the cyclone: it was used in the 1890s as a metaphor for a political revolution that would transform the drab country into a land of color and unlimited prosperity. It was also used by editorial cartoonists of the 1890s to represent political upheaval. Dorothy would represent the goodness and innocence of human kind. Other putative allegorical devices of the book include the Wicked Witch of the West as a figure for the actual American West; if this is true, then the Winged Monkeys could represent another western danger: Native Americans. The King of the Winged Monkeys tells Dorothy, "Once we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. ... This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land." Baum held strong racial views towards Native American peoples, arguing for their genocidal extermination in two editorials published in his newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, in 1890 and 1891. However, some commenters have argued certain passages in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published almost a decade later, reflect greater nuance with regard to the plight of Native Americans, containing allegorical references to their treatment. In particular, an incident in which Dorothy and company are accosted by “policemen of the forest” and break a cow’s leg and a village church while passing through a strange land “painted in the brightest colors” is suggested to refer to the 1854 Grattan Massacre, precipitated by a missing cow, and the suppression of the Ghost Dance religion respectively. Dorothy responds that they were “lucky in not doing these little people any more harm.” Alternative allegory Other writers have used the same evidence to lead to precisely opposite allegorical interpretations. Apart from intentional symbolism, scholars have speculated on the sources of Baum's ideas and imagery. The "man behind the curtain" could be a reference to automated store window displays of the sort famous at Christmas season in big city department stores; many people watching the fancy clockwork motions of animals and mannequins thought there must be an operator behind the curtain pulling the levers to make them move (Baum was the editor of the trade magazine read by window dressers). Additional allegories have been developed, without claims that they were originally intended by Baum. The text has been