The Plot To Seize The White House (4 page)

Butler pointed out to Clark that the speech did not seem to have anything to do with the soldiers’ bonus, which was presumably the purpose of his trip to Chicago. Shrugging, Clark blandly repeated MacGuire’s assurance that those supporting the speech simply wanted to be sure that the bonus would be paid in gold-backed currency, not in worthless paper.

Butler decided to draw blood and observe Clark’s reaction. Sharp eyes honed on his visitor’s face, he suggested that the speech had all the earmarks of big-business propaganda. The banker, taken aback, did not reply for a moment. He seemed to be debating with himself whether to deny the allegation or take Butler into his confidence. Then he astonished the general by a sudden burst of candor.

He had a personal fortune of thirty million dollars, he revealed, and he was greatly worried about losing it to a Roosevelt inflation-runaway government spending unbridled by the need to back each paper dollar with gold. He was willing to spend fully half his fortune if it would save the other half. He was confident that if Butler made the speech at Chicago, the Legion would go on record as demanding a return to the gold standard.

That would be an important step toward organizing the veterans of American to put pressure on Congress and the President for such a bill.

Why, Butler asked him curiously, did he think the President would allow himself to be pressured by such tactics? Clark expressed confidence that Roosevelt would yield because he belonged, after all, to the same social class that was solidly behind the gold standard. Once he had restored it, his fellow patricians would rally around him and defend his position against criticism.

Butler was shocked by Clark’s blatant snobbery, but even more by the millionaire’s assumption that the wishes of economic royalists should-and would-prevail over the democratic processes of government. Once more his anger boiled over. In a voice that cracked with indignation, he exploded that he wanted nothing to do with a scheme to exploit veterans. Furthermore, he rasped, he intended to see to it that the veterans of the country were not used to undermine democracy but to defend it.

Clark’s face turned crimson. Chagrined, he reproached Butler for being stubborn and “different,” hinting that such things as the mortgage on Butler’s house could be taken care of for him, and in a fully legal fashion.

This crude attempt to bribe him was too much for the dumbfounded general. Bellowing his indignation, he roared an order at the millionaire to follow him into the living room. Clark meekly trailed him into a large hall resplendent with flags, banners, decorations, plaques, scrolls, citations, and other symbols of esteem that had been presented to the general during his long career in the Marines. The hall was flanked at both ends by huge canopies on tall poles-“Blessings Umbrellas” awarded by unanimous vote of the people of Chinese cities only to their greatest benefactors.

Quivering with rage, Butler pointed out to Clark that most of the awards in the hall had been given to him by poor people all over the world, and he vowed that he would never betray their faith. Ordering Clark to inspect them until he understood the enormity of his mistake, Butler stormed off to his study, pacing back and forth in an effort to simmer down.

In a few minutes a chastened Clark joined him and meekly 
asked permission to make a phone call to MacGuire at the Palmer House in Chicago. As Butler listened stony-faced, Clark informed MacGuire that for 
“excellent” reasons the general would not be coming to the convention.

MacGuire was reminded that had money enough to do the job alone and could “send those telegrams.” At the completion of the call, Clark then apologized so contritely that his host, mollified, forgave him.

To lighten the strained atmosphere, then conversation now returned to the Boxer days until it was time to drive Clark to the station to catch a six o’clock train from Paoli.

Butler felt ambivalent about having revealed his true feelings. On the one hand, it made him feel better to get them off his chest; tact and restraint and subterfuge were alien to his nature. On the other hand, it seemed hardly likely that after his explosion the plotters could possibly believe they could persuade or buy him. He would have no further opportunity to ferret out their plans.

A few days later he carefully studied a newspaper account of the proceedings of the American Legion convention I Chicago. The story revealed that a huge flood of telegrams had poured into the convention urging delegates to endorse a return to the gold standard. A resolution to this effect had been proposed and carried.

Butler felt mingled amusement and disgust.

