April 3, 2023 • 39 mins
The Congressional investigation is, surprise, a farce. Those in office – heavily influenced by their powerful donors – seem determined to prevent any genuine attempt at investigating Smedley’s evidence. The press, controlled by the same forces, dismisses his claims as the paranoid ramblings of an old, no longer relevant relic of a bygone age.
Yet the nation is listening. The original gonzo journalist John Spivak digs into the story – and he is able to prove Smedley’s claims. What happens next?
LINK: http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-NewMasses.pdf
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is an I heeart original. Hello Folks, bullet shaped
bond salesman and stone Cold Perjurator Jerry McGuire here, that's
a word, write credits, lady, perjurator, perjurator. You know, perjurator,
a schlemiel who lies under oath or I guess could
(00:31):
also be a refrigerator full of lies. Okay, sure you
do you babe. Right here we go three two one,
Hello folks, bullet shaped bond salesman, stone Cold Perjurator. I
am the fascist Henchman extraordinaire Gerald see Jerry McGuire here.
(00:51):
The Dimwitz who write this program thought it would be
a good idea to allow me to host today's radio drama.
Speaking of what's this box labeled sound effects? Zaloe? Jerry,
let's hold on a moment. Oho, he's one of them
in the flash Ladies and James. Yeah, thanks, but we
(01:12):
don't want you to host. You left the mic unattended.
What did you expect that I do the ethical thing?
You kill me? Anyway. This is the finale, the episode
where we tie all the narrative strands into frilly little bows,
no loose ends. We invited the whole cast I Heart
Studios for a little rat party. Yeah, it's your classic
(01:33):
epilogue slash how they died kind of deal if you
catch my drift. Yeah, morbid but necessary. There's Lucius and
Beauregard hanging out by the bar. Yeah, I don't conserved
a cocktail in the next ten seconds, all wait longer,
And there's Robert Sterling Clark and President Herbert Hoover is
(01:54):
over there doing his things the best I Heart can
do for us. Oh my god, it's like a garage,
only somehow garage you are. And then there's Grace and
Murphy huddled up in the corner. Rover there, you remember him,
And he's there with Na DuPont and some random woman
in a pencil skirt. Did you think you el seeing
(02:15):
ho ho? You al not seeing good? No doubt. He's
plotting a hostile takeover of IHOT Media. And I'm sure
Major General Smelly Butler is around here somewhere. Oh surprised
he showed his face. If I were him, I'd be
hiding in shame on the heels of that made up
coup him. Brolio, Like I was saying, we asked you
(02:36):
here to tell you some tough news. Hey, what that
newspaper ' houlding? There? Is that my picture? Yeah? It's
from the New York Times, March twenty six, nineteen thirty five.
Oh so handsome and jolly. You want to look at this? Yeah?
Give me that this could only be good news. Well, okay,
The headline says GC McGuire dies was named as leading
(03:00):
Wall Street move to seize government. You told the worst sort.
You brought me here to read my oh bit? Sorry,
but like you said, frilly little bows, you to really
throw an a plus party. Let's see here. Family members
contend that he was framed for publicity piposes. Well, I
agree with that completely. His breader gave out a statement
(03:22):
charging that his meaning my fatal illness was directly caused
by the unjust attack launched by the House Committee on
Unamerican Activities. And look, my physician concoyed. I'm telling you
Smedley Butler caused this via his lies. Stress is a killer,
(03:42):
and I was only in my thities. Talk about a tragedy.
The world lost a bright bullet shaped light. Your official
cause of death was pneumonia, But it seems a bit suspicious.
Let me call me a conspiracy theorist. But you were
pretty massive loose end, the weak link in a fascist
(04:04):
plot to overthrow the president. You died just five months
after your testimony. Is it conceivable that your fascist friends
could have taken you out? Somebody? Fold up a tinfoil
hat for this jem ok. Make sure it's penis shaped
so it'll fit us head. Look it says right here
in the New York Times, the Gray Lady, the paper
(04:27):
of record, that the responsible potty was Smedley Butler. His
lies gave me pneumonia and the investigators finished me off.
Just seems a little strange to me that there's no
blame in the story directed at the people who had
you leading the plot. In fact, there's no mention of
them at all. Doesn't that seem a little suspicious? I
would say it's certainly an odd coincidence, a mystery lost
(04:50):
to the ages. Now, given that, would you at least
let me do the intro? Well, come on, I'm on
borrowed time here, Okay, go for it, hot dog, All right,
here we go, quick disclaimer. To bring you this story,
these lamoxes have done all the research, read the books,
interviewed historians. But still there are some big gaps in
(05:12):
the historical record, and they'll never know exactly what happened.
So in those gaps they've had some fun like me,
I'm fun or anyway, I was from Ihot Originals and
School of Humans. This is what's the name of this program.
Let's start a coup, Let's start a coop. I'm Ben Bullet,
(05:35):
I'm Alex French and I'm everybody's favorite bullet shaped by Jerrada,
the late Gerald C. Jerry Maguire. This is episode six,
the Real Coup. Okay, so, last time we watched the
(05:58):
horrible train wreck that was the Huette Committee's investigation of
the coup plot. Remember, it was full of holes. The
middy heads McCormack and dix Stein didn't call in any
of the alleged leaders of the plot, guys like the Dupots,
which we found awfully fishy, fishy, because it seemed like
the more money and power they had, the more distance
(06:21):
they had from accountability. Right then, most of the mainstream
media at best seemed to trivialize the story and at
worst ignored altogether. They moximately is a loon. Ultimately, the
committee's report acknowledged that the coup plot was real, but
never investigated further or held anyone accountable. The whole thing was,
(06:42):
to use a classy expression, a fart in the wind
until John el Spivack, journalist at large mouthpiece for the
common man life of the potty distributor of hot truths
on hotty laughs. Here were the hot scoop of cold
facts that might set a little light on this Dixtein
McCormack sham investigation. I was just going to see until
(07:03):
John El Spivack came along. Your timing, sir, is peccable.
Well that's me for ya, the timing of Charlie Chaplin
with the muck raking sobriety of an Upton Sinclair. Except
I wouldn't be got dead uptown. I'm on the downtown beat,
so you better call me downtown Sinclair or downtown as
the case maybe. But that's enough hair spouting for the moment. Anyway. Anyway,
please do up comes with you boys. Thanks for having
(07:23):
me ring it ing thing. That's one swell clambag you
got going on the coop's butter and egg Man McGuire
is out there and ring it ing. Damn. You ought
to see the sticks on the chickie rubbing up against
Irenee DuPont. Oh, baby, too bad, it's his first cousin, say,
somebody ought to write a story about that, And by somebody,
I mean me. I gotta go. Wait, don't leave yet,
So we're baking clans or like, first, tell us, mister Spivack,
(07:45):
what's this hot scoop? Well, before I PLoP my scoop
onto the top of your nuggin like so much scandalous
ice cream, whin chap, take a moment and properly introduced
me to all the nice people out there in the
radio land. I'll go quick. John L. Spivak was a
genuine pioneer of what folks will later call gonzo journalism.
