The Plot To Seize The White House (28 page)

Apparently in response to Spivak and other newsmen pressing for an explanation of what the committee was doing about Butler's charges, McCormack announced on November 2,5 that the committee would make a statement the next day detailing the testimony it had received.

He declared that it would reveal " several important inconsistencies" 
between the testimony of MacGuire and statements attributed to him in the press. McCormack also went out of his way to emphasize vigorously that General Butler could not be accused of "publicity seeking" in making public his exposure of the plot.

Next day, November 26, the committee's preliminary findings were released in an eight-thousand-word statement signed by 
McCormack and Dickstein. It began: "This committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men as John W. Davis, General Hugh Johnson, General James G. Harbord, Thomas W. Lamont, Admiral William S. Sims or Hanford MacNider. The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into the testimony which constitutes mere hearsay. This committee is not concerned with premature newspaper accounts, when given and published prior to the taking of testimony. . . ."

In 1971 McCormack told the author that he had always tried to operate by the rules of courtroom law, eliminating hearsay evidence lie considered legally inadmissible. Dickstein had given the same explanation of the committee's modus operandi in 1934, whereupon Spivak had pointed out, "But your published reports are full of hearsay testimony." Dickstein had merely blinked and said, "They are?"

The committee statement withheld passing judgment on the testimony it had heard as premature, but the two chairmen indicated that they intended to pursue their inquiry further by calling Clark and Christmas to testify on their return from Europe, to question them about the thousand-dollar bills.

The New York Times
reported:

COMMITTEE CALM 
OVER BUTLER 'PLOT'

Has No Evidence to Warrant

Calling Johnson and Others

Named, It Declares

The so-called plot of Wall Street interests to have Major Gen. 
Smedley D. Butler head a Fascist movement to take over the national government and restore the gold dollar failed yesterday to emerge in any alarming proportions from the statement by the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities cm the evidence before it. . . .

But the committee was far from being as "calm" about the matter as the
Times
story insisted. On that same day Dickstein wrote to President Roosevelt, "The committee on C.U.A.A. has 
issued the enclosed short report on Gen. Butler's charges, which we have made public, as the pressure brought to bear on the committee made this course absolutely imperative. . . . I should very much like to have a conversation with you at your convenience."

The day after the
Times
ran its "Committee Calm" version of the preliminary McCormack-Dickstein statement, a refutation of this interpretation by Dickstein compelled the paper to print a revised article of the retraction. Now a new headline no longer carried the word "plot" 
in scoffing quotes:

BUTLER PLOT INQUIRY

NOT TO BE DROPPED

Dickstein Says Committee Will

Get to the Bottom of Story—

Awaits Clark's Return

The Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities still intends to get to the bottom of the story of a Wall Street plot to put Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler at the head of a Fascist army here, Representative Samuel Dickstein, vice chairman, said yesterday. The committee's statement of the evidence, he explained, was intended only to satisfy the great public interest in the plot.

Mr. Dickstein said that the committee was pleased that this preliminary report was received "neither as a whitewash of notable persons nor as sensationalism because of the startling nature of the possibilities, but simply as an indication of the purpose of the committee to proceed carefully in such an important matter."

Dickstein emphasized that the committee was far from satisfied with the story told by MacGuire, whose memory had failed to produce any satisfactory account of the funds that he had handled for Clark and Christmas. Furthermore, although Clark and Christmas had cabled from abroad that they were willing to return to testify, Dickstein said that they had not done so and that the committee would like to question them both. As soon as their presence was assured, a special executive session of the committee would be called to hear them.
 

On November 30 President Roosevelt replied to Dickstein, thanking him for sending him the preliminary report on the testimony and declaring, "I am interested in having it. I take it that the committee will proceed further."

On December 3, 1934, Time magazine ran a first-page story that attempted to ridicule Butler under the headlines "Plot Without Plotters."

The story opened with a pseudoaccount of Butler on a white horse assembling 500,00o veterans at a C.C.C. camp at Elkridge, Maryland, and crying, "Men, Washington is but 30 miles away! Will you follow me?"

The men all shout, "We will!" Then Butler's army marches south to Washington on Highway 1 while an ammunition train supplied by Remington Arms Company and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company brings up the rear.

Also in the column on horseback behind Butler, according to
Time's
burlesqued version of the plot, are "that grim, old-time cavalryman, General Hugh Samuel Johnson" and MacArthur; behind them, three past national commanders of the American Legion-MacNider, Johnson, and Henry Stevens. They are followed in a shiny limousine by J. P. Morgan and his partner, Thomas W. Lamont.

Then, in
Time's
parody, Butler ("his spurs clinked loudly") strides into Roosevelt's study and barks, "Mr. President, I have 500,000 men outside who want peace but want something more. I wish you to remove Cordell Hull as Secretary of State." Roosevelt promptly telephones for Hull's resignation.

"And now, Mr. President, I ask you to fill the vacancy which has just occurred in your Cabinet by appointing me Secretary of State."

Roosevelt signs the commission for Butler, who then tells him, "Let it be understood that henceforth I will act as the 
nation's executive. You may continue to live here at the White House and draw your salary but you will do and say only what I tell you. If not, you and Vice-President Garner will be dealt with as I think best. In that event, as Secretary of State, I shall succeed to the Presidency, as provided by law." The President nods assent, and the United States becomes a Fascist state.
Time
then commented:

Such was the nightmarish page of future United States history pictured last week in Manhattan by General Butler himself to the special House Committee investigating un-American Activities. No military officer of the United States since the late tempestuous George Custer has succeeded in publicly floundering in so much hot water as Smedley Darlington Butler.

