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Excerpted from the course textbook -- "Essentials of Economics" by N. Gregory Mankiw.

The "Wizard of Oz" and the Free-Silver Debate

As a child, you probably saw the movie "The Wizard of Oz," based on a children's book written in 1900.  The movie and book tell the story of a young girl, Dorothy, who finds herself lost in a strange land far from home.  You probably did not know, however, that the story is actually an allegory about U.S. monetary policy in the late 19th century.

From 1880 to 1896, the price level in the U.S. economy fell by 23 percent.  Because this event was unanticipated, it led to a major redistribution of wealth.  Most farmers in the western part of the country were debtors.  Their creditors were the bankers in the east.  When the price level fell, it caused the real value of these debts to rise, which enriched the banks at the expense of the farmers.

According to Populist politicians of the time, the solution to the farmers' problem was the free coinage of silver.  During this period, the United States was operating with a gold standard.  The quantity of gold determined the money supply and, thereby, the price level.  The free-silver advocates wanted silver, as well as gold, to be used as money.  If adopted, this proposal would have increased the money supply, pushed up the price level, and reduced the real burden of the farmers' debts.

The debate over silver was heated, and it was central to the politics of the 1890s.  A common election slogan of the Populists was "We Are Mortgaged.  All but Our Votes."  One prominent advocate of free silver was William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee for president in 1896.  Bryan is remembered in part for a speech at the Democratic Party's nomination convention in which he said, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.  You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."  Rarely since then have politicians waxed so poetic about alternative approaches to monetary policy.  Nonetheless, Bryan lost the election to Republican William McKinley, and the United States remained on the gold standard.

L. Frank Baum, author of the book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was a mid-western journalist.  When Baum sat down to write a story for children, he made the characters represent protagonists in the major political battle of his time.  Here is how economic historian Hugh Rockoff, writing in the "Journal of Political Economy" in 1990, interprets the story:

                                Dorothy:  Traditional American values
                                       Toto:  Prohibitionist party, also called the Teetotalers
                            Scarecrow:  Farmers
                    Tin Woodsman:  Industrial workers
                     Cowardly Lion:  William Jennings Bryan
                           Munchkins:  Citizens of the East
  Wicked Witch of the East:  Grover Cleveland
Wicked Witch of the West:  William McKinley
                                   Wizard:  Marcus Alonzo Hanna, Chairman of the Republican Party
                                           Oz:  Abbreviation for an ounce of gold
                Yellow Brick Road:  Gold standard

In the end of Baum's story, Dorothy does find her way home, but it is not by just following the yellow brick road.  After a long and perilous journey, she learns that the wizard is incapable of helping her or her friends.  Instead, Dorothy finally discovers the magical power of her silver slippers.  [Note:  When the book was made into a movie in 1939, Dorothy's slippers were changed from silver to ruby.  The Hollywood filmmakers were more interested in showing off the new technology of Technicolor than in telling a story about 19th-century monetary policy.]

Although the Populists lost the debate over the free coinage of silver, they did eventually get the monetary expansion and inflation they wanted.  In 1898, prospectors discovered gold near the Klondike River in the Canadian Yukon.  Increased supplies of gold also arrived from the mines of South Africa.  As a result, the money supply and the price level started to rise in the United States and other countries operating on a gold standard.  Within 15 years, prices in the United States were back to the levels that had prevailed in the 1880s, and farmers were better able to handle their debts.
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