Ep 2 – A Man Most Méchant

While history books and Hollywood like their stories in simple black and white, real life is much more complicated. So, what made Major General Butler the ideal candidate to lead a coup? In this week’s episode – against Smedley’s wishes – Ben and Alex dive into the Major General’s dark backstory to explore why the bankers believed he was the man they were looking for.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Originals. This is an I heeart original. When you watch
a movie or a show on TV, whether you realize
it or not, one of the first things you do
is try to sort out who's the good guy and

(00:30):
who's the villain. Hollywood frequently makes this pretty easy. Think
about it. In Western's bad guys always wear black hats.
In spy movies they wear Nehru jackets and I don't know,
monocles or you know, Nazi uniforms papers. Wow line, we
like our good and are bad predetermined pre cooks like

(00:51):
a microwave dinner. Tell me who to root for, tell
me who to hate, and do it quickly, we say,
because I'm in a hardy Yeah. But that same simplicity,
comforting as it might be, prevents us from truly understanding
reality and real world events, just like real world people
are much more complicated than what we see on the

(01:11):
big screen, or, for that matter, what we hear on
a podcast. You know, Alex, I'm drawn to stories where
the lines separating good and evil just aren't so clear,
where there are no absolute good guys. Yeah yeah, I
mean kids these days are calling it moral ambiguity. Then
there it is our protagonist Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler.

(01:32):
He's like that. He's got a lot of these blurred lines.
We met him in the last episode giving a speech
to homeless vets in a muddy Hooverville. Now he's at home, miserable,
bitter and over the hill. Guta, suck you one for that,
But look at me, you're not wrong. So that's Smedley Hi,
And this show is about how he ended up being

(01:54):
one of the most important and most forgotten whistleblowers in
the history of this country. He exposed a plot by
the nation's wealthiest men to overthrow the president of the
United States. But Smedley has a torrid backstory too. It's
one that reminds us that there are no true good guys,
at least not like in the movies. Wait, what do

(02:16):
you mean, I'm not a good guy. I'm one of
the great gravelly voiced American heroes. Damn It Defender and
disseminator of democracy. From Cedar Sucking, Mother Face, Rabble Rousing,
Shining Sea from iHeart Originals and School of Humans. This
is let's start a coup. I'm Ben Bullet, I'm Alex French.

(02:38):
To bring you the story We've done all the research,
read the books, interviewed historians, but still there are some
big gaps in the historical record, and we'll never know
exactly what happened. So in those gaps we've had some fun.
If it's so fun, how come I'm not letting this
is episode two A man must misshat. So during the

(03:05):
prime years of Smedley's military career, right around the turn
of the twentieth century, the United States engaged in a
unique brand of foreign policy. I guarantee you snooze through
this part of high school history if your teacher mentioned
it at all. Yeah. It's referred to as dollar diplomacy.
In short, instead of expanding the empire by invading with

(03:27):
military might, the US used money as its primary weapon,
taking control of the country's finances and forcing them to
do what benefit of America. It was supposed to be bloodless,
but people always died. We have a friend named Jonathan Katz.
Not too long ago, he wrote a fascinating book about
Smelley Butler in the making of the American Empire called
Gangsters of Capitalism. You still need some bullets in order

(03:50):
for this to work, because if you just try to
do things with informatble control, like, there will be people
who can use their connections within the country to establish
more direct control of their own economy and government. So
you need the threat of violence, and often you need
actual violence in order to see this through. And Butler
did that. Hey, listen, violence is just part of the gig.

(04:11):
That's what it takes to be the second most decorated
marine in the history of the Core. I got more
medals than the Federal Reserve, almost died from malaria, nearly
drowned in Subic Bay, got shot in the face. You
did it? Yeah, well not in the face, but a
thigh wound. Ain't nothing to sneeze that. I couldn't can
can for a week. Yeah, that sounds tough. Yeah, but
it was all for Uncle Sam. You see, when you

(04:33):
sign up to serve America, you serve America by adhering
to the chain of command. Well, we're gonna find out
soon enough what comes from that kind of logic. Smedley.
All right, I can take it. Make with the flashback.
Smedley's journey to gangsterism started in Philadelphia, but not just
in any neighborhood. He's from Westchester. The ritziest, waspiest part

