David Sutton

Most modern readers don't recognize the significance of the silver shoes. When MGM made the classic motion picture they took several creative liberties to maximize the use of Technicolor including changing the silver shoes to bright red ruby slippers. In the original context of the book's publication a top political issue was bimetallism. The Republican Party traditionally adhered to the gold standard for monetary policy while the Democrat Party wanted to diverge from the gold standard to allow both gold and silver to be minted as currency. This policy was most fiercely advocated by three time loosing Democrat presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan who advocated that the inflation caused by bimetallism would allow farmers to pay off their debts. Like many fairy tales there was a political analogy in The Wizard of Oz to silver shoes of bimetallism on the yellow brick road of the gold standard.