Life, 1916-05-18 · page 12 of 48
Life — May 18, 1916 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes a legal dispute over Shakespeare's authorship. William Selig, a Chicago moving-picture manufacturer, sued Colonel George Fabyan to prevent him from publishing materials claiming Shakespeare didn't write the plays—instead attributing them to Francis Bacon. The main cartoon, titled "Mr. Facing-Both-Ways," depicts Uncle Sam (identifiable by his top hat and stars) straddling a fence between "We Demand Our Rights" and "Peace at Any Price," illustrating the contradiction of supporting both positions simultaneously. The article notes that Judge Tuthill ruled in Fabyan's favor, requiring Selig to pay $5,000. The satire criticizes how the Shakespeare authorship controversy—then a serious intellectual debate—became entangled in commercial interests and legal wrangling.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
936 Knocking William Shakespeare HERE is a new war on, with a new issue. William Selig, a moving- picture manufacturer of Chicago, has gone to court to get Colonel George Fabyan enjoined from publishing facts alleged to be in his possession showing that Bacon, not ‘Shakespeare, wrote aakespeare’s plays. Colonel Fabyan is a member of a great firm of drygoods commission merchants of Chicago and New York. Drygoods did not take up all his energies nor amuse him enough, and he got interested in investigating The papers say that he has spent a great deal of mone id employed for years a staff of literary workers to probe Shakespeare's literary reputation and work out of some of the plays, by aid of a cipher invented by Bacon, a lot of recondite biographi- cal and historical information which expounds the authorship of the plays and much else besides. Mr. Selig, having invested money in Shakespeare movies, appeared as a plaintif€ whose vested interests were imperilled, but Judge Tuthill decided that Colonel Fabyan was right; that Bacon, not Shakespeare, wrote the plays, and that Selig must pay Fabyan $5,000 for the trouble he has made him Later it was announced that, for a legal reason, the decision would be vacated, which may be a disappoint- SIXTEEN-PAGE LETTER FROM Tow! OH, WHAT DOES HE say?” ys TO CALL THIS MR. FACING-LOTH-WAYS ment to Colonel Fabyan, who would doubtless like to have the case carried up as an advertisement of his theory and researches. It may even be t Mr. Selig brought suit to oblige him, and, anyhow, it seems to be a fact that Colonel Fabyan is a rich and inquisitive man who has long been interested in the Baconian theory, and is bent on clearing up whatever mystery lies be- hind it, And now is the time to do it, when Shakespeare’s three hundredth anni- versary has made him so much more talked about than usual. The Germans are addicted to Shakespeare. Some think him the only Englishman worth notice. Others of course claim him as a German. If it should be disclosed in a convincing fashion that Bacon or somebody else wrote Shakespeare's plays, it would interest the erudite Ger- comicbooks.com