(04:55):
of Philly. A child of extreme privilege. Smedley put down
thine lollipop, Mamma, you'll get this lolly from my cold
dead hand. His mom was from a wealth family. His dad,
an attorney by trade, serves like fifteen terms in Congress.
Smedley went to a very exclusive private school called Haverford.
He grew up a devout Quaker and you know they're

(05:17):
supposed to be pacifists, right, But when he's sixteen, the
Spanish American War captivates him. He's too young to enlist,
so Smedley lies about his age and joins the Marine Corps.
But like you said, Alex, Smedley is rich and connected,
so being underage and inexperienced doesn't really matter. Yeah. He

(05:38):
goes into the Corps as a second lieutenant, an officer,
youngest officer at the time, and according to my own
internal polling, the third most adorabel. So Smedley comes of
age just as America began building its overseas empires. Any
skyrockets through the ranks of the Marines. With the Marines,
Smedley spilled blood in China, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Mexico, the Philippines, Honduras,

(06:04):
often so American steel or oil or fruit companies could
do business save from those pesky indigenous people. You know,
he's sounding less and less adorable. Alex sure Is. Smedley
set up Client Malicious to suppress opponents of American foreign policy.
He was the blunt instrument of American imperialism. His work

(06:24):
was animated by a jaw dropping racism and white supremacy.
We'll get into all of that, but saying that he
was a product of the age doesn't exactly explain away
his views. Hey, I just served my country. It's not
like the country. It can be racist, yes it can't.
Oh really, huh oh. What Smedley did in Haiti was horrific.

(06:48):
Jonathan Katz worked in Haiti as a correspondent for the
Associated Press. That's how he found out about this story.
He first came across Smedley's name while digging into the
American occupation of Haiti, which stretched from nineteen fifteen all
the way to nineteen thirty four. Haiti is an independent country.
It had been independent since eighteen o four, the only

(07:09):
country in the modern world to be founded by a
revolt by enslaved people. It's one of the most remarkable
stories and one of the most remarkable countries in the
world just in terms of that history. In nineteen ten,
dollar diplomacy forced Haiti to start accepting US financial control.
The key American player here is a guy named Roger Farnum,

(07:32):
one of history's great villains. He simultaneously served as VP
of National City Bank of New York in the National
Bank of Haiti, and the president of Haiti's National Railway.
Oh and he was President Woodrow Wilson's principal advisor on Haiti.
He leveraged those positions to create the conditions for an
American invasion. This guy has Haiti's fate in his hands.

(07:55):
If you're looking for the true definition of gangsterism, look
no further. Uncle Sam wants control of Haiti because it
sits on the path of every cargo ship heading from
the East coast of the United States to the Panama Canal.
It's a crucially strategic port. So Roger Farnham creates a
pretext to invade, or, if you prefer, he stages a heist.

(08:17):
Here's how he does it, right, Had's in debt to
the US. Farnham uses this to try and take over
the country. He comes up with a plan called, in
a burst of humility, the Farnham Plan. The United States
takes over Hadi Sports and claims all of the import
export money. With no income, Haiti needs funds to pay debt,

(08:39):
but Farnham freezes ten million francs sitting in reserve in
the Haitian National Bank, and then Farnum tells Uncle Sam
something has to be done to get this cash, the
same cash, by the way, that Farnham himself is purposely withholding.
So guess what happens next. The Marines invade, including Smappy Butler.

(09:02):
They waltz into the Haitian National Bank and steal half
of the gold reserves and whisked them away to Wall Street.
This sends politics in Haiti into a tail spin. The
Haitian president is assassinated by his own people, and that
revolt gave the Americans what they really wanted, a pretext

(09:24):
for an occupation. By nineteen fifteen, the US installed a
puppet president. The US government called it the US Occupation
of Haiti with a capital O, and they're using it
ephemistically because they're trying to differentiate themselves from a European power.
They're like this isn't the US colonization of Haiti. We're

(09:46):
not taking it, We're just gonna occupy it for a
little while. So Uncle Sam has control of Haiti, sports
a puppet president and old Smedley on the ground making
sure everything is going to plan, squashing insurgencies, killing what
they call rebels who stand in opposition to the American occupation.
And one of the goals of the US occupation is

