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PART THREE The Conspiracy Explodes
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee agreed to listen to Butler’s story in a secret executive session in New York City on November 20th, 1934. The two cochairman of the committee were Representative John McCormack, of Massachusetts, and New York Representative Samuel Dickstein, who later became a New York State Supreme Court justice. Butler’s testimony, developed in two hours of questions and answers, was recorded in full.
Simultaneously Paul Comly French broke the story in the Stern papers, the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post. Under the headline “$3,000,000 Bid for Fascist Army Bared,” he wrote:
Major General Smedley D. Butler revealed today that he has been asked by a group of wealthy New York brokers to lead a Fascist movement to set up a dictatorship in the United States.
General Butler, ranking major general of the Marine Corps up to his retirement three years ago, told his story today at a secret session of the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities.
McCormack opened the hearing by first noting that General Butler had been in the Marine Corps thirty-three years and four months and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor twice, establishing his integrity and credibility as a witness. Then he invited the general to “just go ahead and tell in your own way all that you know about an attempted Fascist movement in this country.”
“May I preface my remarks,” Butler began, “by saying, sir, that I have one interest in all of this, and that is to try to do my best to see that a democracy is maintained in this country?”
“Nobody who has either read about or known about General Butler,” replied McCormack promptly, “would have anything but that understanding.”
Butler then gave detailed testimony about everything that had happened in connection with the plot, from the first visit of MacGuire and Doyle on July 1st, 1933.
Some of his testimony was not released in the official record of the bearings, for reasons that will be discussed later, but was nevertheless ferreted out, copied, and made public by reporter John L. Spivak. This censored testimony is indicated by the symbol † to distinguish it from the official testimony eventually released by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The same was true of testimony given by reporter Paul Comly French, who followed Butler as a witness, and the same symbol (†) indicates the censored portions.
Butler first described the attempts made by MacGuire and Doyle to persuade him to go to the American Legion convention hand make a speech they had prepared for him.
He told of MacGuire’s revelation that he was the chairman of the Legion’s “distinguished guest committee,” on the staff of National Commander Louis Johnson, and that at MacGuire’s suggestion Johnson had put Butler’s name down as one of the distinguished guests to be invited to the convention.
† BUTLER: [MacGuire said] that Johnson had been taken this list, presented by MacGuire, of distinguished guests, to the White House for approval; that Louis Howe, one of the secretaries of the President, had crossed my name off and said that I was not to be invited-that the President would not have it.
This tale had struck Butler as peculiar, since the President had been grateful for the general’s assistance in winning Republican votes for him away from Hoover, and their relations had always been cordial and warm.
BUTLER: I thought I smelled a rat, right away-that they were trying to get me mad-to get my goat. I said nothing....
BUTLER: I could not reconcile . . . their desire to serve the ordinary man in the ranks, with their other aims. They did not seem to be the same. It looked to me as if they were trying to embarrass the administration in some way.... I was just fishing to see what they had in mind. So many queer people come to my house all the time and I like to feel them all out.
MacGuire had told him, Butler revealed, that invitation or no invitation, he and his supporters had figured out a way for Butler to address the Legion convention.
BUTLER: I said, “How is that, without being invited?” They said, “Well, you are to come as a delegate from Hawaii.” I said, “I do not live in Hawaii.” “Well, it does not make any difference. There is to be no delegate from one of the American Legion posts there in Honolulu, and we have arranged to have you appointed by cable, by radio, to represent them at the convention.... I said, “Yes; but I will not go in the back door.” They said, “That will not be the back door. You must come.” I said, “No; I will not do this.” “Well,” they said, “are you in sympathy with unhorsing the royal family?” I said, “Yes; because they have been selling out the common soldier in this Legion for years. These fellows have been getting political plums and jobs and cheating the enlisted man in the Army, and I am for putting them out. But I cannot do it by going in through the back door.” “Well,” they said, “we are going to get them out. We will arrange this.”
Butler described the second visit of MacGuire and Doyle a month later, at which time MacGuire had unfolded a new plan they had developed to get Butler to the speaker’s platform at the Chicago convention of the Legion.
BUTLER: . . . I was to get two or three hundred legionnaires from around that part of the country and bring them on a special train to Chicago with me.... they would sit around in the audience, be planted here and there.... I was to appear in the gallery. These planted fellows were to begin to cheer and start a stampede and yell for a speech. Then I was to go to the platform and make a speech. I said, “Make a speech about what?” “Oh,” they said, “we have one here.” . . . They pulled out this speech. They said, “We will leave it here with you to read over, and you see if you can get these fellows to come.” I said, “Listen. These friends of mine that I know around here, even if they wanted to go, could not afford to go. It would cost them a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars to go out there and stay for five days and come back.” They said, “Well, we will pay that.” I said, “How can you pay it? You are disabled soldiers. How do you get the money to do that?” “Oh, we have friends. We will get the money.” Then I began to smell a rat for fair....