To the general’s surprise MacGuire stopped off to see him, this time in a hired limousine, on the way back from the convention. The man said nothing about the contretemps with Clark, although Butler was certain he must have heard about it, and his manner was as buoyant and friendly as ever. He boasted to Butler about having put over the gold-standard resolution.
 

The general pointed out wryly that no action had been taken at the convention to endorse the soldiers’ bonus. MacGuire airily repeated his contention that there was no point in that until the country had sound currency.

Shortly afterward MacGuire came to Newtown Square again and surprised the general with the news that a dinner had been arranged by Boston veterans in his honor. He was promised transportation in a private car, and, MacGuire beamed, Butler would be paid a thousand dollars to speak at the dinner-in favor of the gold standard, of course.

Butler was dumbfounded at MacGuire’s incredible persistence.

Surely the indefatigable bond salesman had realized by this time that he was barking up the wrong tree! But perhaps, the general speculated, MacGuire felt challenged to “make the sale,” in much the same manner that he undoubtedly sought to overcome the sales resistance of reluctant prospects for his bonds. And apparently MacGuire was convinced that only Smedley Butler had the prestige and popularity among veterans that his coterie needed to put over the scheme.

Irked by the new attempt to bribe him, Butler rasped that he had never been paid a thousand dollars for any speech and had no intention of accepting such a sum to let words be put in his mouth. Chagrined but undiscouraged, MacGuire cheerfully promised to come up with some other more acceptable plan to utilize the general’s talents as a public speaker.

In October a former Marine running for office in Brooklyn, New York, begged Butler to make some campaign speeches in his behalf. Butler was hesitant because he was about to leave on a tour of the country for Veterans of Foreign Wars, speaking for the bonus and for membership in the V.F.W. as the best way to get it. But loyalty to the men who had served under him took him first to Pennsylvania Station.

To his astonishment he was met by MacGuire. The bond salesman somehow knew where he was headed and asked to accompany him. Butler consented, more and more intrigued by the ubiquitous MacGuire who kept turning up everywhere he went like a bad penny. He found himself even growing perversely fond of MacGuire for his stubborn refusal to take No for
an answer. In the Marines Butler had always had a soft spot for incorrigible rascals who brightened up monotonous routine by their unpredictable shenanigans.

Besides, he was still curious to learn more about what the plotters in the gold scheme were up to. MacGuire now revealed a new plan to involve the general through his impending lecture tour for the V.F.W. Wasn’t he, MacGuire probed, going to use the opportunity to speak out on public issues important to the veterans? Butler wasn’t sure whether this was simply a shrewd guess or whether MacGuire somehow had eyes and ears all over the country.

Butler declared that he believed that democracy was in danger from growing antidemocratic forces within the country and that he planned to appeal to the nation’s veterans to unite against this threat. At the same time he wanted to alert them to the risk of being dragged into another war by the propaganda of organizations camouflaged with patriotic trappings.

MacGuire looked thoughtful. Then he asserted that the group he represented really had the identical objectives. He urged Butler to let him go along on the tour. He would stay in the background, enlisting veterans in “a great big superorganization to maintain our democracy.”

Butler lost no time in squelching that idea. He admitted that he couldn’t keep MacGuire off any train he rode, but made it firmly clear that he would not be associated with the plans of MacGuire and his rich friends in any way. He softened the reprimand by saying that he did not want to hurt the feelings of a wounded veteran, but MacGuire would have to understand that he could not be used to aid money schemes.

MacGuire said peevishly that he couldn’t understand why Butler refused to be a businessman like himself. The general expressed blunt suspicions of MacGuire’s real reasons for wanting to trail in the wake of this V.F.W. tour. MacGuire protested that he had no intention of doing anything subversive.

Then he made the general a new offer. If Butler would merely insert in each of his V.F.W. speeches a short reference to the need for returning to the gold standard, in order to benefit veterans when a bonus bill was passed, MacGuire and his backers 
would pay him $750 per speech-three times what the V.F.W. was paying him. Butler replied emphatically that he would refuse to abuse the veterans’ 
trust in him even if the offer were for $100,000.