(10:07):
to allow American business to flourish there, right, and what
is blocking them from doing this is the Haitian constitution.
They say in their constitution that no foreigner can own
land in Haiti, which is extremely inconvenient if you are

(10:27):
a city bank. It's also a problem for any American
corporation that wants to set up any kind of business there,
and that is in turn a problem for US foreign policy,
because remember, the goal is to make the world safe
for American business. And so the Americans say, we are

(10:49):
going to rewrite the constitution of Haiti and put in
a line that says anyone can own land, regardless of
whether their Haitian or not. And of course Haitians don't
like this, but there's seemingly one last line of defense
the Haitian Parliament, and the Haitian Parliament is also the

(11:10):
body that would have to ratify this new constitution, and
they are not going to ratify this constitution because this
constitution is they big fuck you to all of Haitian
history and Haitian self identity. This is unacceptable to the
Americans because doing things that are good for American business,

(11:31):
it's just core of this mission. And so the American
occupation decides to overthrow the Haitian National Assembly to destroy
the Haitian Parliament. And who do they send to do
this but Smedley Butler. As you may remember, Smedley's nickname
was gimblet Ee, not in reference to the cocktail, of course,

(11:54):
but because of his piercing gaze. Although I also like
the cocktail, and Smedley wrote all about this in his
book Old ghimblet I Yes, in my book, I recounted
how the Haitians did everything they could think of to
block the new American version of their constitution. So we
needed the Haitian president to help us get rid of
the pesky parliament. And we thought that would be easy

(12:15):
since the Americans installed him in power in the first place. Well,
the coward got cold feet and hid in his office
when Smelby found him. The President said he'd only dissolve
the Assembly if his five other cabinet members signed the order.
But the cabinet members were hiding. Two. My driver brought
two of them back by the neck. That gave us

(12:36):
three cabinet members. We told the president that three is enough. Wait. Wait,
you kidnapped cabinet members. No. I sent a few of
my men to find the cabinet members and ominously said
retrieve them, and then they did so. The word kidnapped
is a little active stealing, abducting, or carrying off a
human being forcibly. Oh, get a load of the smart guy.

(12:58):
You may have a dictionary, smart guy, but I've got
a rolled up dictionary. Jesus christad Allonia. You're not making
a great case for your matic skills. Man. I did
what needed to be done for the country. Watch everybody's problem.
After getting the president in his cabinet to sign the
order to dissolve the National Assembly, Smiley goes to the

(13:19):
Assembly with fifty armed soldiers. They are armed, They load
their rifles and he says, I have an order from
the President which we wrote, disband this assembly. And the
head of the Assembly, the guy named Steny of his son,
says no, and then Butler says please. Yeah, I was
real polite with it, just like that, I said please.

(13:42):
And then the gendarmes cocked their rifles and Vincent realizes
that like he and the other members of the parliament
could very well end up dying at their desks, and
so they agreed to disband it, and the Haitian Parliament
stays disbanded for twelve years. Butler orders all records of
this destroyed. He gathers newspaper editors and importer prince and

(14:05):
tells them not to print any details of this happening.
So maybe this little incident brought me some unwanted attention
and criticism. Sure, I wound up answering questions before a
congressional committee. They hammered me with under whose authority to order?
The President of hadatads all of the National Assembly, And
I said, I can't remember everything that happens to me

(14:26):
all day. I drink a lot of gimlets. After the
Americans takeover, our Boye s Medals doesn't exactly cover himself
in glory. He was in charge of constructing a national
road system in Haiti, except Haiti couldn't pay for the
road building project because the US had taken all their money.
So Smedley revived an old French imperial law permitting the

(14:49):
interment of citizens to perform forced labor. This came hardly
one hundred years after Haitian slaves revolted and won their
freedom from their French colonial masters. Talk about a special
brand of cruelty. Some nine thousand poor Haitian were forced
to build those roads. It was later revealed that Smedley

(15:11):
personally approved the use of chains and ropes to keep
those laborers from escaping. That's right, he enslaved Haitians in
their own country. When the project was complete, FDR wrote
to Smedley, congratulating him. Smedley's response, and we're quoting here
it would not do to ask too many questions as
to how he accomplished this work. To this day, in Haiti,