He reported heavily on the spread of fascism in the
(08:07):
US for a series of communists and otherwise left wing rags.
Sure sure show up. But I also wrote some mighty
big pieces for some mighty big fishes swimming down the
main stream of the news game The New York Herald Tribune,
The New York Journal, The New York Sun, the New
York Moon and Stars. Oh yeah, and Esquire Magazine. I've
heard of it. Now. If those are communist rags, I'm
John Wayne, And that's not a joke about manliness. That's
(08:28):
a joke about me being a Republican, which is maybe
about the funniest thing I've ever heard. Anyway, Where was I? Oh? Yeah,
Lincoln Stephens called me the best of us. That's right, best,
that's me and us meaning the whole tribe and muck
racking story dogs yapping at the heels of those swine
who hold up on all those great big buildings downtown,
winking into the nightlike where wolves. But they're pigs. So
where pigs? If you must. And if you were to
(08:48):
ask me where are pigs, I'd point you downtown and say,
on the big buildings right yonder. Just follow the smell.
So I'd say I was pretty good with a notebook
and a pen. When't you? Of course you would. It
leader came to light that Spivak worked as a Soviet spy.
He's alleged to have passed military secrets, and he at
times discredited investigations into communist propagandas so well, there's that
(09:12):
I had a perspective on the evils of the capitalistic
system that was sculptured by my life experience. As you say,
I had life experiences I grew up in New Haven
and worked in factories as a boy. I saw capitalism
crush everyday people, sometimes literally in the sense that one
of them was a wall nut factory. But where was I?
Oh yeah, I never shied away from informing my readers
about my perspective. No, no, no, no no. They knew
(09:32):
where I stood. And right now, that's right here in
front of this microphone, crooning away like I'm alboli or
some other such common reference that will definitely stand the
test of time. Okay, so some would say you had
an extra grind. Well, if that metaphorical axis exposing fascism, Nazism, racism, anyism,
then cholet's get too grinding except for communism. That one's fine.
(09:54):
What what's this scoop you were telling us about? Well,
starting in nineteen thirty five, just months after the hearings
on the coup plot, I started digging into the behind
the scenes happenings of the Mccaumack Exteine Committee's investigation, and
I uncovered actual evidence of a plot within a plot. Yes, sir,
members of the committee were well aware of the scheme
to overthrow FDR, and once the coup failed, created their
(10:16):
own conspiracy to cover the whole thing up and protect
the guys behind it. Spivak says it all traces back
to Wall Street. That is a scoop, mister Spivak tell
us more. I concluded. The Congress did planned to investigate
at all. Instead, they scripted a sort of theater for
the cities and the political cast. They weren't even planning
on calling Smedley to testify, not until Paul Calmley French
(10:38):
published his story and the public became interested. The committee
wanted the appearance of an investigation while keeping any details
or revelations about the plot under wraps. I saw right
through it, and you could prove this how well. First
of all, I got my hands on Smedley Butler's unedited testimony.
(10:58):
How'd you manage that? Well? You see, the committee's secretary
accidentally handed it to me with a stack of other documents.
I requested, quite a happy accident. A kind of the
report that the committee released to the public only had
highly edited, cherry picked quotes from Smedley Butler, not the
whole megila. So if you're playing along at home, that's
one point for Don Locke and zero points for the
committee secretary. And you actually published a side by side
(11:21):
comparison what Smedley Butler said versus what Congress deemed fit
to print. The differences are readily apparent and startling. Here's
what I observed. Almost every retraction or edit contains specific
names of powerful people tied to the plot, people like
Al Smith, John W. Davis, and Alfred P. Sloan, who
(11:42):
is only the head of General Motors. General Motors, of course,
was a company with deep ties in the DuPont family. See,
once you start to make these connections, you can't stop.
Like how in nineteen thirty four Clark Gable does it
wear an undershirt in the movie It Happened One Night?
And what happens pictures a smash and undershirt sales plummets.
Connect the dots. It's a conspiracy. Let me tell you.
(12:02):
I've been around see and sometimes conspiracy and idiocy are
one and the saale. But what General Butler describes it
for the committee as a full fledged kudatakudaday cooda yesterday
and cood at tomorrow. And then there was what you
called dicing the tomato. It's a dance move I made up.
Goes like this, No, no, mister, Spivak, not that, Oh
(12:23):
you mean financial hook ups? Yes, dude, Nah, not that
one of my triumphs. You claim to find a clear
chain of financial relationships between people organizing the coup and
controlling members of the Congressional Committee. In other words, the
suspects and the investigators had secret financial relationships. Let's imagine
all the money connected like points on a spider's web.
(12:47):
If you're looking for the center, you want to start
at JP Morgan Bank. Spevak says, JP Morgan Bank served
as the connective tissue linking various plotters and the Congressional Committee.
Several people involved in the coup plot were on something
called the preferred list, meaning the firm would offer them
(13:09):
stocks or bonds at the original issue price, regardless of
the market value. It's astounding. And if you're still playing
along at home, and now's the time to grab a pen.
Say a stock was originally issued at twenty dollars and
now it's going for thirty six. If you're playing ball
with Morgan, the sality of fort twenty, and you can
turn around and sell it for a profit on the
same day. Just to drive Spevak's point home, we're talking
(13:33):
a same day profit of sixteen thousand dollars in twenty
twenty three money that's more than three hundred and fifty
thousand bucks. Oh baby. In a roundabout way, this is
like JP Morgan putting its operatives on a payroll, and
there were several plotas on that payroll. John W. Davis,
(13:55):
a former presidential candidate, was on the preferred lists. He
ghostrupped that gold standard speech Jerry McGuire wanted smedily to read.
Grayson Murphy is on the list as well. He was
an officer at the American Liberty League and the director
of a Morgan bank called the New York Trust Company,
just as sure as the lords the director of the
Little Green Apples Company. So it's all connected. Like I
was saying, but how did this connect to the Congressional Committee, Well,
(14:17):
we have to go a bit further, because these guys
definitely weren't being too public about their associations. To get
to Congress. I showed there was a sophisticated proxy system.