To test the seriousness of their purpose and the extent of their backing, he had challenged their claim to have access to the funds they claimed to have.
BUTLER: . . . they hauled out a bank deposit book and showed me, I think it was $42,000 in deposits on that occasion, and on another occasion it was $64,000....
CHAIRMAN: Do you know on what bank that was?
BUTLER: I do not. They just flipped the pages over. Now, I have had some experience as a policeman in Philadelphia. I wanted to get to the bottom of this thing and not scare them off, because I felt then that they had something real. They had so much money and a limousine. Wounded soldiers do not have limousines or that kind of money. They said, “We will pay the bill. Look around and see if you cannot get two or three hundred men and we will bring them out there and we will have accommodations for them.”
Butler described MacGuire’s third visit, without Doyle, during which the bond salesman had inquired as to his progress in rounding up soldiers to take to the convention. Pointing out to MacGuire that the speech given him urged a return by the United States to the gold standard, Butler had demanded to know what that had to do with the ostensible reasons for which he was being asked to go to Chicago.
BUTLER: . . . MacGuire had said, “We want to see the soldiers’ bonus paid in gold. We do not want the soldier to have rubber money or paper money. We want the gold. That is the reason for this speech.”
Butler had then sought to get MacGuire to reveal the source of the funds on deposit in his name.
BUTLER: He said that it was given to him by nine men, that the biggest contributor had given $9,000 and that the donations ran all the way from $2,50o to $9,000 I said, “What is the object?” He said the object was to take care of the rank and file of the soldiers, to get them their bonus and get them properly cared for. Well, I knew that people who had $9,000 to give away were not in favor of the bonus. That looked fishy right away. He gave me the names of two men; Colonel Murphy, Grayson M.P. Murphy, for whom he worked, was one. He said, “I work for him. I am in his office.” I said to him, “How did you happen to be associated with that kind of people if you are for the ordinary soldier and his bonus and his proper care? You know damn well that these bankers are not going to swallow that. There is something in this, Jerry MacGuire, besides what you have told me. I can see that.” He said, “Well, I am a business man. I have got a wife and family to keep, and they took good care of them, and if you would take my advice you would be a business man, too.” I said, “What has Murphy got to do with this?” “Well,” he said, “don’t you know who he is?” I said, “Just indirectly. He is a broker in New York. But I do not know any of his connections.” “Well,” he said, “he is the man who underwrote the formation of the American Legion for $125,000 He underwrote it, paid for the field work of organizing it, and had not gotten all of it back yet.” “That is the reason he makes the kings, is it? He has still got a club over their heads.” “He is on our side, though. He wants to see the soldiers cared for.”
Butler revealed that he had then expressed sharply critical sentiments about the Legion. He later discovered that these remarks had been expunged from the record.
† BUTLER: “Is he [Murphy] responsible, too, for making the Legion a strikebreaking outfit?” “No, no. He does not control anything in the Legion now.” I said: “You know very well that it is nothing but a strikebreaking outfit used by capital for that purpose and that is the reason we have all those big clubhouses and that is the reason I pulled out from it. They have been using these dumb soldiers to break strikes.” He said: “Murphy hasn’t anything to do with that. He is a very fine fellow.” I said, “I do not doubt that, but there is some reason for his putting $125,000 into this.”
In September, 1933, when he had gone to Newark for a convention of the 29th Division, Butler testified, MacGuire had unexpectedly showed up at his hotel to remind him that the time for the American Legion convention was rapidly approaching and to ask whether he was finally ready to take a contingent of veterans to Chicago.
“Why not?” I said, “You people are bluffing. You have not got any money,” whereupon he took out a big wallet, out of his hip pocket, and a great, big mass of thousand dollar bills and threw them out on the bed. I said, “What’s all this?” He says, “This is for you, for expenses. You will need some money to pay them.” “How much money have you got there?” He said, $18,000 “Where did you get those thousand dollar bills?” “Oh,” he said, “last night some contributions were made. I just have not had a chance to deposit them, so I brought them along with me.”
I said,
“Don’t you try to give me any thousand dollar bill. Remember, I was a cop once.
Every one of the numbers on these bills has been taken. I know you people and
what you are trying to do. You are just trying to get me by the neck. If I try
to cash one of those thousand dollar bills, you would have me by the neck.” I said, “You put that money away before somebody walks in here and sees that money around, because I do not want to be tied up with it at all. I told you distinctly I am not going to take these men to Chicago.” “Well, are you going yourself?” I said, “Oh, I do not know. But I know one thing. Somebody is using you. You are a wounded man. You are a blue jacket. You have got a silver plate in your head. I looked you up.... You are being used by somebody, and I want know the fellows who are using you. I am not going to talk to you any more. You are only an agent. I want some of the principals.” He said, “Well, I will send one of them over to see you.” I said, “Who?” He said, “I will send Mr. Clark.” “Who is Mr. Clark?” “Well, he is one of our people. He put up some money.” “Who is he?” “Well, his name is R. S. Clark. He is a banker. He used to be in the Army.” “How old a man is he?” He told me. “Would it be possible that he was a second lieutenant in the Ninth Infantry in China during the Boxer campaign?”