(15:36):
Jonathan Katz tells US Smedley is remembered as among the
most Misshaon, the most evil, the most corrupt of all
the Americans, which they clearly have a point. Smedley Butler
led a violent takeover of another country, not once, not twice.
He did it over and over again, using military might

(15:58):
to pave the way for American business across the planet,
and he was celebrated for this back home, sort of
like an twentieth century captain America experienced cool leader could
have been at the top of his resume after the
break is cool leadership a perishable skill, and some really

(16:20):
really rich guys go shopping for the right man to
lead their insurrection. I want you to close your eyes.
Imagine we're back in the dark smoky room. You mean

(16:42):
that impossible to get into club where the world Orditors
charted the one from episode one? Yeah, yeah, nailed it.
Indeed that exact dark smoky room. We're back in the
summer of nineteen thirty three. The Great Depression lingers on,
but the New Deal is quickly reshaping America, offering almost
instantaneous relief to throngs of unemployed workers. Relief. What is

(17:05):
this bullshit? I'm paying six three percent income tax. Oh
you know I could be if I didn't send all
my loot to Switzerland. Oh look, our anonymous evil plutocrats
have returned. All these industrial regulations he wants to enforce.
He wants to regulate child labor and wages. How dare
he I sail? Let the children run free and our

(17:26):
spot shops. The New Deal is a massive redistribution of
wealth from the rich, who were taxed heavily, to the
poor and unemployed. Of course, there are cries that Roosevelt
is a socialist, worse, a traitor to his class. Anyone
who's vuying for a thirty hour work, which simply must
be a communist. The New Deal meant that the old

(17:48):
less a fairways of not regulating business were over before.
During the darkest days of the depression, FDR's predecessor, Herbert
Hoover wouldn't even intervene to halt foreclosures. Yeah, like why
would I? But allowing the free market to rage uncontrolled,
nothing productive. The New Deal broke with that tradition, so

(18:09):
some very powerful people start to line up against the president,
like Williamandolf first medimogul in the Smoky Room, we know
him as Uncle Randy. Yes, yes, I hear Uncle Randy
as an exact replica of the Smoky Room built into
his Park Avenue place so he can machinate in the
comfort of his own home. Our legal department requires me

(18:31):
to say that's probably almost definitely not true. Hurst actually
did back Roosevelt in the beginning, but when he turned
against the President, he went all out. Here's Hurst railing
against the new deal. The sowner. This impudent, intrusive, despotic, discriminatory,

(18:56):
and perhaps revolutionary system of taxation is a repeal, and
it's important to the Hurst doesn't mean revolutionary as a
good thing. It's around this time, almost twenty years after
hijacking hades national sovereignty. A retired Smedley butler gets a
phone call. It's a hot afternoon in July of nineteen

(19:19):
thirty three. Pass me a gimblet ethel. I'm shitzing. What
a great wife? Never says a word. A man from
the American Legion called the head to say someone was
on their way to see him. Nothing ominous about that.
A chauffeurd Packard convertible pulls into Smedley's driveway. What have

(19:39):
we here? This man is a wounded vet. He's short, jowledy,
he's in his thirties but looks decades older, and he
is dressed to the nines. Hello Smedley. Derry maguire no
relation to the movie coming out in sixty three years
Marine Corps Connecticut, a thought in the Great War, and
left with a silver plate in my cranium. My wife said,

(20:01):
you've always been hot headed, but this is ridiculous. That's
a crappy joke. But come on in marine. The head
backed to Smedley's office. McGuire does the talking. Here's the deal, Smedley,
Me and a couple of piles need your leadership, your
what's the word gravity task. We want to send you

(20:23):
to the American Legion convention in Chicago this September. Remember,
like you said earlier, Alex, the American Legion is a
massive veterans organization. But not just the sort of organization
that you know sits around in clubhouses or sponsors Little
League teams. No. No, these were the guys who tried
to get Benito Mussolini to come speak at their conferences.