Time
then recounted highlights of Butler's career, emphasizing the controversies he had never shied away from and implying that they arose solely from the general's taste for publicity.

Last month he told a Manhattan Jewish congregation that he would never again fight outside the U.S. General Butler's sensational tongue had not been heard in the nation's Press for more than a week when he cornered a reporter for the Philadelphia
Record
and New York Post, poured into his ears the lurid tale that he had been offered leadership of a Fascist Putsch scheduled for next year. . . .

Thanking their stars for having such sure-fire publicity dropped in their laps, Representatives McCormack and Dickstein began calling witnesses to expose the "plot." But there did not seem to he any plotters.

A bewildered army captain, commandant at the Elkridge CCC 
camp, could shed no light on the report that his post was to be turned into a revolutionary base.

Mr. Morgan, just off a boat from Europe, had nothing to say, but Partner Lamont did: "Perfect moonshine! Too utterly ridiculous to comment upon!" . . .

Investor Clark, in Paris, freely admitted trying to get General Butler to use his influence with the Legion against dollar devaluation, but stoutly maintained: "I am neither a 
Fascist nor a Communist, but an American." He threatened a libel suit 
"unless the whole affair is relegated to the funny sheets by Sunday."

"It sounds like the best laugh story of the year," chimed in General MacArthur from Washington. . . .

Though most of the country was again laughing at the latest Butler story, the special House Committee declined to join in the merriment. . . . "From present indications," said the publicity-loving New York Representative [Dickstein], "General Butler has the evidence. He's not making serious charges unless he has something to back them up. We will have some men here with bigger names than Butler's before this is over."

For those of its readers who might have found
Time's
satirical attack too subtle, the magazine helped them get the message by its choice of photos to accompany the story. An unflattering photo of Butler in civilian clothes, with his finger reflectively in one ear, was labeled, "He was deaf to a dictatorship." The pose subtly suggested that the general, as the copy broadly hinted, was a bit daft.

In contrast, a jovial, laughing picture of that good-natured, genial humanitarian, J. P. Morgan, looking like everybody's grandfather, was labeled, "Moonshine provided the amusement." And a stern, handsome picture of Colonel Grayson M.-P. Murphy, dressed in a trim World War I colonel's uniform, hand dashingly on hip, was captioned with this quote: "'A fantasy!"'

The author asked McCormack in 1971 about
Time's
fairness in reporting the Butler hearing. The answer was a snort of disgust.
"Time
has always been about as filthy a publication as ever existed," he said emphatically. "I've said that publicly many times. The truth gets no coverage at all, just sensationalism, whatever will sell copies."

Indignant on Butler's behalf, the New York City post of the V.F.W. 
sent President Roosevelt a wire on December 7 pledging their loyalty and support, and commending Butler for his courage and patriotism in exposing the conspirators.

Ten days later McCormack announced that Albert Christmas had returned from Europe and would testify in two or three 
days in an executive session. Clark's attorney was not questioned, however, until the final day of the committee's life, January 3, 1935, after which no further investigatory action could be taken by the committee.

". . . and then the questions were limited only to money given MacGuire by the lawyer and Clark," Spivak noted. "Presumably because of the sacredness of lawyer-client confidences, no questions were asked about conversations or correspondence between an alleged principal in the plot and his attorney."

There was an interesting exchange, nevertheless, in the matter of $65,000 MacGuire testified that he had received for traveling and entertainment expenses:

MCCORMACK: So the way you want to leave it is there is $65,000 or $66,000 that Mr. MacGuire received from either you, or Mr. 
Clark, which he spent in the period between June and December of 1933 for traveling and entertainment expenses?

CHRISTMAS: Yes, sir.

MCCORMACK: Did he return to you some time in August 
[1934] approximately $30,000 in cash?

CHRISTMAS: No.

MCCORMACK: Do you know he testified he did?

CHRISTMAS: The committee gave me some indication of such testimony at a previous session.

MCCORMACK: Assuming he has testified to that, that is not so?

CHRISTMAS: I would say he is in error. He is mistaken.

So the committee found still another reason to doubt the veracity of MacGuire, who had denied, under oath, all the allegations of the Fascist plot in which he was the go-between, as alleged by General Smedley Butler.

Press coverage of what was obviously a startling story of utmost importance to the security of the nation was largely one of distortion, suppression, and omission.

"In the case of the Liberty League-Legion-Wall Street conspiracy to overthrow the United States Government," George Seldes declared in his book 1000
Americans,
"there was one of the most reprehensible conspiracies of silence in the long (and disgraceful) history of American journalism."

In his book
Facts and Fascism
he wrote, "Most papers suppressed the whole story or threw it down by ridiculing it. Nor did the press later publish the McCormack-Dickstein report which stated that every charge Butler made and French corroborated had been proven true."

The most sensitive revelations, as far as the press was concerned, were those touching upon connections with J. P. Morgan and Company and the powerful interests represented by the American Liberty League.

Heywood Broun, the highly esteemed columnist for the New York World
Telegram,
once observed that the face of
The New York Times
was "black with the Morgan shoepolish." Speaker McCormack told me, "The
Times
is the most slanting newspaper in the world. I would not expect anything else from them. They brainwash the American people.

It's an empire."

In fairness to
The New York Times of
today, however, I should quote their severest critic, George Seldes, who wrote me in October, 1971, "I find the press [today] more liberal, too, especially
The New
York Times.
(And I have not grown mellow in my views, I think.)"

If the prestigious
Times
had distorted the Wall Street conspiracy story in 1934-1935, class-angling the news was obviously 
more pronounced in the heavily anti-Roosevelt, pro-big-business press of that day, much of which derived huge advertising revenues from corporations involved in the American Liberty League.