What if I told you that one of the world's most beloved children's stories was really an allegory of class and economic struggle over monetary policy, specifically gold and silver policy?
Many of you may have heard that Dorothy's shoes were silver but do you know why?
Thanks to the monetary act of 1873 silver was demonitized and caused a money contraction that benefited big bankers and industry and crushed the little guy.
The 1880s and 1890s saw the rise of an everyday man populist movement that fought for a Constitutional bi-metallic system vs a pure gold standard.
The scarecrow represents the farmer; the woodsman Tin Man represents the men working in factories; the lion represents presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan who campaigned to take on Rockefeller and Carnegie who who are the emobidment of the wicked witches of the East and west.
The moral of the story is that red-blooded Americans had what they needed all along.
Farmers had a brain, industrial workers had a heart, and Bryan had courage, and the answer to the banking woes was silver with gold, not gold alone.
What is the abbreviation for ounce?