(20:47):
The Legion is frequently used by big business to violently
bust up labor union demonstrations. What was that? What do
you say? Nothing? Nothing at all. So here's the proposal,
Major General. You'll watch at the head of a delegation.
Once you get on the convention floor, the boys in
your group will stage up protests demanding that the current

(21:08):
leadership at the Legion step aside. In other words, a
mini coup, But it feels like a soft ask, and
it also warrants mentioning that the President of the United
States planned on attending and speaking of that Leagion convention.
Smedley thought, this is all an oddball request. You'd care
one bit for the way big business put veterans out
on the street as union busters. So he shuts McGuire down. No,

(21:30):
I don't want to be involved. No, I have no
plans to go to the convention. And no I wasn't
even invited, which is fine because I didn't want to
go Anywhere's that ship had rose about? What did that
to you? The noise he has keeping you off the list?
You helped him get elected. But it's okay, there's a workaround.
You'll much in with the Hawaii delegation. Come on, everybody

(21:53):
likes Hawaii. So all of this seemed very strange to Smedley.
He couldn't, for the life of him figure out what
this guy truly wanted. Smedley said, no, don't speak from
I'll say no in my own fashion. No, thank you.
McGuire finds his way to the exit. Come bye, But

(22:14):
it's a few days later McGuire's back. Hello, I said, no,
thank you. Okay, forget the whole idea. Here's a better plan.
You'll take a special train to Chicago with a couple
hundred vets. During the convention, the boys will cause our racus.
You'll be called to the stage and delivered this speech

(22:34):
to save the day. That's on more fun. As he's
saying this, McGuire pulls a couple typewritten pages out of
his jacket. It's all about paying veterans their long desired
two billion dollars bonus debt, and the speech specifically proposes
paying these veterans in gold. Two billion in gold solves

(22:55):
a lot of problems. Oh yeah, it's a heck of
a carrot, and something to remember because spoiler alert, folks,
this becomes crucially important later that gold part in particular.
But Smedley thinks this is all a little fishing. For example,
the whole problem with Jerry's idea of rolling in with
a couple hundred veterans is there aren't many vets who

(23:18):
can afford a train ride, let alone five days in Chicago.
That may seem foreign to you, McGuire, What with your
sharp clothes and chauffeured car. Or maybe it just didn't
occur to you because of that plate in your head.
My wife said, you've always been hard. Who said that
one already? So again, Smedley said, no, did Jerry McGuire
get lost? But McGuire can't seem to take no for

(23:38):
an answer. Hello. Throughout the summer and fall of nineteen
thirty three, McGuire keeps showing up. Yeah, and Smedley really
didn't know anything about this guy, didn't understand his true objectives.
It seemed like maybe he was working for someone else,
like there was someone behind the curtain pulling the strings.

(24:00):
So he starts asking some more questions, Who are you?
Who do you work for? Did you know May West
is forty? Doesn't she look great for forty? Answer the questions,
he learns that McGuire is one hundred dollars a week
bond salesman working for a guy named Grace and Murphy.
For now, all you really need to know is that
Murphy is a spy turn investment banker, and he is

(24:20):
McGuire's boss. McGuire says Murphy wants to replace the group
of financiers who run the American Legion with new leadership.
It Smedley is the guy to do the job. Grace
and Murphy also wants to see the Vets get their
bonus so they can refill the Legion coffers and Murphy
can recover his loot. And if you haven't noticed, Alex,
that's like the third different, yet weirdly vague explanation McGuire

(24:44):
is giving to Smedley. But there's a thread running through
all of these propositions, getting Smedley Butler motivated to lead,
and getting him in front of a convention hall packed
with legionnaires. Fast forward a couple of months to September
of nineteen thirty three. Smedley is in Newark, New Jersey,
addressing a reunion of the National Guards twenty ninth Division.