The money went through another Morgan controlled company and then
through another organization that had influence over the Mccaumack Dixsteine Committee.
I drew up a diagram of how it worked in
my article in pen Come for the conspiracy diagram, stay
(14:39):
for the remarkably neat penmanship. It's a classic conspiracy board,
linking multiple anti union, pro capitalist organizations with financial outfits
and their leaders. Well worth checking out. We'll link to
it in our show notes. Throughout his story, Spevak lays
out an argument noting fourteen discrepancies about what Congress knew
and apparently suppressed, along with notes about leads they failed
(15:03):
to follow up on, For example, the fact that the
Committee ever followed up on the American Liberty League after
Smedley said they were involved in the plot, or that
Arne DuPont's Remington Arms Company was ready and willing to
supply guns for a potential fascist army. Some of what
Spivak wrote seems questionable. I guess we just weren't able
(15:23):
to confirm a lot of it because the names of
bit players and intermediaries have been lost to history. True.
But there's one thing that was easy to confirm because
the McCormack Dixtine Committee wrote it right into their official report,
and to Spevak it was glaring proof of a cover up.
On the very last page they wrote, the Committee has
(15:47):
ordered stricken there from certain immaterial and incompetent evidence, or
evidence which was not pertinent to the inquiry and which
would not have been received during a public hearing. Oh,
reading that felt just like taking a fresh hull opinion
pepper and rubbing it vigorously against mcclaver, meaning it made
(16:07):
you hot under the collar. Now you speaking my language? Boy? Oh?
How could they think reducting the names of suspects was
appropriate or consider curious financial ties as immaterial? I had
a source, anonymous but reliable, But anonymous but reliable assure
me that at least some of the suppression orders came
from the Secretary of the Treasury. Now that's something. And
(16:28):
let me tell you why, because Treasury secretaries are always
rich guys who come from big jobs. And the more
digging I did, the more it seemed the immaterial evidence
is the carefully guarded secret, the very definition of a
cover up. So, mister Spivak, you decided to talk with
committee Chairman McCormack and dick Stein directly, right, Yes, here's
(16:49):
how it transpired. I go to McCormack's office. Things start
off genial, Hi, how are you, how's the kid? How's
the wife, How about them Yankees? Is that ogilvia a salon?
Perm all the regular questions until I get to my
sixth question, one that digs Joust a little deeper into
what he called immaterial and what I call the suppression
of evidence. As soon as it occurs to him that
his investigating committee is being investigated, he blows his top.
(17:12):
And that's a metaphor, of course, but boy was he steamed.
Another metaphor. Tell us how the interview with McCormack ended. Well,
He ends the interview and says he'll respond later in
writing to those of the questions he deems worth answering.
So I say goodbye, see you in hell. Tell your
wife and kid. I hate him. Oh and by the way,
your hair looks like crap. And I stroll on over
to Dixstein, and that guy is daffier than the well
(17:34):
known animated duck. And I don't mean Donald, no, sorry,
I mean I think it's going to be a trip
for biscuits, trip fruit biscuits. Yeah, you know, a bunch
of bushwash, but a waste of time. I mean, except
when I point out all the financial connections I've been
reporting on. Dickstein says, I wish you'd have told me
that while the committee was in session, I'd have called
Murphy and Morgan and anyone else involved. So when it
(17:58):
comes to the chairman of the committee, we got one
guy who appears one hundred percent in on the cover
up and one guy who's at best incompetent and at
worst playing. Spivak really did the work. He was an
old school gumshoe. Once he knew Congress wasn't asking the
right questions, he took it upon himself to ask that
I did. And the pieces of a story fit together.
(18:20):
For conspiracy to work, you have to have multiple parties
with aligned objectives, and he teases those threads out. I'm
with you, But there are a lot of ways to
tell the story, and there isn't just one narrative all
historians agree on. We asked our pal Jonathan Katz, author
of Gangsters of Capitalism, what he's gathered about the alleged
(18:40):
cover up. I haven't found in my research any direct
evidence of a lobbying campaign by the DuPonts to be like, hey,
McCormack's not asking questions. But even without a direct influenced campaign,
there has to be the influence of knowing that you're
going up against extremely powerful people, right, Jonathan says it
might have been as simple as a bunch of congressmen
(19:02):
thinking about their reelection campaigns. It's hard to imagine that
these guys aren't sitting there. They're doing their investigation, and
they're looking at their calendar and their timetable, and they're like, Okay, now,
our charter basically expires at the end of the year.
I could use some of my political capital to demand,
(19:25):
you know, an extension. I could issue subpoenas to earn
they du pont to, you know, come in and and testify,
um or I don't. And so dick Stein and McCormack
did what passed as just enough and was simultaneously politically expedient.
(19:50):
We had Spedley Butler in here, we called Gerald c McGuire,
we had the lawyer for Sterling. You know, let's let's
call it a day. And I think that's ultimately what
they did. And there's one other widely held theory out
they're worth noting that FDR himself was in on the
(20:12):
decision to allow the accused conspirators to skate without punishment
or embarrassment because he found real leverage and letting them walk,
as in, I'm going to let you go, and in return,
mister tycoon, you are going to stand aside and shut
up about my new deal initiatives. That's right. No more
bellyaching about federal jobs programs, no more whining about unemployment insurance,
(20:35):
and stop trying to break conservative Democrats off my new
Deal coalition. But this is what I'll say. Alex and
I have read everything we could get our hands on
about the business plot, and though there's more than one
narrative about how it all went down, without Spevak's reporting,
we'd know practically nothing at all. So many of the
(20:55):
records are now gone. Smedley's full testimony for one crucial piece.
The only parts of it that we have are the
one Spevak published, and so in that regard it's vital work.
The bottom line is we just don't totally know for
sure what happened. But I want to say one more
thing about Spevak's legacy. He significantly raised the public's awareness
(21:18):
of the American Liberty League's nefarious side. That was, if
you remember the creepy pro fascist group the DuPont's and
JP Morgan financed after Smidley's allegations and Spevak's reporting, people
were spooked. The American Liberty League claimed to be nonpartisan,
but the public began to see it as a front
for some very dangerous things, plus a model for future
(21:41):
insurrectionist armies. Being implicated in the business plot eroded any
already shaky claims that the Liberty League was a legitimate,
respectable organization. It died a quiet, unheralded death. Thanks make
to God America. And I guess I'll throw myself onto
that list while I'm at it. That's how I'll be remembered.
