On This Date: Smedley Butler Becomes Entangled in the "Business Plot"
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7.1.33
Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler alleges in sworn testimony that he met with two businessmen, Gerald C. MacGuire (a bond salesman) and Bill Doyle (the commander of the Massachusetts American Legion). Apparently the goal was to get Butler to take over the American Legion and call on volunteers to arm themselves and force out FDR out in a coup d’etat. During this turbulent time in the worst of the Great Depression, there was most assuredly other business interests aligned with fascist organizations that talked about either assassinating FDR or taking over the government through a coup. The elite business interests didn’t want such broad nationalized programs, even in the midst of a terrible depression. They wanted to return to the Gold Standard and continue the laissez-faire capitalism that brought them all their riches and political control. Butler’s testimony provides some stark details that for many historians, are hard to ignore. He claims he met twice with MacGuire and Doyle. Apparently Butler’s popularity and has experiences in the Philippines was attractive to them as well as other fascistic business organizations that were springing up throughout the early 1930’s. There is no direct evidence that a direct plot like this took place and Butler didn’t take any notes or at least, didn’t produce any during the testimony that would’ve helped him corroborate his story. However, for that level of honesty and the great risk it was to his career, something similar must have taken place if not relatively often during those years. FDR was considered a class traitor by many in the business community, so this kind of planning and plotting is not shocking. The McCormick-Dickstein committee ultimately dismissed the charges and no arrests were ever made. Butler would go on to write the infamous book War is a Racket in 1935 where he asserts strongly that America’s imperial conquests were the result of business interests participating in war profiteering and resource extraction. It was a very progressive outlook at the time, especially for a high ranking military officer. Butler had seen a lot of this dynamic first-hand while he was in Haiti as well as during his early military career in the Spanish-American War. His influence would rub off on Dwight Eisenhower, who as president almost 30 years later would warn Americans in his outgoing address, “to beware of the military industrial complex.”