He was known as the “millionaire lieutenant” and was sort of batty, sort of queer, did all sorts of extravagant things. He used to go exploring around China and wrote a book on it, on explorations. He was never taken seriously by anybody. But he had a lot of money. An aunt and an uncle died and left him $10,000,000.
BUTLER: He said, “You have got the speech?” I said, “Yes. These fellows, Doyle and MacGuire, gave me the speech.” I said, “They wrote a hell of a good speech, too.” He said, “Did those fellows say that they wrote that speech?” I said, “Yes; they did. They told me that that was their business, writing speeches.” He laughed and said, “That speech cost a lot of money.”
In testimony afterward censored, Butler revealed that the speech had apparently been written for the millionaire by the chief attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company, who had been the 1924 Democratic candidate for President.
BUTLER: “Yes,” I said, “but it looks as if it were a big business speech. There is something funny about that speech, Mr. Clark.” . . . Clark said “. . . I have got $30,000,000. I do not want to lose it. I am willing to spend half of the $30,000,000 to save the other half. If you go out and make this speech in Chicago, I am certain that they will adopt the resolution and that will be one step toward the return to gold, to have the soldiers stand up for it. We can get the soldiers to go out Having established contact with one of the plot’s principals, so in great bodies to stand up for it.” This was the first beginning of the idea, you see, of having a soldiers’ organization, getting them to go out in favor of the gold standard. Clark’s thought was, “I do not want to lose my money.”
In a censored portion of the testimony, Butler explained why Clark thought that Roosevelt would permit himself to be pressured by such tactics.
† BUTLER: He said, “You know the President is weak. He will come right along with us. He was born in this class. He was raised in this class, and he will come back. He will run true to form. In the end he will come around. But we have got to be prepared to sustain him when he does.”
This blatant snobbery and fatuous assumption about the President had been too much for Butler, and he had snapped a refusal to go to Chicago.
BUTLER: He said, “Why not?” I said, “I do not want to be mixed up in this thing at all. I tell you very frankly, Mr. Clark, I have got one interest and that is the maintenance of a democracy. That is the only thing. I took an oath to sustain the democracy, and that is what I am going to do and nothing else. I am not going to get these soldiers marching around and stirred up over the gold standard. What the hell does a soldier know about the gold standard? You are just working them, using them, just as they have been used right along, and I am going to be one of those to see that they do not use them any more except to maintain a democracy. And then I will go out with them any time to do that.”
At this point, Butler testified, Clark had offered him an outright bribe to win his cooperation.
BUTLER: He said, “Why do you want to be stubborn? Why do you want to be different from other people? We can take care of you. You have got a mortgage on this house,” waving his hand, pointing to the house. “That can all be taken care of. It is perfectly legal, perfectly proper.” “Yes,” I said, “but I just do not want to do it, that’s all.” Finally I said, “Do you know what you are trying to do? You are trying to bribe me in my own house. You are very polite about it and I can hardly call it that, but it looks kind of funny to me, making that kind of proposition. You come out into the hall, I want to show you something.” We went out there. I have all the flags and banners and medals of honor, and things of that kind.... They have been given me by the Chinese and the Nicaraguans and the Haitians-by the poor people. I said to him, “You come out here. Look at that and see what you are trying to do. You are trying to buy me away from my own kind. When you have made up your mind that I will not go with you, then you come on and tell me.”
After being left in the hall to inspect the trophies and think about their significance, Butler testified, Clark had joined him in the office at the back of the house. The millionaire had then asked permission to make a long-distance call.
BUTLER: He called up Chicago and got hold of MacGuire at the Palmer House and lie said to MacGuire, “General Butler is not coming to the convention. He has given me his reasons and they are excellent ones, and I apologize to him for my connection with it. I am not coming either. You can put this thing across. You have got $45,000. You can send those telegrams. You will have to do it in that way. The general is not coming. I can see why. I am going to Canada to rest. If you want me, you know where you can find me. You have got enough money to go through with it.” . . . The convention came off and the gold standard was endorsed by the convention. I read about it with a great deal of interest. There was some talk about a flood of telegrams that came in and influenced them and I was so much amused, because it all happened right in my room. Then MacGuire stopped to see me on his way back from the convention. This time he came in a hired limousine . . . and told me that they had been successful in putting over their move. I said, “Yes, but you did not endorse the soldier’s bonus.” He said, “Well, we have got to get sound currency before it is worth while to endorse the bonus.”
Not long afterward, Butler testified, MacGuire had called again to ask him to go to Boston for a soldier’s dinner that was being given in the general’s honor.
