit of Pike's Peak, That Lord Kitchener has suggested the trial of nples of new gas explosives for use in the British army on d Northcliffe and the Right Honorable Winston Spencer chill, RPLD, That Count von Bernstorff contemplates the insertion of v advertisement im all the leading newspapers of this country warning Americans not to speak English on and ETER, Peter. pumpkin eater fs * 7 Had a wife and couldn't Keep her. cr the Fourth of July on penalty of another explosion He put her in a padded cell from the Herr Doctor Dernburg. And there he kept her very well. comicbooks.com.