The "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" as Monetary Allegory

In his essay "The Crime of 1873", which appears as Chapter 3 of Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History, Milton Friedman refers to a "fascinating paper" in which Rutgers economist Hugh Rockoff "persuasively argues that L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 'is not only a child's tale but also a sophisticated commentary on the political and economic debates of the Populist Era' . . . that is, on the silver agitation generated by the so-called crime of 1873."

"The land of Oz," according to Rockoff, "is the East [in which] the gold standard reigns supreme and where an ounce (Oz) of gold has almost mystical significance" . . .. Rockoff goes on to identify the Wicked Witch of the East with Grover Cleveland, the gold Democrat who, as president, "led the [successful] repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of [sic, should be "in"] 1893" . . ..

Want to find out which character is identified with William Jennings Bryan? Or why Dorothy's little dog is named Toto? Well, I'm happy to report that Prof. Rockoff's article, The "Wizard of Oz" as Monetary Allegory, is available online.

The illustration at the top is taken from a post at Propaganda & Mass Persuasion.

Realigning America

The other day I finished R. Hal Williams's Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896, the newest addition to the University Press of Kansas's American Presidential Elections Series. I'm too lazy to put together a formal review, but I thought I would provide a few observations.

First, the strength of Prof. Williams's short volume (171 pages of text, excluding appendices, endnotes, index, etc.) is his ability to paint vivid portraits of the characters and convey the drama of the inherently dramatic events. Through the use of details and quotes by eye witnesses, he can in a few words give you a stunning “you-are-there” picture that etches a scene in your mind's eye. Here, for example, is William Jennings Bryan bounding to the podium to deliver his Cross of Gold speech:

“Suddenly I saw [Edgar Lee Masters said] a man spring up from his seat among the delegates, and with the agility and swiftness of an eager boxer hurry to the speaker's rostrum. He was slim, tall, pale, raven-haired, beaked of nose.” Delegates caught at his coat as he made his way to the platform, “as if to bid him God-speed."

He climbed the platform “two steps at a time,” a reporter for the New York World said, with the look of a “strong-limbed, strong-lunged” athlete; “Ear-splitting noises were heard; waves of scarlet fans danced in the galleries.” Another reporter, positioned about fifty yards away, saw “a man in the full energy of ambitious life – flashing, gleaming eye, broad-shouldered, straight as an arrow, the physique of a gladiator, the spirit of a crusader; voice clear and vibrant; 15,000 spectators emotionally following every word, every gesture.”

Second, Prof. Williams – whose book is clearly aimed at those who, like me, do not have a lot of knowledge about the period – does a good job setting up the economic backdrop to the election. Just as the Panic of 1837 brought down Martin Van Buren, so too the Panic of 1893 laid waste to the presidency of the newly-elected Grover Cleveland. Using his descriptive powers, Prof. Williams conveys the devastation and the president's growing isolation and passivity as he proved unable to deal with it. As depression continued to stalk the land, the Democrats suffered massive defeats in off-year elections. Barring unforeseen developments, 1896 was clearly going to be a Republican year.

And unforeseen developments there were, which Prof. Williams, clearly a political junkie, leads us through skillfully. There are perceptive analyses of both major candidates and a sympathetic discussion of the plight of the Populists after Bryan's nomination.

The book has one major failing, however. The treatment of the silver issue is virtually incomprehensible. Prof. Williams takes all of a page and a half to summarize bimetallism, and I believe that someone coming new to the subject will remain befuddled as to what, exactly, it was and why devotees of Free Silver so fervently took up the cause. The result is a huge hole that leaves the reader without backround mystified as to why anyone cared about the election - and why anyone should bother reading about it now. Stanley L. Jones's The Presidential Election of 1896 opened with a separate chapter that explained the history of bimetallism and effectively conveyed its allure (even while criticizing it as simplistic and naive). Prof. Williams's volume desperately needs a similar preamble.

For this reason, if you are new to the period and the Free Silver issue you really need a prequel, such as Milton Friedman's essay "The Crime of 1873" in Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History, discussed previously here.

The Crime of 1873

I recently bought Milton Friedman's book Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History because reviews indicated it contained chapters on free silver and bimetallism. The third chapter alone - entitled "The Crime of 1873" - is worth the price of the book (about $10 at Amazon). In twenty-nine pages you get a comprehensible sketch of United States monetary policy from the founding through the end of the 19th Century; an explanation of bimetallism; a review of the events leading to, and the legislative history of, the Coinage Act of 1873, which placed the United States back on the gold standard effective January 1, 1879; a discussion of the effects of the adoption of a gold standard and its relationship to the deflation and resulting political turmoil that the country experienced in the 1880s and 1890s, culminating in William Jennings Bryan's 1896 Cross of Gold campaign; and an analysis of what might have happened if the United States had gone back on a bimetallic standard (which would have been a de facto silver standard) in the 1870s.

American history in the late 19th Century seems forbidding because (a) all those guys had big, bushy beards and looked the same and you can't tell them apart, and (b) there are all sorts of depressions and crashes and everybody's coming up with contradictory theories to explain them and equally contradictory remedies to solve them, and even if you can figure out what they're talking about you have no idea who's crazy and who's not. Friedman doesn't do much to sort out the beards, but his brief essay on the Crime of 1873 provides essential background on the economic problems for which I am profoundly grateful.

All of which leads me to theorize that people know more about William Jennings Bryan than other political figures of the period because he didn't have a beard.

"Is Mr. Bryan a Mattoid"?

It seems that the New York Times of the late 19th Century was about as sleazy as it is now. The target was different, but the methodology was the same: use pseudo-psychology to smear the enemy as unhinged and dangerous, with a hint of religious craziness thrown in for good measure.

On September 27, 1896 - in the middle of the 1896 presidential campaign that pitted Republican William McKinley against Democrat William Jennings Bryan - the Times saw fit to publish an article with the subtle headline, Is Bryan Crazy?

Two days later, the paper followed up with an article entitled Is Mr. Bryan a Mattoid; Leading Alienists Analyze the Democratic Candidate. In the finest Times tradition, the follow-up article purported to be fair and balanced, although the subtitle suggests that the panel of "alienists" consulted was somewhat one-sided: "They Disagree, as Experts Very Often Do - Dr. Sachs Sees a Chance for Physical Breakdown - Drs. Hammond and Dana Think There Is Evidence of Degeneracy - Dr. Spitzka Thinks Lightly of Him - Dr. Collins Wants Fair Play."

You can read the original articles at the links above. In The Presidential Election of 1896, Stanley L. Jones describes the Times's smear as follows:

Probably the most irresponsible development of the entire campaign occurred in the columns of the New York Times. On September 27, [1896,] the Times published a letter signed by an "eminent alienist," in which the writer concluded, from an analysis of Bryan's speeches, that his mind "was not entirely sound," that his presence in the campaign created the possibility that there would be a "madness in the White House," and that Bryan was a man of "abnormal egotism." The writer of the letter added that Bryan's father had been a "religious fanatic and crank."

In the same issue and on the same page the Times editorially expressed its agreement with the writer of the letter. The newspaper, too, found in [Bryan's] speeches the evidence of his mental deterioration. It did not follow, said the Times, that Bryan was insane. Nevertheless, they went on to say: "What, however, most of all entitles us to say that Mr. Bryan is of unsound mind, whether we call this condition unsoundness in English or insanity in Latin, is that his procedures are not adaptations of intelligent means to intelligent ends."

A mattoid, by the way, is "a person displaying eccentric behaviour and mental characteristics that approach the psychotic."