(25:05):
McGuire shows up again at Smedley's hotel room stalk Curler, Yeah,
get out of here, creep. No, no, Smedley, not at all.
Just want to know if you've made arrangements to be
at the Legion convention in Chicago. It Smedley gets all
pissed off because this again fuzz off once and for all.
I'm not going. This is where it gets weird. McGuire

(25:27):
pulls a wad of cash from his pocket and he
starts tossing thousand dollars bills on the mattress, one after
the next. I counted eighteen of those, McGuire, So that's
somewhere on the order of lots of money. I don't
know from math, but I know you're not the one
pull in the string. So make with the boss man. Finally,

(25:50):
Smedley gets what he wants, a meet with the people
in charge. About a week later, he goes to the
train station by his house and picks up a New
York City banker named Robert Sterling Clark Clark. Smed how
nice to see you again. Turns out these two go

(26:11):
way back. More than thirty years ago. Smedley and Clark
served together in China during the Box Rebellion. Clark inherited
a mess of cash like thirty million bucks from the
Singer Sewing Machine company. As we say in our family,
put that in your sewing machine and stitch it. The
other Marines called Clark the millionaire Lieutenant, and Smedley never

(26:32):
took them very seriously. But now did you read the
speech my handschman? I mean, good friend McGuire, left for you,
the one about paying the veterans their bonus and gold.
Sure I did. I'd give it two giblets and I'd
give it three bobbins. Shall we agree? It's a hell
of a good speech, but it'd better be and cost
a lot of money. This speech, it seems, has been

(26:55):
lost to history. No, there goes my money. All we
really know were three things. One, this speech was seemingly
written by a muckety mucket the biggest bank in America,
John W. Davis. He's kind of a big deal. Former
ambassador to England, Democratic nominee for president in nineteen twenty four.

(27:16):
He tried around one hundred and forty cases before the
Supreme Court. That guy was legit. Two, these guys really
want Smedley to read the speech to a pact convention
hall of war veterans. Three, the essential thread of the
speech is that the United States should return to the
gold standard. Okay, remember how Alex and I said gold

(27:36):
was important. This is our moment. Pay attention, folks, because
we've got some explaining to do. The gold standard was
a little piece of monetary policy that is key to
understanding why the wealthy villains in the smoke filled room
hated FDR so so much. When FDR arrived in office
in March of nineteen thirty three, the country was in

(27:57):
the midst of a banking crisis as banks all over
the country failed. Panicked investors pulled their cash, exchanging dollars
for gold and locking it up in safe deposit box.
But hoarding the gold meant that money wasn't flowing through
the economy. To avert further banking system catastrophe and get
cash flowing, Roosevelt closed all of the banks. He quickly

(28:18):
signed an executive order for Americans to hand over their
gold to the government at the going rate of twenty
dollars and sixty seven cents announce. Failing to do so
was punishable by fines and imprisonment, and that made a
lot of people, especially rich people, very very angry. You
got that right. You'll get my gold the same way
you'll pry lose this cocktail from my cold drunk hound.

(28:41):
Our favorite plutocrats are back, and boy, you guys sound pissed.
Pissed doesn't drunk or pissed asn't angry either way. The
answers yes, I bet, because right after that executive order
Roosevelt announced he's effectively take in the United States off
the gold standard entirely. Well, what am I supposed to do? Now?
Count my silver coins? Yeah, silver's for poor people. I

(29:03):
hate this. Roosevelt's top economic advice or head a theory
that inflating the price of gold would increase the price
of stuff like wheat, corn, and cotton. For Roosevelt, getting
those prices to rise would prop up farmers, and that,
to him was the key to ending the depression. Roosevelt
started buying newly minted gold bullyon it, way above market prices,

(29:24):
and doing so simultaneously devalued the dollar and inflated the
price of gold. Ahem. The plan didn't work, smart man.
In fact, the price of corn dipped twenty eight percent,
cotton went down thirteen percent, wheat fell by twenty one percent.
And I'm too proud of me looking all those numbers up.
The French, of all people, were horribly upset. Can I
be honest? The French really whig me out when they

(29:46):
get upset all of a sudden, They're like socker blue,
and I'm like, calm down. All this angry gallic talk
of currency wars. Anybody who is anybody hated the plan,
and they lyne. Roosevelt's monetary policy was the biggest news
story of nineteen thirty three. The New York Times offered
daily coverage and opinion on the topic, opinion being that

(30:07):
the time has really hated Roosevelt's maneuvering nine point four
out of every ten economists hate this. I tell you
it is the Roosevelt is running this economy like a
drunken toddler. There's even a story out there that he
sets the price of gold every morning whilst he's still
wearing his pajamas. I mean, really, God blessed. It burns
me up. I want to call him a dirty world.