BUTLER: He said, “We will have a private car for you on the end of the train. You will make a speech at this dinner and it will he worth a thousand dollars to you.” I said, “I never got a thousand dollars for making a speech.” He said, “You will get it this time.” “Who is going to pay for this dinner and this ride up in the private car?” “Oh, we will pay for it out of our funds.” “I am not going to Boston. If the soldiers of Massachusetts want to give a dinner and want me to come, I will come. But there is no thousand dollars in it.” So he said, “Well, then, we will think of something else.”
He had next seen MacGuire, Butler testified, while in New York to make an election speech on behalf of a former Marine running for local office in a municipal campaign. MacGuire had then sought to draw Butler out on his subsequent plans.
BUTLER: He said, “You are going on a trip for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. You are going around recruiting them, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes; I am going to start as soon as this campaign is over.”
CHAIRMAN: When was this campaign?
BUTLER: This was in November, 1933. All of this happened between July and November, everything I told you.... He said, “You are going out to speak for the veterans.” I said, “Yes.... You know I believe that sooner or later there is going to be a test of our democracy, a test of this democratic form of government. The soldiers are the only people in this country who have ever taken an oath to sustain it. I believe that I can appeal to them by the millions to stand up for a democracy, because they have more stake in a democracy than any other class of our citizens, because they have fought for it. I am going out to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They are my kind, overseas people, old regulars, and see if I cannot get a half a million of those fellows and preach this to them, that we have got to stand up against war. I have got an object in doing it. I believe that sooner or later we are going to have a showdown, because I have had so many invitations to head societies and to join societies, all of them with a camouflaged patriotic intent. They are rackets, all of them.”
MacGuire had then exposed the forward edge of a new plan to use the general, startling Butler by a proposal to join him in his travels around the country.
BUTLER: He said, “Well, that is what we are for.... I want to go around with you . . . and talk to the soldiers in the background and see if we cannot get them to join a great big super-organization to maintain the democracy. I said, “I do not know about you going along, Jerry. Of course, I cannot keep you off of the train. But there is something funny about all this that you are doing and I am not going to be responsible for it and I do not want any more to do with it. You are a wounded soldier and I am not going to hurt you, but you must lay off this business with me, because there is too much money in it.” “Well, I am a business man,” he said.... “I do not see why you will not be a business man, too.” I said, “If fiddling with this form of government is business, I am out of it; if that is your business.” “Oh,” he said, “I would not disturb this form of government.” I said, “You have got some reason for getting at these soldiers other than to maintain a democracy.”
Although Butler did not testify to having been offered, and turning down, $750 for every speech he made to veterans groups during his tour in which he inserted a short reference favoring the gold standard, a special tribute was paid to him on this score by a secret report he did not know of that reached the White House. It had been written by Val O’Farrell, a former New York City detective who had become one of the city’s leading criminal and civil investigators. On December 11th, 1933, O’Farrell had written to presidential secretary Louis Howe:
My dear Colonel:
. . . Before he [Butler] left for Atlanta, he was approached by a representative of the bankers gold group system, and offered the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars for each speech if he would insert some short reference in favor of continuing the bankers gold standard. This would have meant an additional ten thousand dollars to General Butler, but he told the representative of the gold group that even if he were offered a hundred thousand dollars to do this, his answer would be “no.”
Notwithstanding the fact that I do not know General Butler, who has been occasionally subject to harsh criticism for the things he has done or failed to do, I felt it my duty to report this incident to you as it shows him to be a man of exceptional character. You can probably obtain the name of the representative of this gold group from General Butler, or if you are interested, I may be able to get it for you.
Butler found himself fascinated by MacGuire, suspecting that the bond salesman might be playing some kind of shrewd con game with Clark, using his contact with Butler as a lever with which to pry money out of the alarmed millionaire.
BUTLER: I began to get the idea that he was using Clark-to pull money out of Clark by frightening him about his $30,000,000-and then he was coming to me; and then he would go back and tell Clark, “I have been to see Butler, and he will go along if you will get me $5,000 more.” In other words, I could see him working both ends against the middle and making a sucker out of Clark. However, if Clark wanted to get rid of his money, it was none of my business.... Now, he [MacGuire] is a very cagey individual. He always approaches everything from afar. He is really a very nice, plausible fellow. But I gather, after this association with him, that due to this wound in his head, he is a little inconsistent, a little flighty. He is being used, too, but I do not think Clark is using him. My impression is that Murphy uses him; and he uses Clark, because Clark has the money.
During MacGuire’s trip to Europe, Butler testified, the bond salesman had sent him a postcard from Nice in February, 1934, and a short note later from Berlin, both of the “having wonderful time” variety. Then after MacGuire’s return, upon his urging to see Butler on a matter of the utmost importance, they had met in the empty restaurant of Philadelphia’s Bellevue Hotel, on August 22nd, 1934.
