QOTD

[randy_byers]

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in latter ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroise. We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.

-- L. Frank Baum, editorial for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, December 20, 1890

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published ten years later on May 17, 1900.

Comments

Re: Wizard of Oz (1925)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

There are actually earlier film versions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The earliest I'm seeing on IMDb is from 1910. Baum himself directed His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz in 1914. I've seen The Patchwork Girl of Oz from 1914, and my memory is that it was pretty interesting.

Re: Wizard of Oz (1925)

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. (Shoulda thought of IMDB myself...) The VHS packaging refers to it as "This original 1925 film", which I read as "first". The nuanced language of marketing is always entertaining. I suppose they were distinguishing it from those knock-off 1925 films one sees everywhere.

-- Denys