The
History of Money by Jack Weatherford, 1997, Excerpt
The most memorable
work of literature to come from the debate over gold and silver in the United
States was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, by journalist L.
Frank Baum, who greatly distrusted the power of the city financiers and who
supported a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver.
After the cyclone
violently rips Dorothy and her dog out of Kansas and drops them in the East,
Dorothy sets out on the gold road to fairyland, which Baum calls Oz, where the
wicked witches and wizards of banking operate. Along the way she meets the
Scarecrow, who represents the American farmer; the Tin Woodman, who represents
the American factory worker; and the Cowardly Lion, who represents William
Jennings Bryan.
Marcus Hanna, the
power behind the Republican Party and the McKinley administration, was the
wizard controlling the mechanisms of finance in the Emerald City. He was the
Wizard of the Gold Ounce - abbreviated, of course to Wizard of Oz - and the
Munchkins were the simpleminded people of the East who did not understand how
the wizard and his fellow financiers pulled the levers and strings that
controlled the money, the economy, and the government.
In the end, all the
American citizens had to do was expose the wizard and his witches for the
frauds they were, and all would be well in the bimetal monetary world of silver
and gold.
In the book,
Dorothy’s magic silver slippers got her back to Kansas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7933175.stm
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