See you want the funny famous kids. But later Titans
(22:04):
and Tycoons were inspired by the League's time I'm warrn tactics,
which showed you can push the levers of power slowly,
behind the scenes, one district at a time. The Kok
Brothers saw it. The League did in the thirties, and
then in the two thousands they said, hold my beer.
At this point, you're probably wondering about the aftermath. How
(22:26):
did we as a country get from there to hear?
And what happens to our hero Smedley Baller? Yes, and
what happened to me and Lucius well, you two aren't real,
is the thing. What you're just general representations of anonymous, greedy,
(22:46):
scheming plutocrats of the era. Oh well, I suppose that
does explain a few things, Ah, like why we're not
on quikipaedia. Well, I'm real. What winds up happening to me?
We'll find out together, Smedley. After the break the end
(23:06):
of our story. All right, your little rat parties over.
Everyone's gone home but me. I've been waiting patiently, so
let's hear about the rest of my life. I can
(23:29):
take it. I've been doing some deep breathing to prepare. Yeah,
it doesn't count if you're doing it into a cigarette,
Major General, you deep breathe all way off, deep breath.
I have got it. Quit these, okay, Smedley, It's time
to find out what happened to you? Well hot damn
at last, blowing the whistle on the alleged Banker's Coup
(23:50):
of nineteen thirty four was not the end of Smedley Baller,
not by a long shot. Now. Speaking out about the
plot had real consequences for Smedley. It further isolated him
from conventional politics. He lost friends, he knoked just about
every remaining bridge. Here's talking about Smedley. He is not
an honored guest at the White House. He's not being
(24:13):
asked for his opinion on world affairs by the New
York Times or you know, the policy mandarins of his day.
His name is never spoken in polite company, but wild.
He lost his credibility among the mainstream. Blowing the whistle
made Smedley a hero for working class folks, and it
really accelerated his transformation into a far left fire brand,
(24:36):
like a caterpillar becoming a beautiful pinko butterfly. In March
of nineteen thirty five, a couple months after testifying about
the plot to remove President Roosevelt, Smedley published his most
famous work, War is a Racket. It's a fifty two
page pamphlet based on his most famous speeches. As Jonathan
(24:58):
Katz pointed out to us, the pamphlet takes his condemnation
of powerful interests a step farther and Smedley's own words,
war is a racket. It always has. It is possibly
the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one international in scope. It is
the only one in which the profits are reckoned in
dollars and losses in lives. We asked Jonathan Cats about it.
(25:23):
Butler is angling toward what ends up being dubbed in
a later generation the military industrial complex. The allegations of
the military industrial complex the Butler's talking about are very specific.
He seeing the people who manufacture munitions, like the DuPont family,
who made their bones producing gunpowder. They essentially tricked the
(25:43):
American people into joining World War One. Smedley wrote, beautiful
ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out
to die. This was the war to end all wars.
This was the war to make the world safe for democracy.
No one mentioned to them as they marched away that
they're going and they're dying would mean huge war profits.
(26:04):
Smedley talks about what he called the metal business, the
system of awarding soldiers medals for valor, and he makes
it clear he thinks it's all a scam to convince
boys to go off to war and die for some
honor and a measly wage. I mean, here's the most decorated,
the most celebrated, the most honored officer in Marine Corps
history at the time, saying things like having stuffed patriotism
(26:26):
down their throats. It was decided to make them help
pay for the war too, so we gave them the
large salary of thirty dollars a month. All they had
to do for this munificent sum was to leave their
dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches.
Each canned Willie when they could get it, and kill
and kill, and kill and be killed. Starting around the
(26:50):
time of war as a racket's publication, Smedley increasingly considered
himself to be a radical, anti imperialist, anti capitalist, far
far outside the mainstream. Don't understell. I even called myself radical,
straight up, flat out, and I called out so called
radicals who are less radical than me. Yes, if you're wondering,
it was a contest, but no medals on account of
(27:12):
the earthfore mentioned. Smedley continued to make his living writing
magazine articles for socialist rags like New Masses and Common Sense.
He also wrote for mainstream publications like Readers Digest and
Ladies Home Journal. On top of all this, he did
radio broadcast as well, and he kept working the speaker's circuit.
(27:33):
In the span of a couple of years, he claimed
to have given one thousand, two hundred rousing speeches in
seven hundred different American towns. Many found Smedley's agitating, well, agitating,
Oh yeah, man, So much so that in January of
nineteen thirty six, United States Marine Corps informants infiltrated a
(27:54):
meeting to keep a close watch on Old Gimlet Eye.
He spoke at the Cleveland Public Auditorium with a collection
of radical journalists and anti fascist rabbi, members of the
Communist Party, and the legendary poet linksd In Hughes. Smedley
called them everyone in the room to set aside religious
and racial feelings and unite against fascism and war. And
(28:16):
how did that go over? You're wondering? Well, the Marine
Corps spies and attendants concluded Smedley, Butler had either gone
insane or was a traitor. The shots didn't get it.
I saw war for the racket that it was and
spoke up accordingly. But Smedley always stopped short of calling
himself a pacifist or calling for the abolition of the military.
(28:41):
One biographer points out that Smedley infused his stump speeches
with diehard support of law and order and duty bound manliness.
The trick was that I was against war, but couldn't
come out and say I'm a pacifist. You know, why
do you know what people hear when you say pacifist,
they hear weener? You under try, Go ahead, you give
it a try. Say I identify as a pacifist. Okay,
(29:04):
here goes, I identify as a pacifist. Yeah, okay, question
about that? Yeah, sure, When did you discover that you
are a self righteous weener? Because that's all I heard.
Very funny, but seriously, yes, part of my message resided
outside of mainstream political discourse. We've established that. Yet somehow
(29:26):
I kept ashes in the seats at every stop. That's
because I came down very much on the side of
national defense. I wanted a defense that not even a
rat could crawl through, so decidedly not a weenie. There
always a marine till the day I die. But let
me tell you what was really behind my rhetoric. The
Great War. World War One was supposed to be the
(29:49):
war to end all wars, but by the mid to
late nineteen thirties, I could see it was all going
to happen again, only the second time around it would
be bigger. We're talking about the long, slow lead up
to World War Two here. Unfortunately, Yes, the idiot's running civilization.
We're going to light it all on fire all over again.
Roosevelt was one of them, an interventionist through and through.
(30:10):
He was bounded drag us into the middle of it,
and as the dominoes fell, leading country after country into
the Second World War, Smedley always stood against the US
being pulled into the conflict. The marine, soldiers, sailors, and
gunboats belonging to the United States should all be brought home.
Let the financial interests fight their own battles a further.
