Recently I recalled that years ago in college one of my professors mentioned something about the Wizard of Oz being more than a children’s story and also more than a cool visual to go with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon….something about monetary policy, blah, blah. Recently in a discussion with friends something allowed me access to this long forgotten part of my brain, and when I brought the topic up I was roundly ridiculed. As usual, Google comes in handy in situations like this, and I found the following exegesis on The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz which can be read in its entirety along with another interpretive essay by clicking here.
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Chicago, 1900) is a parable about Money Reform and the 1890s Midwestern political movement led by William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)… From 1891-1895 Bryan served in the House of Representatives, where he advocated the coinage of silver at a fixed ratio with gold, in order to break the bankers’ monopoly and manipulation of the gold-backed currency.
Bryan and his supporters accused Eastern banks and railroads of oppressing farmers and industrial workers. Bryan believed that a switch to silver-backed currency would make money plentiful. …In 1896 Bryan delivered the following words at the Democratic National Convention: “Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the labouring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their [i.e. the bankers’] demand for a gold standard by saying to them: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.'”
Although only 36 years old, this speech resulted in his nomination for the presidency. He contested, and lost to, William McKinley. He stood again for the Democrats in 1900 and 1908, losing both times. Carroll Quigley wrote about the 1896 Presidential election in Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (MacMillan, 1966, p. 74): “Though the forces of high finance and of big business were in a state of near panic, by a mighty effort involving large-scale spending they were successful in electing McKinley.” L. Frank Baum was editor of a South Dakota newspaper and he wrote the first of his Oz series on Bryan’s second attempt in 1900.
Oz is short for ounce, the measure for gold and silver. Dorothy, hailing from Kansas, represents the commoner. The Tin Woodsman is the industrial worker, rusted as solid as the factories shut down in the 1893 depression. The Scarecrow is the farmer who apparently doesn’t have the wit to understand his situation or his political interests. The Cowardly Lion is Bryan himself; who had a loud roar but little political power.
The Good Witches represent the magical potential of the people of the North and the South.
After vanquishing the Wicked Witch of the East (the Eastern bankers) Dorothy frees The Munchkins (the little people). With the witch’s silver slippers (the silver standard), Dorothy sets out on the Yellow Brick Road (the gold standard) to the Emerald City (Washington), where they meet the Wizard (the President), who appears powerful, but is ultimately revealed as an illusion; the real Wizard being just a little man who pulls levers behind a curtain…
When the real Wizard is exposed, the now enlightened Scarecrow denounces him. Dorothy drowns the Wicked Witch of the West (the West Coast elite); the water being an allegory for the Midwest drought. The real Wizard flies away in a hot-air balloon, the Scarecrow is left to govern the Emerald City, the Tin Woodsman rules the West, and the Cowardly Lion returns to the forest where he becomes King of the Beasts after vanquishing a giant spider which was devouring the animals in the forest. Dorothy’s silver slippers were changed to ruby in the 1939 film.”
So there it is. Wait ’til you hear my theory that Mary Poppins was a Communist (really!)
December 17, 2008 at 3:31 am
I remember being amazed and I always watched this movie differently after discussing its allegorical nature in my HS American History class.
December 17, 2008 at 4:51 am
I remember talking about this in American History also. L. Frank Baum denied that he wrote this story as an allegory, but the thing about art is that once it leaves its creator’s hands, people can kind of take it to mean nearly anything they want.
December 17, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I think The flying monkeys was a forshadowing of the Blackhawk helicopters of the CFR!
Egad what some people will believe.
December 17, 2008 at 3:33 pm
My high school history teacher also bought into it. Having read The Wizard of Oz and the sundry “Official” commentaries, I never saw anything of that. However, my teacher was a rather intimidating sort, so I never told him he was wrong.
December 17, 2008 at 6:09 pm
And the movie “Evil Dead” is actually a commentary on male fears about the feminist movement.
The fun thing about finding political meaning in works of entertainment is that you can almost ALWAYS come up with a convincing narrative, AND it freaks out your little brothers!
December 17, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Dave Beebs– Without absolutely clear comment from the author, it’s impossible to prove. However, Baum was an editor of what they called a “silverite” newspaper and was very interested in the politics of monetary policy, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Allegory stories like that were very common and popular in the late 19th and e. 20th centuries… as a good read of Lord of the Rings will tell you.
December 17, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Wikipedia actually has a pretty good and even-haned discussion of this issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
December 18, 2008 at 3:21 am
There are a LOT of political back-stories to many children’s classics. Watership Down is all about Socialism. The Smurfs are about Communism. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series is about English expansionism and the dangesrs of assimilation.
December 18, 2008 at 4:03 pm
William Jennings Bryan could have won that election if he didn’t end up in such a strange predicament.
He was on the ballot for 3 different parties at the same time! Bryan was the face of the progressive movement’s Populist Party. It was a rural-based political party whose chief economic interest was to (get this) encourage inflation. The rationale was that farmers owned more debt than assets, so a cheap dollar would benefit them. Hence bi-metalism, trying to encourage more dollars in the marketplace. It’s a short-sighted strategy with a compelling argument for people in the depression of the 1890s (or recession of 2008; cf. the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies).
Bryan was the biggest prize in this young third-party. But he was also an impetious 36-year-old when this Populist Presidential Nominee stormed off to the 1896 Chicago Democratic Convention. And for reasons that are not still fully explainable, the Democrats let him speak to their convention. Think of it. Would the Republicans let Ralph Nader take the podium today? And this is when Conventions actually decided something! But they let him speak nonetheless; Bryan delivered his famous Cross of Gold speech that was so rousing and so compelling that it brought the house down. The Democrats would nominate William Jennings Bryan to be their candidate, putting him at the head of two different party tickets at the same time (with two different Vice Presidential running mates).
Bryan would also appear atop the Silver Republican Party, but we’ll just consider that a footnote to history. You didn’t know there was a Silver Republican Party? Neither does anyone else.
It’s hard to imagine in todays world that inflationary monetary policy would be a part of the greatest political speeches in American history, but it’s true. But the idea of expanding precious currency was going to solve all our problems. We just had to follow gold brick roads to emerald cities in our ruby slippers. Then we’d be home free.
December 18, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I should have also added– this election was confusing to a lot of people. They wanted Bryan to win, but didn’t know if they should vote for him as a Democrat or as a Populist. Bryan just wanted to be President (he ran in 4 different elections). He knew that his best shot was as a Democrat, but he also knew that if he backed out of the Populist Party, it’d likely fold. He was the face and practically the founder (not exactly) of that party, and had an emotional tie to the fledgling party. So he ran on both tickets. And lost on both. People just didn’t know who to vote for, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan or McKinley.
William Jennings Bryan never got real traction as a presidential candidate again, but would influence American politics for the next 3 decades. He was also the lead prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial and is the model for Matthew Harrison Brady in “Inherit the Wind”.