BUTLER: He told me all about his trip to Europe.... He said, “I went abroad to study the part that the veteran plays in the various set-ups of the governments that they have abroad. I went to Italy for two or three months and studied the position that the veterans of Italy occupy in the Fascist set-up of government, and I discovered that they are the background of Mussolini. They keep them on the pay rolls in various ways and keep them contented and happy; and they are his real backbone, the force on which he may depend, in case of trouble, to sustain him. But that set-up would not suit us at all. The soldiers of America would not like that. I then went to Germany to see what Hitler was doing, and his whole strength lies in organizations of soldiers, too. But that would not do. I looked into the Russian business. I found that the use of the soldiers over there would never appeal to our men. Then I went to France, and I found just exactly the organization we are going to have. It is an organization of supersoldiers.” He gave me the French name for it, but I do not recall what it is. I never could have pronounced it, anyhow. But I do know that it is a super-organization of members of all the other soldiers’ organizations of France, composed of noncommissioned officers and officers. He told me that they had about 500,000 and that each one was a leader of ten others, so that it gave them 5,000,000 votes. And he said, “Now, that is our idea here in America-to get up an organization of that kind.”
Investigators for the McCormack-Dickstein Committee were able to uncover a report on this French “super-organization,” the Croix de Feu that MacGuire had written about to Robert S. Clark and Clark’s attorney, Albert Grant Christmas, from France on March 6, 1934:
I had a very interesting talk last evening with a man who is quite well up on affairs here and he seems to be of the opinion that the Croix de Feu will be very patriotic during this crisis and will take the [wage] cuts or be the moving spirit in the veterans to accept the cuts. Therefore they will, in all probability, be in opposition to the Socialists and functionaries. The general spirit among the functionaries seems to be that the correct way to regain recovery is to spend more money and increase wages, rather than to put more people out of work and cut salaries.
The Croix de Feu is getting a great number of new recruits, and I recently attended a meeting of this organization and was quite impressed with the type of men belonging. These fellows are interested only in the salvation of France, and I feel sure that the country could not be in better hands because they are not politicians, they are a cross-section of the best people of the country from all walks of life, people who gave their “all” between 1914 and 1918 that France might be saved, and I feel sure that if a crucial test ever comes to the Republic that these men will be the bulwark upon which France will be saved.
During their meeting in Philadelphia, Butler testified, MacGuire had revealed the plans of his group to develop an American Croix de Feu.
BUTLER: I said, “What do you want to do with it when you get it up?” “Well,” he said, “we want to support the President.” I said, “The President does not need the support of that kind of an organization. Since when did you become a supporter of the President? The last time I talked to you you were against him.” He said, “Well, he is going to go along with us now.” “Is he?”
“Yes.” “Well,” he said, “they will be the support of the President.” I said, “The President has got the whole American people. Why does he want them?” He said, “Don’t you understand the set-up has got to be changed a bit? . . . He has got to have more money. There is not any more money to give him. Eighty percent of the money now is in Government bonds, and he cannot keep this racket up much longer.... He has either got to get more money out of us or he has got to change the method of financing the Government, and we are going to see to it that he does not change that method. He will not change it.” I said, “The idea of this great group of soldiers, then, is to sort of frighten him, is it?” “No, no, no; not to frighten him. This is to sustain him when others assault him.” I said, “Well, I do not know about that. How would the President explain it?” He said: “He will not necessarily have to explain it, be cause we are going to help him out. Now, did it ever occur to you that the President is overworked? We might have an Assistant President, somebody to take the blame; and if things do not work out, he can drop him.” He went on to say that it did not take any constitutional change to authorize another Cabinet official, somebody to take over the details of the office-take them off the President’s shoulders. He mentioned that the position would be a secretary of general affairs-a sort of a supersecretary. CHAIRMAN: A secretary of general affairs? BUTLER: That is the term used by him-or a secretary of general welfare – I cannot recall which. I came out of the interview with that name in my head. I got that idea from talking to both of them; you see [MacGuire and Clark]. They had both talked about the same kind of relief that ought to be given the President, and he [MacGuire] said: “You know, the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President’s health is failing. Everybody can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second.” And I could see it. They had that sympathy racket, that they were going to have somebody take the patronage off of his shoulders and take all the worries and details off of his shoulders, and then he will be like the President of France.... Now, I cannot recall which one of these fellows told me about the rule of succession, about the Secretary of State becoming President when the Vice President is eliminated. There was something said in one of the conversations that I had, that the President’s health was bad, and he might resign, and that [Vice President] Garner did not want it, anyhow, and then this supersecretary would take the place of the Secretary of State and in the order of succession would become President. That was the idea.
In corroborative testimony Paul Comly French described what MacGuire had told him about the conspirators’ plans.
He warmed up considerably after we got under way and he said, “We might go along with Roosevelt and then do with him what Mussolini did with the King of Italy.” It fits in with what he told the general, that we would have a Secretary of General Affairs, and if Roosevelt played ball, swell; and if he did not, they would push him out. He expressed the belief that at least half of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars would follow the general if he would announce such a plan.
In censored testimony Butler revealed that MacGuire had implicated General Hugh Johnson, head of the N.R.A., as Roosevelt’s own choice to become an assistant President.