(30:28):
Don't do it. This is a family program. He's up.
Please don't say it. I couldn't say manipulator. You can't
see me, listeners, but my mouth is positively a gape.
Thanks for your two cents. Guess you're welcome. So back
to the speech Clark brought Smedley to read at the
American Legion. It advocated for vets to be paid their

(30:50):
bonuses in gold, rather than just coming out and railing
against Roosevelt's currency antics. The cabal had wrapped their true
agenda in the flag. If the veterans got gold, it
would be great pr but it would also more important
undercut Roosevelt's move away from the gold standard. Smedley saw

(31:11):
right through this. He thought the speech had all the
earmarks of big business propaganda. This has all the earmarks. Yeah,
what he said here, it isn't a Natchez smatters. I
have thirty million dollars. I don't want to lose it.
I'm wanting to spend half of the thirty million to
save the other half. That's awfully scheming, Bob. And here
I thought you were just some goofy sewing machine guy.

(31:34):
I contain multitudes, as does my bank account. Do you
get it? Yeah? So Clark says, the train will stop
by to pick up Smedley unrooted once in Chicago. A
suite of rooms has been arranged at the very fancy
Palmer House hotel in Chicago. Clark urges Smedley curtain. Make

(31:57):
the speech smatters. It'll get us one step closer towards
the return to guild to have the soldiers stand up
for it. But Clark, what the hell does a soldier
know about the gold standard. You're just using them like
they always get used. I'm going to see no one
uses them except a guard democracy and maybe someday fill
up the chorus of big band reviews with that up

(32:17):
and comer Bob Hope. I see big things for him.
Why do you want to be so stubborn? Wouldn't you
just love to have someone else pay a mortgage? Keep
your liquor chef stocked? Clark, yes, but the answers no.
Since Smedley won't budge, the millionaire lieutenant cooks up a
new plan. May I see a phone? He asked to
use Smedley's phone? No, I asked to use his phone.

(32:40):
Never mind, here you go, Thank you so much. Clark
calls McGuire hollow and informs him that Smedley will not
be attending the convention. He instructs McGuire to use the
expense money to flood the Chicago Opera House where the
Legion is holding festivities. What you mean, like actually flooded? Now, McGuire,

(33:02):
you dealt with your thumblike face. I want you to
flood that up, a house with hundreds of telegrams calling
for a return to the gold standard. May it happen?
Wound't you? Oh? Sure? Boss? Damn right, Thammy. A month later,
the American Legion holds its fifteenth annual convention in Chicago.

(33:23):
According to the Chicago Tribune, some three hundred thousand happy
and hilarious war veterans and their relatives were in town.
That's about fifty thousand more veterans than there are active
soldiers in the standing US military at the time. Right,
think about it. If a coup does occur, the US
government will be dangerously outnumbered. This is frightening stuff. In

(33:47):
any case. FDR gives a big speech at the convention.
I'm right to the Legion. I ask your father and
even greater Rapper in your program of national recovery. You
war on a pomb, you, sir, you the old of
a legion to the American Legion. You wasn't a part

(34:12):
the ideals of American citizenship. You I have paws of
the clause a game. Smedley follows the convention in the papers.
He notes with some amusement a deluge of telegrams delivered
to the delegates and sees that the Assembly passed a
measure calling for a resumption of the gold standard. Huh, well,

(34:36):
I guess they did it, and that's the end of
the story. Folks, thanks so much for listening. Roll those credits.
Let's start a goose the production. Wait wait, not quite credits, lady,
There's more to our story. Look, listeners, this wasn't about
the American Legion Convention. What McGuire and his bosses really
wanted was Smedley showing up and standing before hundreds of

(35:00):
thousands of vets as their leader. But that didn't happen,
so they had to find another way to convince Smedley
to be on their side. In late August, Smedley agrees
to a secret meeting at Philadelphia's Bellevue Hotel with his
favorite Hollywood film star, Ruby Killer. I'm a huge fan

(35:22):
Miss Killer, flattered who wanted to meet me? Hallo? Oh no,
it's Jerry McGuire. You tricked me. But since you're here,
let's chat for a mole. Huh No, I said a
hundred times. I'm done with you, creeper. They have hot
honey garlic shrimp. I'll give you forty five minutes. Okay, okay,
so stepping in here, hang on. It obviously didn't happen

