The Plot To Seize The White House (26 page)

The McCormack-Dickstein Committee found five significant facts that lent validity to Butler's testimony. Clark, who wanted the Legion to pass a gold-standard resolution, had given MacGuire those funds. In the long-distance call Clark had allegedly made to Chicago while Butler was listening, he had instructed MacGuire, "You can put this thing across alone. You've got $45,000. You can send those telegrams." MacGuire could not explain how he had spent those funds. But telegrams had, indeed, 
flooded the convention, and the Legion had passed the resolution.

Corroboration of Butler's testimony about MacGuire's mission in Europe was borne out by the committee's finding that he had spent large sums of money on that trip to study Fascist movements in Italy, Germany, and France. The committee found, too, that he and Clark had handled large sums of money for various organizations, that he had been active in organizations mentioned by Butler, and that he had acted as cashier for one organization. His accounts of some of these financial transactions failed to satisfy the committee, and he was curtly instructed to reappear the following day for further questioning.

Interviewed by reporters afterward, MacGuire declared that he was a personal friend of General Butler's and had last seen him six months earlier when he had gone to Philadelphia to sell some bonds. They had talked about an adequate military force for the nation, MacGuire insisted, and about world affairs in general, but he denied ever discussing a Fascist army or movement. A little desperately MacGuire suggested that "General Butler must be seeking publicity," and called the general's testimony "a pacifist stunt:" His attorney, Norman L. Marks, called it "a joke and a publicity stunt for General Butler."

Smedley Butler's reputation as an honest patriot made what he had testified to under oath impossible for the press to ignore. On November 21, 1934, in the center of its front page,
The New York Times
carried a two-column headline:

Gen. Butler Bares `Fascist Plot' 
To Seize Government by Force

Says Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead Army of 500,000 in March on Capital-Those Named Make Angry Denials-Dickstein Gets Charge 

Reading the
Times's
account of the secret hearings, Butler was struck by a unique arrangement of the facts in the story. Instead of beginning with a full account of his charges, there was only a brief paragraph restating the facts in the headline. This was followed by a whole string of denials, or ridicule of the charges, by prominent people implicated. Extensive space was given to their attempts to brand Butler a liar or lunatic. Only at the tail of the story, buried inside the paper, did the
Times
wind up its account with a few brief paragraphs mentioning some of his allegations.

Many papers that picked up the story dropped the tail carrying even those cursory details of the plot. Newspaper publishers had little reason to be fond of the firebrand general who, in his speech to veterans in Atlanta almost a year earlier, had warned them not to believe the capitalist-controlled press, which, Butler charged, suppressed facts unfavorable to America's powerful corporations.

The New York Times
did note, however, that Butler had told friends in Philadelphia that General Hugh S. Johnson, former N.R.A.
administrator, had been among those slated for the role of dictator if Butler turned it down and that J. P. Morgan and Company and Grayson M.-P. 
Murphy and Company were both involved in the plot.

"It's a joke-a publicity stunt," Jerry MacGuire was quoted as insisting. "I know nothing about it. The matter is made up out of whole cloth. I deny the story completely."

General Johnson growled, "He had better be pretty damn careful.

Nobody said a word to me about anything of this kind, and if they did I'd throw them out the window. I know nothing about it."

Thomas W. Lamont, partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, gave his comment: "Perfect moonshine! Too unutterably ridiculous to comment upon!" J. P. Morgan himself, just back from Europe, had nothing to say.

"A fantasy!" scoffed Colonel Grayson M.-P. Murphy. "I can't imagine how anyone could produce it or any sane person believe it. It is absolutely false so far as it relates to me and my firm 
and I don't believe there is a word of truth in it with respect to Mr. 
MacGuire."

Colonel Murphy specifically denied to reporters that he had financed any Fascist plot and called the statement that he had made out a check for General Butler's Chicago expenses "an absolute lie." He declared that he did not know General Butler and had never heard of the reputed Fascist movement until the charges had been published. He insisted that in 1932 he had voted for President Roosevelt, the target of the alleged plot.

Asked about these denials, Butler snorted to a
New York Times
reporter, "Hell, you're not surprised they deny it, are you? What they have to say they'll say before the committee." He wanted them under oath, as lie had been.

In Washington General Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff, was unavailable for comment because of a real or a diplomatic "heavy cold."

His aides, however, expressed amazement and amusement that MacArthur had been named by Butler as an alternate choice of the plotters for dictator if Butler persisted in refusing the offer.

"All the principals in the case," George Seldes noted in his book
Facts and Fascism,
"were American Legion officials and financial backers."

Secretary of War George H. Dern, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. 
Swanson, and a large number of senators and congressmen urged the McCormack-Dickstein Committee to get to the bottom of the conspiracy.

"We are going to make a searching investigation of the evidence submitted by General Butler," McCormack announced. "Our original information came from several different sources. General Butler was not the first source of our information. . . . We have been in possession of certain information for about five weeks and have been investigating it. We will call all the men mentioned in the story, although Mr. Clark is reported to be in Europe."

"From present indications," declared Dickstein, "Butler has the evidence. He's not going to make any serious charges unless he has something to back them up. We'll have the men here with bigger names than his." He added that Butler had substantiated 
most of the statements attributed to him and had enied none. Both McCormack and Dickstein emphasized that the general had repulsed all proposals from the Fascist group.

Dickstein indicated that about sixteen persons mentioned to the committee by Butler would be subpoenaed and that an open hearing might be held within a week.

Returning frorn Washington, Butler was besieged by reporters at his home in Newtown Square.

"My name has been used all around the country by organizations,"

he told them. "They'd get some vets and say, `See, we have Butler with us.' They were using me. The investigators who have been running this thing down found my name popping up everywhere, so they wanted to know what I knew about it-and I'm not the only man in this thing."