† BUTLER: He said, “That is what he [Roosevelt] was building up Hugh Johnson for. Hugh Johnson talked too damn much and got him into a hole, and he is going to fire him in the next three or four weeks.” I said, “How do you know all this?” “Oh,” he said, “we are in with him all the time. We know what is going to happen.”
After having revealed the plans of the plotters, Butler testified, MacGuire had then bluntly asked the general to be the Man on a White Horse they were looking for.
BUTLER: He said, “. . . Now, about this super-organization - would you be interested in heading it?” I said, “I am interested in it, but I do not know about heading it. I am very greatly interested in it, because you know, Jerry, my interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,00o soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick bell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home. You know that.” “Oh, no. We do not want that. We want to ease up on the President.” . . . “Yes; and then you will put somebody in there you can run; is that the idea? The President will go around and christen babies and dedicate bridges, and kiss children. Mr. Roosevelt will never agree to that himself.” “Oh, yes; he will. He will agree to that.” I said, “I do not believe he will.” I said, “Don’t you know that this will cost money, what you are talking about? He says, “Yes; we have got $3,000,000 to start with, on the line, and we can get $300,000,000, if we need it.” “Who is going to put all this money up?” “Well,” he said, “you heard Clark tell you he was willing to put up $15,000,000 to save the other $15,000,000.”
“It will cost you a lot of money to do that.” He said, “We will only have to do that for a year, and then everything will be all right again.” . . . He said that they had this money to spend on it, and he wanted to know again if I would head it, and I said, “No, I am interested in it, but will not head it.”
Seeking to persuade him to change his mind, Butler testified, MacGuire had sought to impress him with the importance of the interests who were involved in the plot.
BUTLER: He said, “When I was in Paris, my headquarters were Morgan & Hodges. We had a meeting over there. I might as well tell you that our group is for you, for the head of this organization. Morgan & Hodges are against you. The Morgan interests say that you cannot be trusted, that you will be too radical, and so forth, that you are too much on the side of the little fellow; you cannot be trusted. They do not want you. But our group tells them that you are the only fellow in America who can get the soldiers together. They say, `Yes, but he will get them together and go in the wrong way.’ That is what they say if you take charge of them.”
According to MacGuire, Butler testified, the Morgan interests preferred other noted military figures as head of the projected veterans’ army. Discussion of these choices was also eliminated from the published version of the hearings.
I said, “I do not think that you will get the soldiers to follow him, Jerry.... He is in bad odor, because he put on a uniform with medals to march down the street in Washington, I know the soldiers.” “Well, then, we will get Hanford MacNider. They want either MacArthur or MacNider....” I said, “MacNider won’t do either. He will not get the soldiers to follow him, because he has been opposed to the bonus.” “Yes, but we will have him in change [charge?].” And it is interesting to note that three weeks later after this conversation ‘MacNider changed and turned around for the bonus. It is interesting to note that. He [MacGuire] said, “There is going to be a big quarrel over the reappointment of MacArthur . . . you watch the President reappoint him. He is going to go right and if he does not reappoint him, he is going to go left.” I have been watching with a great deal of interest this quarrel over his reappointment to see how it comes out. He [MacGuire] said, “You know as well as I do that MacArthur is Stotesbury’s son in law in Philadelphia-[Stotesbury being] Morgan’s representative in Philadelphia. You just see how it goes and if I am not telling the truth.” I noticed that MacNider turned around for the bonus, and that there is a row over the reappointment of MacArthur.
Convinced by now of the seriousness of the plot, and its magnitude, Butler had endeavored to learn how far along the conspirators were in the creation of the new super-organization that would control the proposed veterans’ army. MacGuire gave him some tips on recognizing its appearance.
BUTLER: Now, there is one point . . . which I think is the most important of all. I said, “What are you going to call this organization?” He said, “Well, I do not know.” I said, “Is there anything stirring about it yet?” “Yes,” he says; “you watch; in two or three weeks you will see it come out in the paper. There will be big fellows in it. This is to be the background of it. These are to be the villagers in the opera. The papers will come out with it-” He did not give me the name of it, but he said that it would all be made public; a society to maintain the Constitution, and so forth. They had a lot of talk this time about maintaining the Constitution. I said, “I do not see that the Constitution is in any danger.”
Butler’s next observation, possibly the most significant in all his testimony, was missing from the published version of his testimony. It was the link between the conspiracy and the powerful interests Butler had good reason to believe were the “big fellows” in the background.
† BUTLER: . . . and in about two weeks the American Liberty League appeared, which was just about what he described it to be. The American Liberty League, which had brokerage head Grayson M.P. Murphy as its treasurer and Robert S. Clark as one of its financiers also had John W. Davis, alleged writer of the gold-standard speech for Clark, as a member of the National Executive Committee. Its contributors included representatives of the Morgan, DuPont, Rockefeller, Pew, and Mellon interests. Directors of the League included A1 Smith and John J. Raskob. League later formed affiliations with pro-Fascist, anti labor, and anti-Semitic organizations.
