Baum, a journalist at the time in Chicago, is supposed to have composed the Wizard of Oz as an allegory depicting these events. Thus, according to this interpretation, Dorothy (representing America and her honest values) wearing silver shoes (representing the free silver coinage) recruits the Scarecrow (representing the American farmer), the Tin Man (representing the American worker), and the Cowardly Lion (William Jennings Bryan), to accompany her on the yellow brick road (representing the gold standard) to the Emerald City (Washington, D.C.) to plead with the Great Wizard (the Democratic president Grover Cleveland) of Oz (an ounce of gold) for free silver coinage. In the process, Dorothy and her companions also battle the Wicked Witch of the West (William McKinley, the Republican presidential nominee in 1896). Unlike the Democrats, McKinley was against abandoning the gold standard in favor of a more expansionary bimetallist (gold and silver) system. As it turned out, however, the issue of the silver coinage became moot with the new gold discoveries in Alaska in the 1890s, which served to undermine the Democratic platform and, thus, to cost the Democrats the US presidency both in 1896 and 1900.