Dr. Seuss's Hidden Political Views?

          In class, we recently read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. The purpose of this read aloud was to really look deeper into children's books and find the true, and often hidden messages. One thing we talked about was symbolism. Dr. Seuss was a strongly political person, and people were often questioning his ideas and opinions. "The Lorax" centers around The Onceler, a greedy man who comes upon these marvelous truffula trees and starts cutting them down and turning them into Thneeds.
          "Everyone needs a thneed!" The Once-ler is originally, and firstly cutting down the truffula trees to make money. He knits the truffula trees into "thneeds", which can be used as a shirt, a sock, a glove, a hat, a carpet, a pillow, a sheet, or a curtain. The truffula trees, and the land surrounding it are home to many many animals and creatures. Once the truffula trees start getting cut down, the Lorax, who was "shortish and oldish and brownish and mossy"protests. "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues". The Once-ler can't cut down the truffula trees! They're not up for the taking! The little guy is standing up, representing the trees who don't have voices.
          The Once-ler however, ignores his pleas. Everyone needs a thneed! What's wrong with cutting down some trees in exchange for something everyone needs? Soon, the truffula trees decrease in population; there are barely any left. The greedy man took away all of the creatures' truffula trees just so he could make them into Thneeds, sell them, and make money. Now their homes are gone, the land is polluted, and they're forced to move away.
          One thing I noticed in the Lorax is that you never see the Once-ler's face. It's always stuck inside his car, then shop, then factory. Whenever he talks all you see are his hands. This reminded me of big corporations, and therefore made me start to suspect that Dr. Seuss was using symbolism to portray the Once-ler as the head of a big corporation. Heads of widely known corporations are often very vague. They don't make a lot of appearances and they don't often have opinions; business is often done throughout the rest of the employees. The Once-ler comes in a takes everything away from the "little guys" to make profit. When he is asked to stop, his greed overcomes his sympathy and he ignores them and continues with his business.
          Like I said, for the most part, in real-life situations, you never get to deal with the head of a big corporation directly. In the book, the Lorax does in fact talk to the Once-ler directly, but as I said before, you never see his face, you only see his hands, knitting Thneeds. For me, this part of the illustration made me think of a head of a big corporation having lower executive employees and using them as puppets, on his hands, always working. He's involved in the corporation but he has so many lower employees that he kind of speaks through them indirectly.
          Big corporations also tend to have big factories that guzzle resources and pollute the air. In the Lorax, the factories pollute the air, demolish the truffula trees, and pollute the lakes. When asked by the Lorax, who is speaking for the people who don't have voices, the Once-ler keeps working because he justifies his work in thinking that everyone needs a thneed, so it's okay! Just like in real life, when someone is standing up against big corporations, often for the people who aren't able to really speak for themselves, sometimes, the big companies don't do anything because they feel as if their work justifies what they're doing to the "little guys".
          There are quite a few pieces of story and illustration that lead me to think Dr. Seuss was symbolically representing big corporations through the Once-ler. I have heard that he was also a very political person, and was often questioned about his political views, which just leads me to think even more that that's what he was hinting at.