(30:32):
The United States needs to get out of the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska,
Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal. Sometimes Smedley took his
messages far outside the bounds of politeness. What do you mean,
Like the time I said, if there was another war,
I'd put Fdr. Son James on the front line. That's
never the children of the President or the senator or
the Wall Street elite. It's always the common boys. Or
(30:56):
there's the time he took to the radio in nineteen
thirty nine speaking directly to American mothers. Now you mothers, particularly.
The only way you can resist all this war hysteria
and beating of tom toms is by asserting the love
you bear your boys. When you listen to some well worded,
some well delivered war speech, just remember it's nothing but sound.
(31:17):
No amount of sound can make up for the loss
of your boy. After you've heard one of those speeches
in your blood's all hot and you want to bite
somebody like Hitler, Go upstairs to where your boys asleep.
Look at him. Put your hand on that spot on
the back of his neck, the place you used to
love to kiss when he was a baby. Just rub
it a little. You won't wake him up. He knows
it's you. Just look at this splendid young creature who's
(31:41):
part of yourself. Then close your eyes for a moment,
and I'll tell you what can happen. Somewhere five thousand
miles from home, night, darkness, cold, a drizzling rain. The
noise is terrific. All hell has broken loose. A star
cell burst in the air. It's unearthly flare lights up
the muddy field. There's a lot of tangled, rusty barbed
(32:04):
wires out there, and a boy hanging over them. His
stomach ripped out, and he's feebly calling for help and water.
His lips are white and drawn. He's in agony. There's
your boy, the same boy who's lying in bed tonight,
the same boy who trusts you. Are you going to
run out on him? Are you going to let someone
beat a drama, blow a bugle and make him chase
(32:25):
after it? Thank God, this is a democracy, and buy
your voice and your vote, you can say of your boy.
Those are Smedley's actual words too. And look, we all
know Smedley is no hero. As we've talked about over
and over, there have been many times when, by his
own admission, even Smedley was the villain, the very face
(32:47):
of evil and corruption. But Smedley, given the times, you
could have gotten away with it, freeing clear. You could
have been Senator Butler. You could have retired to his
sweet corporate gig like Douglas MacArthur when he became chairman
of a typewriter company and lived in the Waldorf Historia.
That could have been you. That was not my path.
(33:07):
And you know what, that's the thing I dig about you.
You dedicated the last years of your life to telling
the masses about all this wrongdoing. You pulled back the
great curtain of global business and resource extraction. Here you
are and aristocrat yourself, speaking out about the clear and
present danger aristocracy poses to all democracy. That's rare in history.
(33:34):
You traveled the country like a one man protest movement
against war and imperialism, and people followed you and Smedley
it almost killed you. Historians talk about what a tremendous
told the travel schedule took on your health. When you've
been around as long as I have, you learned that
all people great and small die, President's, paupers and plutocrats alike.
(33:56):
The only real choice we have is how we spend
our time along the way to that unknown, inevitable horizon.
We just wish you had. I don't want to say
a better ending, and I don't want to say a
bigger ending, just an ending of any sort. And we
understand that's because what you were, a part of what
you did makes the story of America complicated. Jonathan Katz
(34:20):
gets that too. He says we can share the sanitized
stories of heroes quote unquote like George Patton and Douglas
MacArthur because everybody knows about the wars they fought in
their legacies aren't as complicated to explain talking about Smedley Butler.
The good and the bad both require talking about things
(34:41):
that we don't like to talk about as Americans, but
we're talking about our own history with Smedley. He was
involved in so many missions and conflicts that few Americans
even know about, and to explain what he did requires
engaging with some uncomfortable truths about atrocities Uncle Sam committed abroad,
plus facing up to the fact that some of the
names behind the United States best known institutions were well
(35:04):
actual fascists. That's right. The these facts don't vibe with
the story of America we like to tell ourselves. And
Major General Butler, you just didn't fit the narrative. Maybe
that's why you're not in the textbooks. Maybe that's why
we still haven't learned the lesson you were trying to
teach us. And maybe that's why all those powerful forces
(35:27):
you were speaking against are alive and well today. So
watch the end of me, like the end end, sir?
Are you sure you want to hear this? After all
I've seen, believe me, I can take it. Okay. It's
June nineteen forty World War two began some months ago.
(35:48):
You had come to the hospital complaining of gut pains.
The doctors called a cancer ethel and the family stayed
by your side. You had an okay room at Philadelphia's
Naval Hospital. Decent view, a very good view. Good, that's important.
Your family drove the new car around your car. You
could see it from the window, though you never got
(36:10):
a chance to drive it. Smedley. You die on June
twenty first. Huh, that's just good a day as any.
The very next day, France, thought by all to be
the most powerful military in the world, surrenders to Hitler's army.
The Second World War continues. Smedley's story falls away from
(36:35):
the public mind as thousands die on battlefields, then hundreds
of thousands in their homes, then millions more in death camps,
and then the atomic bomb. One war ends, another begins.
Smedley's military successors call this the Cold War. There are
(36:57):
only a handful of memorials to Smedley Butler that exists today.
An ordinary headstone in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, a plaque
in Philadelphia, and a bench in Haverford. The fancy private
school he dropped out of before heading off to Cuba
to fight as a teenager. That plaque in Phillies City
Hall is a commemoration of his time as Director of
(37:17):
Public Safety. There's nothing about a coup or war or
the dangers of dictatorship. Sir. History may never acknowledge that
you prevented a coup. But Alex said something to me
the other day that got stuck in my head, and
I think it's the right note to end on the
(37:38):
real coup, Major General Butler is the rebellion you staged
within yourself. You're one eighty from warhammer to anti war activist.
That's the coup that mattered most, the coup I staged
on my shelf. Let's hope there's a coup like that
(37:59):
in all of us. Yeah, that's good. I like that, Maggitch,
Let's start a coup. As a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts, our hosts are Alex French and
(38:21):
Ben Bowan. The show was written by Alex French, with
additional writing by Joe ken Ocean. Original music and scoring
by Joe ken Ocean, character voices by Joken Ocean. I
broke the story first, Oh and don't you hair? Brained
history loving Hubris heavy hecks at I Hot, I'll foget
it anelis but this is our producer. Emilia Brock is
(38:43):
our senior producer. Sound design, mixing and mastering by Alexander Overington.
Our story editor is Lacy Roberts. Fact checking by Austin Thompson.
Logo illustration by Lucy Knthania. Production support provided by Daisy Church.