It astonished Butler that former New York Governor A1 Smith, who had lost the 1928 presidential race to Hoover as the Democratic candidate, could be involved in a Fascist plot backed by wealthy men.
But the “happy warrior” who had grown up on New York’s East Side had traded his brown derby for a black one. He was now a business associate of the powerful DuPont family, who had cultivated him through DuPont official John J. Raskob, former chairman of the Democratic Party. Under their influence Smith had grown more and more politically conservative following his defeat. Butler’s query about Smith, and MacGuire’s reply, were both deleted from the official testimony of the hearings.
† BUTLER:
I said, “What is the idea of Al Smith in this?” “Well,” he said,
“A1 Smith is getting ready to assault the Administration in his magazine. It
will appear in a month or so. He is going to take a shot at the money question.
He has definitely broken with the President.”
In testimony that was also censored, Paul Comly French revealed that MacGuire had implicated the DuPonts to him, indicating the role they would play in equipping the super army being planned by the plotters.
† FRENCH: We discussed the question of arms and equipment, and he suggested that they could be obtained from the Remington Arms Co., on credit through the DuPonts. I do not think at that time he mentioned the connections of Du Pouts with the American Liberty League . . . but he skirted all around the idea that that was the back door; one of the Du Pouts is on the board of directors of the American Liberty League and they own a controlling interest in the Remington Arms Co.... He said the General would not have any trouble enlisting 500,000 men.
In a story it ran on November 21st, 1934, The New York Times noted, “According to General Butler ... he was to assemble his 500,000 men in Washington, possibly a year from now, with the expectation that such a show of force would enable it to take over the government peacefully in a few days.” During his last talk with MacGuire, Butler had once more pressured him to explain the persistent bond salesman’s personal stake in the conspiracy.
BUTLER: I asked him again, “Why are you in this thing?” He said, “I am a business man. I have got a wife and children.” in other words, he had had a nice trip to Europe with his family, for nine months, and he said that that cost plenty, too.... So he left me, saying, “I am going down to Miami and I will get in touch with you after the convention is over, and we are going to make a fight down there for the gold standard, and we are going to organize.”
After he had been urged over forty times to accept the leadership of the Fascist coup d’etat being planned, while he gathered as much information about it as he could, Butler had then sought to gather corroborative evidence through reporter Paul Comly French.
BUTLER: ... in talking to Paul French here-I had not said anything about this other thing, it did not make any difference about fiddling with the gold standard resolution, but this [the Fascist plot] looked to me as though it might be getting near that they were going to stir some of these soldiers up to hurt our Government. I did not know anything about this committee [the American Liberty League], so I told Paul to let his newspaper see what they could find out about the background of these fellows.
Although Butler recalled having induced French to check into the case, former Philadelphia Record city editor Tom O’Neil gave the author his recollection that Butler had approached him and told him the whole story. O’Neil recalled that he had agreed to assign French to investigate. Probably Butler first approached French, who had referred him to the city editor. Butler gave the McCormack-Dickstein Committee his view that the plot might have been hatched out of a racket that MacGuire had been working as a moneymaking scheme.
BUTLER: I felt that it was just a racket that these fellows were working one another and getting money out of the rich, selling them gold bricks. I have been in 752 different towns in the United States in three years and one month, and I made 1,022 speeches. I have seen absolutely no sign of anything showing a trend for a change of our form of Government. So it has never appealed to me at all. But as long as there was a lot of money stirring around-and I had noticed some of them with money to whom I have talked were dissatisfied and talking about having dictators-I thought that perhaps they might be tempted to put up money.
Butler testified that his last encounter with MacGuire had been reference to French’s attempt to talk to him.
CHAIRMAN: Did you have any further talks with him?
BUTLER: No. The only other time I saw or heard from him was when I wanted Paul to uncover him. He talked to me and he telephoned Paul, saying he wanted to see him. He called me up and asked if Paul was a reputable person, and I said he was. That is the last thing I heard from him. CHAIRMAN: The last talk you had with MacGuire was in the Bellevue in August of this year? BUTLER: August 22nd; yes. The date can be identified.
He concluded his testimony by urging the committee to question several persons about the plot in addition to MacGuire-notably Murphy, Doyle, and Legion Commander Frank N. Belgrano. This request was also stricken from the official record.
Butler was aware that Chairman McCormack was himself a Legionnaire and that the revelations of the plot implicating Legion officials might be painful to him. But Butler also knew that McCormack was a determined foe of Nazi propaganda and a staunch supporter of New Deal measures. Butler counted on his indignation over the conspiracy to bring about a full-scale investigation by the Department of justice.
After Butler had completed his testimony, Paul Comly French took the witness chair to report on his own investigation of the plot, in which a candid two-hour conversation with MacGuire at the latter’s office figured prominently.