Next day Dr. W. D. Brooks, of Jackson, Michigan, wired the President:

Very obviously Wall St. plans to take over the U.S. Govt. if Hoover reelected. Very obviously Butler is telling the truth. I have been looking for just this attempt at a Wall St. coup if your policies looked like succeeding. Wall St. is the enemy of our govt. and Butler is giving it to you straight-don't doubt that for a minute.

The writer was unable to ascertain the identity of Dr. Brooks, but apparently his opinion carried some weight at the White House, because Louis Howe referred his wire to Attorney General Homer S. Cummings "for acknowledgment and consideration." A demand for prosecution of the conspirators came from many V.F.W. posts all over the country, which passed resolutions praising Butler for exposing the plotters.

Typical was the resolution of Philadelphia Post 37 on November 22, 1934:

Whereas Major General Smedley D. Butler has again exhibited his patriotism, sterling integrity and incorruptible character by exposing a sinister clique of adventurers who would undermine and destroy our form of government, and whereas such treasonable activities by men of money and of influence are more dangerous to our institutions than radical groups in our midst, therefore be it resolved ... that it commend General Butler for his patriotic spirit and hereby expresses its deep gratitude for his great service to our country. And be it further resolved that the Clair Post hereby respectfully requests the Attorney General of the United States to take proper legal action against all guilty parties involved.

If the press seemed overeager to emphasize denials of Butler's charges, the people of grass-roots America were far readier to believe the man who had exposed the plot. Letters of encouragement poured in from all over the country. One Nebraska woman wrote him: It is heartening to find a man who has the courage to fight that Octopus, Wall St. More power to you. There are millions of honest people in the United States who applaud you and would follow you heart & soul. Read of MacNider's name being linked with the case.

Heard him speak before a woman's club in Omaha. Sized him up as being that kind of tripe. Here's hoping you expose these traitors to a showdown. Yours for justice. . . .

Jerry MacGuire returned as a witness for a second day of secret grilling by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. Again he denied Butler's charges that he had approached the general on behalf of a plot to establish a Fascist dictatorship.

He testified that lie had received thirty thousand dollars from Robert Sterling Clark to be deposited in the Hanover Trust Company to the credit of "The Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc." He and his backers had only wanted 
to interest Butler in
that
committee, MacGuire insisted, because as an important and popular public figure the general could command attention for their movement. They wanted to give him the opportunity to "make a little money" in the process.

Although Clark, his attorney A. G. Christmas, Walter E. Frew, and others were behind the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, their names had been carefully omitted from its records.

MacGuire testified that as far as he knew, Clark had never had any interest in a Fascist organization. But the McCormack-Dickstein Committee located letters from MacGuire written from Europe to Clark and Christmas that proved otherwise.

To many questions thrown at him MacGuire answered evasively,

"It is too far back," or "I cannot recall." At the conclusion of his testimony Dickstein told reporters that MacGuire was "hanging himself" by contradictions in his story and by forced admissions made during his testimony. When this opinion was quoted in a few evening newspapers, Dickstein observed that he had meant it to be "off the
record."

Norman L. Marks, the attorney who had accompanied Mac Guire at the secret hearings, told reporters that MacGuire had denied ever having had any connection with any Fascist organization of any sort; that he had ever been the "cashier" for any Fascist group; or that he had gone to Europe to study the Fascist movement. MacGuire's European trip, Marks alleged, had been solely for purposes of private business.

McCormack declared that all information about the testimony would be withheld because it had been given in closed executive session. But the fact that the committee regarded the testimony as important, he added, was shown by the decision to recall MacGuire for further questioning. Despite Dickstein's earlier statement that sixteen people named by Butler would be subpoenaed, McCormack said that the committee had not yet decided whether to call additional witnesses.

Noting that the most important witness, apart from MacGuire, was Robert S. Clark, "a wealthy New Yorker with offices in the Stock Exchange Building," who was abroad, McCormack indicated that if the facts warranted, a public hearing would be held. Leaders of important o
rganizations like the American Legion and the V.F.W. would then be invited to appear before the committee.

The Associated Press reported from Indianapolis that banker Frank N. Belgrano, Jr., national commander of the Legion, had denied that the Legion was involved "in the slightest degree" in any plot to supply an army for a "march on Washington." Highly placed Legion officials in Washington also characterized as "horsefeathers" a rumor that a group of "big-business men" had promised the Legion payment of adjusted service certificates, in return for a pledge to support the Fascist movement.

Louis Johnson, former Legion national commander, declared in Fairmont, West Virginia, that he could not recall having written the letter to Jerry MacGuire, promising to see him about Fascist army plan, that MacGuire had shown briefly to Paul Comly French. If he had written such a letter, Johnson insisted, it would show that he and the Legion were unalterably opposed to any dictatorship.

On November 22 the Associated Press struck a low blow at Butler by getting Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, of New York, to express an opinion of the conspiracy based on what he had read about it in the press. The AP ran this "news item" under the headline "COCKTAIL 
PUTSCH," MAYOR SAYS:

Mayor LaGuardia of New York laughingly described today the charges of General Smedley D. Butler that New York brokers suggested he lead an army of 500,000 ex-service men on Washington as "a cocktail putsch." The Mayor indicated he believed that some one at a party had suggested the idea to the ex-marine as a joke.

Reading the press treatment of the scanty disclosures that had leaked out of the closed hearing, Butler was not surprised by the attempts to minimize and ridicule his exposure of the conspiracy. He had expected to be pilloried for his audacity in pinning a traitors' label on powerful American interests. He hoped, however, that the press would eventually be compelled to print the whole story of the plot as it had unfolded to him, when he testified at a public hearing along with French's corroboration.