Few children who enjoy the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or who delight in the movie starring Judy Garland suspect that in fact L. Frank Baum's tale is a parable on free silver, populism, and the 1896 and 1900 Bryan campaigns.
Frank Baum had enjoyed a number of interesting careers prior to becoming a children's writer. He had edited a farm country newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota, until the paper failed in 1891. Baum also authored a textbook on the raising of chickens, and invented a new kind of axle grease. After the failure of his newspaper Baum relocated to Chicago, where he witnessed first-hand the suffering caused by the Panic of 1893. What many of Baum's modern-day readers don't realize is that like many men who had seen the horror of hard times in the farm belt, Baum turned to Bryan's brand of Democratic populism as a cure for the nation's ills.
Baum was present at the 1896 Democratic National Convention, and was deeply moved by Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. In Chicago, Baum marched in torchlight processions supporting the standard-bearer of the Democratic and People's Party. In 1900 Baum again supported Bryan, as free silver gave way to imperialism as the key issue.
It is no accident that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz describes the great ugliness of Kansas in the late 19th century. Everything is gray as far as the eye can see, as the sun has baked the prairie thoroughly, and dust storms are now the rule. The farm house where Dorothy lives is sunbaked too, and the paint has blistered off and blown away. Uncle Henry never laughs, and Auntie Em (who face is completely gray) never even smiles. Baum's portrait of Kansas tied in closely with reality. Although prairie settlers didn't realize it, they had enjoyed several years of abnormally high rainfall soon after their arrival, but by the 1890s they were facing the prevailing drought that really was more common for that area. Farmers' horror was only made worse by several devastating blizzards, as well as the later appearance of the Panic of 1893.
After a terrible cyclone, Dorothy finds herself in the magical land of Oz. The cyclone has set the house down on the Wicked Witch of the East and killed her. The cyclone symbolizes an election, and the Wicked Witch of the East represented the cruel money powers of Wall Street. Dorothy learns that only the powerful Wizard of Oz can help her, and she resolves to walk to the Emerald City (Washington, which is the color of greenbacks). The Good Witch of the North (symbolizing northern voters) agrees to help Dorothy and provides her with a pair of silver slippers. Hollywood changed Dorothy's new footwear to ruby slippers to add some color to the film, but Baum's book featured silver slippers. Thus the only way to salvation is the way Dorothy takes: Silver slippers walking on a gold road (the yellow brick road). Similarly, Baum believed, bi-metalism could save the country.
Along the way Dorothy meets a scarecrow (representing America's farmers), a character who believes he lacks intelligence. Along the way he will learn this is not true. Dorothy and her new companion soon meet a tin woodsman. The tin woodsman had begun life as a human being, but having been driven to work faster, he kept cutting off pieces of his body, and thus his flesh and blood came to be replaced with tin parts until he was all tin. (Thus, Baum indicates that American wage laborers were losing their humanity.) The tin woodsman announces he wants to recover his humanity by asking the great wizard for a heart. Finally, the trio of friends, and Toto too, meet a cowardly lion (who symbolizes William Jennings Bryan). The lion (perhaps like Bryan on the imperialism issue) fears he is not courageous, but soon discovers that in fact he has all the courage he needs.
Like the quixotic crusade led by Jacob Coxey, marching toward Washington, Dorothy and her friends do not look like a powerful army, but do possess confidence that right will prevail as they descend upon the Emerald City.
At the Emerald City the wizard sends the intrepid travelers back out to kill the Wicked Witch of the West (who symbolized the evils that had crushed agriculture on the Great Plains). Appropriately, water is all it takes to kill the witch and make the country blossom again. Back at the Emerald City, Dorothy and her friends discover the land's great leader (symbolizing McKinley) is a charlatan, claiming to know all but in reality just a fallible human being.
Finally the Good Witch of the South (free silver support was strong south of the Mason-Dixon) tells Dorothy that she has had the capacity for great magic all along—via her silver slippers. The trouble was that she had not recognized the great power of silver. Clicking her heels together, Dorothy travels back to Kansas, by her very presence making that place seem less hopeless. Meanwhile the Scarecrow rules in Oz, and Dorothy's other two companions govern smaller places.
The central message of the book is that America was characterized by great illusions and delusions. Farmers believed they lacked brains, which they did not; workers believed they had been dehumanized, although this had not yet really happened. President McKinley (like the great Oz) hid in his palace and claimed to understand complex ideas (like economic theory) but in reality they did not. Above all, Americans did not understand the power of silver and how it could be used for good, balanced in harmony with gold.
The Wizard of Oz was first described as a Bryanite allegory by high school teacher Henry M. Littlefield in the 1960s. Littlefield did a thorough study of the book and what various characters symbolized. Thus for Littlefield the Munchkins represented workers enslaved by cruel capitalism. The flying monkeys symbolized the Plains Indians. Even Littlefield, however, was mute on the allegorical identity of Dorothy's little dog Toto!
Where did the word "Oz" come from? Collectors of political items should know the answer: It's on a number of button designs. Bryanites favored free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 Oz. to 1. Baum, however, had another explanation: In one published recollection, he said the name "Oz" came from a filing cabinet in his home, with one drawer marked "O-Z."
Indeed, here's the hardest part about the allegory described by Littlefield: Did Baum intend all this? Did he mean for the scarecrow to symbolize all American farmers? Did the Emerald City really represent Washington? If the Wonderful Wizard of Oz was carefully constructed to be an allegory on silver, Baum never admitted it. Quite possibly it was more subconscious, in a book written by an ardent Bryan and silver supporter. It would be hard to deny that the scarecrow is an excellent symbol for uneducated farmers with their native wits, and that the tin woodsman does an excellent job of standing for partly dehumanized workers who still possess the ability to help their fellow man. The trip to the capital using silver shoes and a golden road is hard to dismiss as a symbol.
Precisely what did Baum intend? We will probably never know, but he did say he intended to write "a parable of today," including modern-day American fairies rather than outdated European ones. After Bryan lost twice, however, Baum paid less attention to silver. There can be no denying that the follow-up book The Marvelous Land of Oz was a biting satire of the woman suffrage movement—But that will have to be left for a future article!
| © 1998 by Stephen Cresswell |
Source: Henry M. Littlefield, "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism," American Quarterly, volume 64: 47-58.