I wrote about it over 15 years ago, and I recently saw it on Turner Classic Movies. I changed the previous column in several ways, but it was still a great film and story!
A kid’s movie? A child’s story? Was it that simple? Maybe not. Frank Baum wrote the story, and it was first published in 1909. Baum called his creation a “Modernized Fairy Tale,” but he had very strong political opinions, and he wove them in, throughout the story. Numerous scholars have said that the characters in the story were not invented by Baum, but were well known in the 1890’s and 1900. The Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Yellow Brick Road, Silver Slippers (changed to red in the movie), cyclone, Emerald City, etc. All were extensively used in editorial cartoons of the era. Baum took them one by one, coupled them with his political leanings, and fabricated a wonderful story which was made into a very popular movie in 1939, with a lot of great stars.
Dorothy, naïve, young and simple, represented the American people who needed self confidence. She was every man who was lost, and couldn’t find his way back home. Toto, her dog, represented prohibition, which was then advocated at that time (toto-ly against alcohol). Prohibition, the 18th Amendment, wasn’t enacted into law till 1920. The Munchkins were the little people; ordinary citizens, powerless, and usually on the wrong side of things. Oz was the representation of “ounce.” Baum was a strong supporter of William Jennings Bryan, who was fighting for a 16 to 1 ratio of silver to gold, or “Free Silver,” as it was then called. That was never realized, since even then, the ratio was 30 to 1. Bryan ran three times for President (1896,1900, and 1908), was a great public speaker, and was often called the ‘Great Commoner.’
To show you how things have changed, silver then was 55 cents an ounce and gold $20.67. Today, the ratio is about 86 to 1. Those prices remained until FDR became President, 27 years later.
Bryan wanted more silver coinage (bi-metalism), to increase the nation’s money supply with silver, rather than gold. Silver was 55 cents an ounce then, but by 1964, when it was about 85 cents an ounce, it was considered far too valuable to have coins made out of it, so that was the last of silver coinage! As I write this, silver spot is $50, not 85 cents, and a silver quarter is worth about $6.50!
Dorothy must wear the silver slippers (which were changed to red in the movie), down the yellow brick path of gold, which led to the Emerald City, which of course was a total fake, and represented wasteful, powerful government, which even then, wasted huge amounts of money, and fooled everyone for a while. Less than ten years later, Woodrow Wilson got America into foolish World War One, which killed 116,708 Americans, and injured probably ten times than many.
The cyclone represented a political revolution Baum hoped for, (it was in black and white in the movie), which would transform a drab nation, into a land of Technicolor prosperity, if Bryan were elected. Bryan was a continual thorn in William McKinley’s side, who ran in 1897, and was assassinated in 1901. The Tin Man was the de-humanized industrial worker, badly mistreated by the evil, green, Wicked Witch of the East, who ruled the Munchkins, until the cyclone created the political revolution Baum hoped for, and killed her. The Tin Man was rusted and helpless, and it would take continual Rockefeller oil, applied often, to make him work. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, was then roundly accused of being a monopoly. The Scarecrow was the farmer, who needed to work with the Tin Man to gain power. In that case, it became the “Farmer-Labor Party,” which dissolved in 1936.
President McKinley, till he was assassinated, was often called a “Wizard” for his political skills, and the man behind the curtain could be a reference to the McKinley candidacy in the land of “Oz,” (ounce of gold), or Wall Street gold advocates, who didn’t want silver coinage, like Bryan. The wizard McKinley, had lots of little knobs and devices to fool the people into voting for him, which would make America a “Yellow Brick (currency) Road,” not a gold and silver one, although of course, America already had gold and silver coinage in full use by all. The other animals were political allegories of then politicians.
The similes can go on and on, but it is obvious that the politicians and sheer waste of everything they and government did then, and still do today, are as fake as the Emerald City and the Wizard. When Dorothy was shaken by Aunt Em and awakened, she was ever so glad to be home again with Toto and her family. I wonder if today, a writer could conceive of a grand story like The Wizard of Oz, and liken it to today’s virtually worthless, backed by nothing, constantly becoming worth less, till the two words will be combined and become ‘worthless,’ as has all paper money in history. Today, inflation insurance, in the form of ‘Oz’ (ounces of silver and gold), are never recommended by the 86,623 ‘wealth managers,’ who have conned millions into believing that security is in computer entries, paper stocks, bonds, and various forms of printed paper items, which will eventually be as valuable as they were in 1929, when the ‘bottom’ had reached on everything millions had depended on except, or course, gold and silver! Bit coin, which was never worth anything, nor backed by anything, has lost over $30,000 in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it will return to its beginning, when it took two to buy a pizza?
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com