The Heat Fraser is our recording engineer. Recorded at the
(39:05):
iHeart Studio in New York. Executive producers are Jason English,
Virginie Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you're enjoying
the show, help us get the word out by leaving
a rating in your favorite podcast app. Well, clearly you
enjoyed it. You listened all the way through, so leave
us five stars and should you refuse? My response is
(39:26):
only two words, dry up. Thank you for listening to
Let's start a coupe School of Humans
This is an I heeart original. Hello Folks, bullet shaped
bond salesman and stone Cold Perjurator Jerry McGuire here, that's
a word, write credits, lady, perjurator, perjurator. You know, perjurator,
a schlemiel who lies under oath or I guess could
(00:31):
also be a refrigerator full of lies. Okay, sure you
do you babe. Right here we go three two one,
Hello folks, bullet shaped bond salesman, stone Cold Perjurator. I
am the fascist Henchman extraordinaire Gerald see Jerry McGuire here.
(00:51):
The Dimwitz who write this program thought it would be
a good idea to allow me to host today's radio drama.
Speaking of what's this box labeled sound effects? Zaloe? Jerry,
let's hold on a moment. Oho, he's one of them
in the flash Ladies and James. Yeah, thanks, but we
(01:12):
don't want you to host. You left the mic unattended.
What did you expect that I do the ethical thing?
You kill me? Anyway. This is the finale, the episode
where we tie all the narrative strands into frilly little bows,
no loose ends. We invited the whole cast I Heart
Studios for a little rat party. Yeah, it's your classic
(01:33):
epilogue slash how they died kind of deal if you
catch my drift. Yeah, morbid but necessary. There's Lucius and
Beauregard hanging out by the bar. Yeah, I don't conserved
a cocktail in the next ten seconds, all wait longer,
And there's Robert Sterling Clark and President Herbert Hoover is
(01:54):
over there doing his things the best I Heart can
do for us. Oh my god, it's like a garage,
only somehow garage you are. And then there's Grace and
Murphy huddled up in the corner. Rover there, you remember him,
And he's there with Na DuPont and some random woman
in a pencil skirt. Did you think you el seeing
(02:15):
ho ho? You al not seeing good? No doubt. He's
plotting a hostile takeover of IHOT Media. And I'm sure
Major General Smelly Butler is around here somewhere. Oh surprised
he showed his face. If I were him, I'd be
hiding in shame on the heels of that made up
coup him. Brolio, Like I was saying, we asked you
(02:36):
here to tell you some tough news. Hey, what that
newspaper ' houlding? There? Is that my picture? Yeah? It's
from the New York Times, March twenty six, nineteen thirty five.
Oh so handsome and jolly. You want to look at this? Yeah?
Give me that this could only be good news. Well, okay,
The headline says GC McGuire dies was named as leading
(03:00):
Wall Street move to seize government. You told the worst sort.
You brought me here to read my oh bit? Sorry,
but like you said, frilly little bows, you to really
throw an a plus party. Let's see here. Family members
contend that he was framed for publicity piposes. Well, I
agree with that completely. His breader gave out a statement
(03:22):
charging that his meaning my fatal illness was directly caused
by the unjust attack launched by the House Committee on
Unamerican Activities. And look, my physician concoyed. I'm telling you
Smedley Butler caused this via his lies. Stress is a killer,
(03:42):
and I was only in my thities. Talk about a tragedy.
The world lost a bright bullet shaped light. Your official
cause of death was pneumonia, But it seems a bit suspicious.
Let me call me a conspiracy theorist. But you were
pretty massive loose end, the weak link in a fascist
(04:04):
plot to overthrow the president. You died just five months
after your testimony. Is it conceivable that your fascist friends
could have taken you out? Somebody? Fold up a tinfoil
hat for this jem ok. Make sure it's penis shaped
so it'll fit us head. Look it says right here
in the New York Times, the Gray Lady, the paper
(04:27):
of record, that the responsible potty was Smedley Butler. His
lies gave me pneumonia and the investigators finished me off.
Just seems a little strange to me that there's no
blame in the story directed at the people who had
you leading the plot. In fact, there's no mention of
them at all. Doesn't that seem a little suspicious? I
would say it's certainly an odd coincidence, a mystery lost
(04:50):
to the ages. Now, given that, would you at least
let me do the intro? Well, come on, I'm on
borrowed time here, Okay, go for it, hot dog, All right,
here we go, quick disclaimer. To bring you this story,
these lamoxes have done all the research, read the books,
interviewed historians. But still there are some big gaps in
(05:12):
the historical record, and they'll never know exactly what happened.
So in those gaps they've had some fun like me,
I'm fun or anyway, I was from Ihot Originals and
School of Humans. This is what's the name of this program.
Let's start a coup, Let's start a coop. I'm Ben Bullet,
(05:35):
I'm Alex French and I'm everybody's favorite bullet shaped by Jerrada,
the late Gerald C. Jerry Maguire. This is episode six,
the Real Coup. Okay, so, last time we watched the
(05:58):
horrible train wreck that was the Huette Committee's investigation of
the coup plot. Remember, it was full of holes. The
middy heads McCormack and dix Stein didn't call in any
of the alleged leaders of the plot, guys like the Dupots,
which we found awfully fishy, fishy, because it seemed like
the more money and power they had, the more distance
(06:21):
they had from accountability. Right then, most of the mainstream
media at best seemed to trivialize the story and at
worst ignored altogether. They moximately is a loon. Ultimately, the
committee's report acknowledged that the coup plot was real, but
never investigated further or held anyone accountable. The whole thing was,
(06:42):
to use a classy expression, a fart in the wind
until John el Spivack, journalist at large mouthpiece for the
common man life of the potty distributor of hot truths
on hotty laughs. Here were the hot scoop of cold
facts that might set a little light on this Dixtein
McCormack sham investigation. I was just going to see until
(07:03):
John El Spivack came along. Your timing, sir, is peccable.
Well that's me for ya, the timing of Charlie Chaplin
with the muck raking sobriety of an Upton Sinclair. Except
I wouldn't be got dead uptown. I'm on the downtown beat,
so you better call me downtown Sinclair or downtown as
the case maybe. But that's enough hair spouting for the moment. Anyway. Anyway,
please do up comes with you boys. Thanks for having
(07:23):
me ring it ing thing. That's one swell clambag you
got going on the coop's butter and egg Man McGuire
is out there and ring it ing. Damn. You ought
to see the sticks on the chickie rubbing up against
Irenee DuPont. Oh, baby, too bad, it's his first cousin, say,
somebody ought to write a story about that, And by somebody,
I mean me. I gotta go. Wait, don't leave yet,
So we're baking clans or like, first, tell us, mister Spivack,
(07:45):
what's this hot scoop? Well, before I PLoP my scoop
onto the top of your nuggin like so much scandalous
ice cream, whin chap, take a moment and properly introduced
me to all the nice people out there in the
radio land. I'll go quick. John L. Spivak was a
genuine pioneer of what folks will later call gonzo journalism.