Frustrated, MacGuire took his departure abruptly.

Soon afterward Butler began his swing around the country for the V.F.W. He was no longer bothered-for the moment-by the persistent attentions of Jerry MacGuire, who left for Europe on December 1, on a mission for his backers.

MacGuire took his departure against the background of a steadily rising chorus of hatred for "that cripple in the White House" by big-business leaders. It was reflected in the anti-Roosevelt slant of both news and editorials in the business-oriented press. In the eyes of America's industrialists and bankers, the President, if not an actual secret Communist, was dedicated to destroying the nation's capitalist economy by the New Deal, which they labeled "creeping socialism."

Many believed that unless F.D.R. were stopped, he would soon take America down the same road that the Russians had traveled. They were horrified by his recognition of the Soviet Union on November 16, 1933, seeing it as a sinister omen. They were equally appalled by his speech six weeks later promising that the United States would send no more armed forces to Latin America to protect private investments.

Some business leaders envied their counterparts in Italy, who had financed Mussolini's rise to power. Il Duce's efficiency in "making the trains run on time" was highly lauded, along with the dictatorial control of labor unions by his corporate state. Thomas Lamont, a J. P. Morgan partner, praised the dictator for his methods of providing low-paying jobs, cutting the public debt, and ending inflation.

"We all count ourselves liberal, I suppose," Lamont told the Foreign Policy Association. "Are we liberal enough to be willing for the Italian people to have the sort of government they apparently want?"

Butler, who had not known that MacGuire: had left for Europe, received a postcard from him from the French Riviera, reporting only that he and his family were having a wonderful 
time. Another card came from MacGuire in June, 1934, this time from Berlin. Butler surmised that the bond salesman's long stay in Europe had to be on business, paid for by his boss or all his backers. But what kind of business? More shenanigans in connection with the gold standard?

Continuing his tour for the V.F.W., Butler observed more and more storm signals flying in the United States as he traveled around the country.

The nation was rapidly becoming polarized between the forces of Left and Right. Demagogues with apparently inexhaustible funds for propaganda and agitation led "patriotic" crusades against Communists, Jews, and "Jewish bankers," who were alleged to be behind the New Deal.

That June Roosevelt further inflamed big business by a whole new series of New Deal acts that crippled stock speculation, se up watchdog agencies over the telephone, telegraph, and radio industries, stopped farm foreclosures, prevented employers from hindering unionization and compelled them to accept collective bargaining. As an epidemic of turbulent strikes broke out, the orchestration of Roosevelt hatred in the nation's press rose to a fresh crescendo.

To Herbert Hoover the New Deal represented "class hatred . . .
preached from the White House," "despotism," and "universal bankruptcy."

Butler was intrigued by the July, 1934 issue of
Fortune,
the Luce magazine read by America's leading industrialists and bankers, which devoted a whole edition t glorifying Italian fascism.

It was produced by Laird S. Goldsborough, foreign editor for
Time
, who asked
Fortune's
wealthy readers "whether Fascism is achieving in a few years or decades such a conquest of the spirit of man as Christianity achieved only in ten centuries." He concluded, "The good journalist must recognize in Fascism certain ancient virtues of the race, whether or not they happen to h momentarily fashionable in his own country. Among these are Discipline, Duty, Courage, Glory, Sacrifice."

In that summer of 1934 it was not difficult to detect the acrid smell of incipient fascism in the corporate air. Smedley Butler large hawk nose was soon to detect more than a mere whiff of it.

Resting at home after his exhausting V.F.W. tour, which had included emotionally draining visits to the casualties hidden away in eighteen veterans' hospitals, Butler received a phone call from a familiar voice. Jerry MacGuire insisted that lie had to see the general immediately because he had "something of the utmost importance" to impart.

Butler and his wife had planned to drive into Philadelphia that afternoon, so, curiosity aroused, he agreed to meet MacGuire at the Bellevue Hotel. It was August 22, 1934, three days after a German plebescite had approved vesting sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as führer of Nazi Germany.