Wizard's Family to Apologize

[Diane Merkel]

I know I posted something about Baum months ago, but I can't find it. I hope you find this interesting:

Prior to the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum published a weekly newspaper in Aberdeen, S.D. Now, more than 100 years later, his descendants are coming to South Dakota to apologize for editorials he wrote just before and after the Wounded Knee massacre calling for the extermination of the Lakota Sioux.

Article: blogcritics.org/archives/2006/08/15/134054.php

[elisabeth]

This is just fascinating. He's calling for their extermination because he admires them so much and because they've been so wronged by the white man. His attitude's much more complex than it's sometimes represented as being. Very interesting.

I wonder if the poor man's been misunderstood? It's a bit reminiscent of Swift's "Modest Proposal", isn't it: his suggestion that the way to solve the problem of starvation in Ireland was to make the Irish eat their children. Irony. Risky stuff if you can't be sure your audience won't take it seriously ...

[crzhrs]

Apprently Baum had a history of health problems . . . which obviously didn't affect his brain.

The Wizard of Oz book is far different than the movie . . . very darker and violent . . . and there was some talk that Baum had used drugs . . . but I haven't found any evidence of that.

[pohanka]

His statements appear quite clear to me. Since the noble savages have had their "spirit" broken it was only humane to exterminate the remaining Sioux population as they were "curs" who did not deserve life. My opinion is that this type of perspective underlines two critical issues;

A. The "Noble Savage" was just that, a savage. A step above a "cur", but still a savage;

B. Since the remaining Indians were un-salvageable (trainable) it was best that they be euthanized.

In other words, the man had real issues!

[Scout]

Now why in blue blazes are his descendants apologizing? Those aren't their beliefs...they were his beliefs. Of course the man had issues, that's apparent, but his descendants shouldn't have to apologize for him.

"It don't make no sense that common sense don't make no sense no more." John Prine

S

[Dark Cloud]

It's an apology their relative was so mean spirited as an adult, in the sense that young children (or demented grandparents) are apt to announce, in a crowded elevator to their parent, that a lady is fat like Aunt Susie or that someone smells bad. Nobody is about to slap the child for being a child, but you might apologize because it's what you do. While I tend to agree the apology routine can seem silly, if it were our family that got hosed we might feel differently. In any case, it's hardly the equivilant of being gelded or forced to damn your own ancestors to express sadness for the ancestors of another.

I hated Oz, but since I read Gore Vidal's long essay on Baum I'm somewhat more impressed. It's in the book "United States." In other essays, you'll learn that Vidal's father and uncle were West Point grads, and his father - the lover of Earhart - founded airlines and was West Point's first instructor on aeronautics, their best athlete, and football coach in time himself. Vidal, as an infant, was the Point's mascot for their football team one year, because he was born there.

The guy who wrote The Shadow was also a vile bigot, as well as a 7th member for a while.

[biggordie]

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men...............?

Gordie

[crzhrs]

Maybe we should look deeper into the Wizad of Oz (not the movie version) . . . any hidden meanings there?