He reported heavily on the spread of fascism in the
(08:07):
US for a series of communists and otherwise left wing rags.
Sure sure show up. But I also wrote some mighty
big pieces for some mighty big fishes swimming down the
main stream of the news game The New York Herald Tribune,
The New York Journal, The New York Sun, the New
York Moon and Stars. Oh yeah, and Esquire Magazine. I've
heard of it. Now. If those are communist rags, I'm
John Wayne, And that's not a joke about manliness. That's
(08:28):
a joke about me being a Republican, which is maybe
about the funniest thing I've ever heard. Anyway, Where was I? Oh? Yeah,
Lincoln Stephens called me the best of us. That's right, best,
that's me and us meaning the whole tribe and muck
racking story dogs yapping at the heels of those swine
who hold up on all those great big buildings downtown,
winking into the nightlike where wolves. But they're pigs. So
where pigs? If you must. And if you were to
(08:48):
ask me where are pigs, I'd point you downtown and say,
on the big buildings right yonder. Just follow the smell.
So I'd say I was pretty good with a notebook
and a pen. When't you? Of course you would. It
leader came to light that Spivak worked as a Soviet spy.
He's alleged to have passed military secrets, and he at
times discredited investigations into communist propagandas so well, there's that
(09:12):
I had a perspective on the evils of the capitalistic
system that was sculptured by my life experience. As you say,
I had life experiences I grew up in New Haven
and worked in factories as a boy. I saw capitalism
crush everyday people, sometimes literally in the sense that one
of them was a wall nut factory. But where was I?
Oh yeah, I never shied away from informing my readers
about my perspective. No, no, no, no no. They knew
(09:32):
where I stood. And right now, that's right here in
front of this microphone, crooning away like I'm alboli or
some other such common reference that will definitely stand the
test of time. Okay, so some would say you had
an extra grind. Well, if that metaphorical axis exposing fascism, Nazism, racism, anyism,
then cholet's get too grinding except for communism. That one's fine.
(09:54):
What what's this scoop you were telling us about? Well,
starting in nineteen thirty five, just months after the hearings
on the coup plot, I started digging into the behind
the scenes happenings of the Mccaumack Exteine Committee's investigation, and
I uncovered actual evidence of a plot within a plot. Yes, sir,
members of the committee were well aware of the scheme
to overthrow FDR, and once the coup failed, created their
(10:16):
own conspiracy to cover the whole thing up and protect
the guys behind it. Spivak says it all traces back
to Wall Street. That is a scoop, mister Spivak tell
us more. I concluded. The Congress did planned to investigate
at all. Instead, they scripted a sort of theater for
the cities and the political cast. They weren't even planning
on calling Smedley to testify, not until Paul Calmley French
(10:38):
published his story and the public became interested. The committee
wanted the appearance of an investigation while keeping any details
or revelations about the plot under wraps. I saw right
through it, and you could prove this how well. First
of all, I got my hands on Smedley Butler's unedited testimony.
(10:58):
How'd you manage that? Well? You see, the committee's secretary
accidentally handed it to me with a stack of other documents.
I requested, quite a happy accident. A kind of the
report that the committee released to the public only had
highly edited, cherry picked quotes from Smedley Butler, not the
whole megila. So if you're playing along at home, that's
one point for Don Locke and zero points for the
committee secretary. And you actually published a side by side
(11:21):
comparison what Smedley Butler said versus what Congress deemed fit
to print. The differences are readily apparent and startling. Here's
what I observed. Almost every retraction or edit contains specific
names of powerful people tied to the plot, people like
Al Smith, John W. Davis, and Alfred P. Sloan, who
(11:42):
is only the head of General Motors. General Motors, of course,
was a company with deep ties in the DuPont family. See,
once you start to make these connections, you can't stop.
Like how in nineteen thirty four Clark Gable does it
wear an undershirt in the movie It Happened One Night?
And what happens pictures a smash and undershirt sales plummets.
Connect the dots. It's a conspiracy. Let me tell you.
(12:02):
I've been around see and sometimes conspiracy and idiocy are
one and the saale. But what General Butler describes it
for the committee as a full fledged kudatakudaday cooda yesterday
and cood at tomorrow. And then there was what you
called dicing the tomato. It's a dance move I made up.
Goes like this, No, no, mister, Spivak, not that, Oh
(12:23):
you mean financial hook ups? Yes, dude, Nah, not that
one of my triumphs. You claim to find a clear
chain of financial relationships between people organizing the coup and
controlling members of the Congressional Committee. In other words, the
suspects and the investigators had secret financial relationships. Let's imagine
all the money connected like points on a spider's web.
(12:47):
If you're looking for the center, you want to start
at JP Morgan Bank. Spevak says, JP Morgan Bank served
as the connective tissue linking various plotters and the Congressional Committee.
Several people involved in the coup plot were on something
called the preferred list, meaning the firm would offer them
(13:09):
stocks or bonds at the original issue price, regardless of
the market value. It's astounding. And if you're still playing
along at home, and now's the time to grab a pen.
Say a stock was originally issued at twenty dollars and
now it's going for thirty six. If you're playing ball
with Morgan, the sality of fort twenty, and you can
turn around and sell it for a profit on the
same day. Just to drive Spevak's point home, we're talking
(13:33):
a same day profit of sixteen thousand dollars in twenty
twenty three money that's more than three hundred and fifty
thousand bucks. Oh baby. In a roundabout way, this is
like JP Morgan putting its operatives on a payroll, and
there were several plotas on that payroll. John W. Davis,
(13:55):
a former presidential candidate, was on the preferred lists. He
ghostrupped that gold standard speech Jerry McGuire wanted smedily to read.
Grayson Murphy is on the list as well. He was
an officer at the American Liberty League and the director
of a Morgan bank called the New York Trust Company,
just as sure as the lords the director of the
Little Green Apples Company. So it's all connected. Like I
was saying, but how did this connect to the Congressional Committee, Well,
(14:17):
we have to go a bit further, because these guys
definitely weren't being too public about their associations. To get
to Congress. I showed there was a sophisticated proxy system.
The money went through another Morgan controlled company and then
through another organization that had influence over the Mccaumack Dixsteine Committee.