Describing these talks on the premises of Grayson M.P. Murphy and Company, French verified every allegation about the plot the general had attributed to MacGuire. In addition French reported the more open statements MacGuire had made to him about the nature of the conspiracy and how it would work. More frank with French, apparently, than he had dared to be with the general, MacGuire made little attempt to disguise the Fascist nature of the proposed putsch with euphemistic phrases about “supporting the President.”
FRENCH: We need a Fascist government in this country, he insisted, to save the Nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight. During the conversation he told me he had been in Italy and Germany during the summer of 1934 and the spring of 1934 and had made an intensive study of the background of the Nazi and Fascist movements and how the veterans had played a part in them. He said he had obtained enough information on the Fascist and Nazi movements and of the part played by the veterans, to properly set up one in this country. He emphasized throughout his conversation with me that the whole thing was tremendously patriotic, that it was saving the Nation from Communists, and that the men they deal with have that crackbrained idea that the Communists are going to take it apart. He said the only safeguard would be the soldiers. At first he suggested that the General organize this outfit himself and ask a dollar a year dues from everybody. We discussed that, and then he came around to the point of getting outside financial funds, and he said that it would not be any trouble to raise a million dollars.
French’s use of the phrase “crackbrained idea” to describe the notion by financiers and captains of industry that the country needed to be saved from Communism was obviously his own, and not MacGuire’s expression. Censored in French’s testimony was his revelation of the sources to which MacGuire had said that he could turn for the funds to finance the veterans’ army.
† FRENCH: He said he could go to John W. Davis [attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company] or Perkins of the National City Bank, and any number of persons to get it. Of course, that may or may not mean anything. That is, his reference to John W. Davis and Perkins of the National City Bank.
French testified that MacGuire had sought to impress him by indicating high-level support for the conspiracy from important movers and shakers of the American Legion.
CHAIRMAN: Did he show you the letter? FRENCH: I did not read it. He just passed it over so I could see it, but he did not show it to me. He said that he had discussed the matter with him along the lines of what we were now discussing, and I took it to mean that he had talked of this Fascist proposition with Johnson, and Johnson was in sympathy with it. During the conversation he also mentioned Henry Stevens, of Warsaw, N.C., a former national commander of the American Legion, and said that he was interested in the program. Several times he brought in the names of various former national commanders of the American Legion, to give me the impression that, whether justly or unjustly, a group in the American Legion were actively interested in this proposition.
CHAIRMAN: In other words, he mentioned a lot of prominent names; and whether they are interested or not, you do not know, except that he seemed to try to convey to you that they were, to impress on you the significance of this movement? FRENCH: That is precisely the impression I gained from him.
As MacGuire had grown increasingly comfortable with him, French testified, the plotter had grown candid and enthusiastic about the Fascist rewards that would follow seizure of the White House. French’s use of the word “brilliant” in the following portion of testimony was obviously sarcastic.
FRENCH: He had a very brilliant solution of the unemployment situation. He said that Roosevelt had muffed it terrifically, but that he had the plan. He had seen it in Europe. It was a plan that Hitler had used in putting all of the unemployed in labor camps or barracks-enforced labor. That would solve it overnight, and he said that when they got into power, that is what they would do; that that was the ideal plan. He had another suggestion to register all persons all over the country, like they do in Europe. He said that would stop a lot of these Communist agitators who were running around the country. He said that a crash was inevitable and was due to come when bonds reached 5 percent. He said that the soldiers must prepare to save the Nation.
If Roosevelt went along with the dictatorship as the King had done in Italy, MacGuire had suggested, Butler could have the proposed labor camps put under his own control.
† FRENCH: . . . he suggested that Roosevelt would be in sympathy with us and proposed the idea that Butler would be named as the head of the C.C.C. [Civilian Conservation Corps] camps by the President as a means of building up the organization....
French then testified that MacGuire had told him the plotters could obtain arms and equipment from the Remington Arms Company, on credit through the DuPonts. His testimony also implicated the American Liberty League.
† FRENCH: I do not think at that time he mentioned the connection of DuPonts with the American Liberty League, but he skirted all around it. That is, I do not think he mentioned the Liberty League, but he skirted all around the idea that that was the back door; one of the DuPonts is on the board of directors of the American Liberty League and they own a controlling interest in the Remington Arms Co.... He said the General would not have any trouble enlisting 500,000 men.
It was because MacGuire saw the general as the indispensable man of the putsch, French testified, that he persisted in his efforts to win Butler’s adherence to the scheme.
FRENCH: When I left him he said that he planned to get in touch with the general and again try to persuade him to accept the leadership of this organization; that he was going to Miami in a couple of weeks for the national convention to do a little work. CHAIRMAN: To beat the bonus? FRENCH: Yes. CHAIRMAN: I thought he was for the bonus. FRENCH: He was at first. BUTLER (interposing): He wants it paid in gold. Clark told me that he had been for the bonus or that he would be for the bonus if we |