(35:46):
like that. But Smedley, man the record show you kept
meeting with McGuire, why do you keep giving this guy
your time? Well, all of this other stuff aside. He's
a vet and I've got a famously opened door for vets.
Plus their shrimp here is like their thing. It's world famous.
Smedley and McGuire huddled together in the back of the

(36:07):
vacant dining room. They speak in hush tones to see
the shape, just like a bell. McGuire says, he's just
returned from a long holiday in Europe. How do you
afford all this, McGuire? You earn a hundred bucks a week.
My friends are real generous. Send me overseas for a
little rest and you know a little fascism research like

(36:28):
you do. There's this new fella Hitler, ever heard of him? Fabulous?
And in Italy Mussolini pays the veterans so he can
depend on him when there's trouble. No questions asked, Not
that that system would work in America. We need a
more dependable model. So eventually I got to France and
it was there I told my guys there I found
exactly the type of organization we should have. It's called QUADAFU.

(36:53):
That's cross of fire. Sounds fancier if you say Quada
Thu agreed. That's the name of a French vets group
with around one hundred and fifty thousand members. They wear
suits and arm bands, the whole nine. Their politics are
far right of far right. So you want to bring
this cross of fire concept to our boys in the US,

(37:18):
just out of curiosity while we wait for the shrimp.
What would you and your friends do with this thing?
If you got it up and running, they'll support the president,
of course. Smedley can't believe his ears. Huh. For months McGuire,
his benefactors and their ilk have opposed Roosevelt, the so
called socialist. They refer to him as the and this

(37:42):
is a quote cripple in the White House. What does
Roosevelt need these guys for? And what do we need
Roosevelt for? Smedley? We gotta get this country back on track,
don't you see that. We gotta make sure the presidency
operates the way a presidency ought to operate. Is the
purpose of this organization to scare the president? No? No, no,
we want to help the president. Poor guy. He's tired,

(38:07):
is overworked. You can see it in his stupid long face.
We need a Secretary of general affairs like an assistant
president a miracle will go along with it, after all,
we've got the newspapers. Oh, I just got another idea.
Seems like you got a lot of ideas. All of
a sudden, we'll start a campaign that Roosevelt's health is

(38:29):
failing and the win over their sympathy. So you're just
gonna put somebody in that you can manipulate, and the
President is just gonna kiss babies and dedicate bridges. President
isn't going to go along with this plan. Oh yeah,
see you well, and we want you to run our organization.
Pardon will Smidley go along with the idea? Will the

(38:52):
plan to stage a coup on the Roosevelt White House succeed? Well?
The hot honey garlic shrimp live up to Smidley's expectations.
That one. I'll answer right now absolutely. Next time on
let's start a coup. We travel to the smoke filled
room to meet the would be puppet masters of this
burgeoning conspiracy. Who are they? Exactly, what do they want?

(39:16):
And why do they think Smelly Butler will be the
perfect face for their fascist revolution? Just my natural masculine
appeal I Reckon credits lady, what do you think. I
think it's time for the credits? Oh yeah, okay for
real this time, let's start a coup as a production
of School of Humans and I Hard Podcasts. Our hosts
are Alex Brench and Ben Bolin. The show is written

(39:39):
by Alex Brench, with additional writing by Joeken Ocean. Original
music and scoring by Joe Ken Ocean. Character voices by
Joeken Ocean. And he's hogging the credits again, somebody please
stop him? And Elspettas is our producer. I'm also the
credits lady. Amelia Bruck is our senior producer. Sound design, scoring,
mixing and mastering by Alexander Overington, story editing by Lacy Roberts,

(40:05):
fact checking by Austin Thompson. Sean Riggins is our recording engineer.
Recorded at Tune Welders in Atlanta, Georgia. Executive producers are
Jason English, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. Special
thanks to Ethan Trucks Clips courtesy of the National Archives
and Records Administration. If you're enjoying the show, help us

(40:27):
get the word out by leaving a rating in your
favorite podcast app. But make it a good one, you monsters.
We deserve it. Tune in next time. Four Let's start
a coup school of humans.