I drew up a diagram of how it worked in
my article in pen Come for the conspiracy diagram, stay
(14:39):
for the remarkably neat penmanship. It's a classic conspiracy board,
linking multiple anti union, pro capitalist organizations with financial outfits
and their leaders. Well worth checking out. We'll link to
it in our show notes. Throughout his story, Spevak lays
out an argument noting fourteen discrepancies about what Congress knew
and apparently suppressed, along with notes about leads they failed
(15:03):
to follow up on, For example, the fact that the
Committee ever followed up on the American Liberty League after
Smedley said they were involved in the plot, or that
Arne DuPont's Remington Arms Company was ready and willing to
supply guns for a potential fascist army. Some of what
Spivak wrote seems questionable. I guess we just weren't able
(15:23):
to confirm a lot of it because the names of
bit players and intermediaries have been lost to history. True.
But there's one thing that was easy to confirm because
the McCormack Dixtine Committee wrote it right into their official report,
and to Spevak it was glaring proof of a cover up.
On the very last page they wrote, the Committee has
(15:47):
ordered stricken there from certain immaterial and incompetent evidence, or
evidence which was not pertinent to the inquiry and which
would not have been received during a public hearing. Oh,
reading that felt just like taking a fresh hull opinion
pepper and rubbing it vigorously against mcclaver, meaning it made
(16:07):
you hot under the collar. Now you speaking my language? Boy? Oh?
How could they think reducting the names of suspects was
appropriate or consider curious financial ties as immaterial? I had
a source, anonymous but reliable, But anonymous but reliable assure
me that at least some of the suppression orders came
from the Secretary of the Treasury. Now that's something. And
(16:28):
let me tell you why, because Treasury secretaries are always
rich guys who come from big jobs. And the more
digging I did, the more it seemed the immaterial evidence
is the carefully guarded secret, the very definition of a
cover up. So, mister Spivak, you decided to talk with
committee Chairman McCormack and dick Stein directly, right, Yes, here's
(16:49):
how it transpired. I go to McCormack's office. Things start
off genial, Hi, how are you, how's the kid? How's
the wife, How about them Yankees? Is that ogilvia a salon?
Perm all the regular questions until I get to my
sixth question, one that digs Joust a little deeper into
what he called immaterial and what I call the suppression
of evidence. As soon as it occurs to him that
his investigating committee is being investigated, he blows his top.
(17:12):
And that's a metaphor, of course, but boy was he steamed.
Another metaphor. Tell us how the interview with McCormack ended. Well,
He ends the interview and says he'll respond later in
writing to those of the questions he deems worth answering.
So I say goodbye, see you in hell. Tell your
wife and kid. I hate him. Oh and by the way,
your hair looks like crap. And I stroll on over
to Dixstein, and that guy is daffier than the well
(17:34):
known animated duck. And I don't mean Donald, no, sorry,
I mean I think it's going to be a trip
for biscuits, trip fruit biscuits. Yeah, you know, a bunch
of bushwash, but a waste of time. I mean, except
when I point out all the financial connections I've been
reporting on. Dickstein says, I wish you'd have told me
that while the committee was in session, I'd have called
Murphy and Morgan and anyone else involved. So when it
(17:58):
comes to the chairman of the committee, we got one
guy who appears one hundred percent in on the cover
up and one guy who's at best incompetent and at
worst playing. Spivak really did the work. He was an
old school gumshoe. Once he knew Congress wasn't asking the
right questions, he took it upon himself to ask that
I did. And the pieces of a story fit together.
(18:20):
For conspiracy to work, you have to have multiple parties
with aligned objectives, and he teases those threads out. I'm
with you, But there are a lot of ways to
tell the story, and there isn't just one narrative all
historians agree on. We asked our pal Jonathan Katz, author
of Gangsters of Capitalism, what he's gathered about the alleged
(18:40):
cover up. I haven't found in my research any direct
evidence of a lobbying campaign by the DuPonts to be like, hey,
McCormack's not asking questions. But even without a direct influenced campaign,
there has to be the influence of knowing that you're
going up against extremely powerful people, right, Jonathan says it
might have been as simple as a bunch of congressmen
(19:02):
thinking about their reelection campaigns. It's hard to imagine that
these guys aren't sitting there. They're doing their investigation, and
they're looking at their calendar and their timetable, and they're like, Okay, now,
our charter basically expires at the end of the year.
I could use some of my political capital to demand,
(19:25):
you know, an extension. I could issue subpoenas to earn
they du pont to, you know, come in and and testify,
um or I don't. And so dick Stein and McCormack
did what passed as just enough and was simultaneously politically expedient.
(19:50):
We had Spedley Butler in here, we called Gerald c McGuire,
we had the lawyer for Sterling. You know, let's let's
call it a day. And I think that's ultimately what
they did. And there's one other widely held theory out
they're worth noting that FDR himself was in on the
(20:12):
decision to allow the accused conspirators to skate without punishment
or embarrassment because he found real leverage and letting them walk,
as in, I'm going to let you go, and in return,
mister tycoon, you are going to stand aside and shut
up about my new deal initiatives. That's right. No more
bellyaching about federal jobs programs, no more whining about unemployment insurance,
(20:35):
and stop trying to break conservative Democrats off my new
Deal coalition. But this is what I'll say. Alex and
I have read everything we could get our hands on
about the business plot, and though there's more than one
narrative about how it all went down, without Spevak's reporting,
we'd know practically nothing at all. So many of the
(20:55):
records are now gone. Smedley's full testimony for one crucial piece.
The only parts of it that we have are the
one Spevak published, and so in that regard it's vital work.
The bottom line is we just don't totally know for
sure what happened. But I want to say one more
thing about Spevak's legacy. He significantly raised the public's awareness
(21:18):
of the American Liberty League's nefarious side. That was, if
you remember the creepy pro fascist group the DuPont's and
JP Morgan financed after Smidley's allegations and Spevak's reporting, people
were spooked. The American Liberty League claimed to be nonpartisan,
but the public began to see it as a front
for some very dangerous things, plus a model for future
(21:41):
insurrectionist armies. Being implicated in the business plot eroded any
already shaky claims that the Liberty League was a legitimate,
respectable organization. It died a quiet, unheralded death. Thanks make
to God America. And I guess I'll throw myself onto
that list while I'm at it. That's how I'll be remembered.
See you want the funny famous kids. But later Titans
(22:04):
and Tycoons were inspired by the League's time I'm warrn tactics,
which showed you can push the levers of power slowly,
behind the scenes, one district at a time. The Kok
Brothers saw it. The League did in the thirties, and
then in the two thousands they said, hold my beer.
At this point, you're probably wondering about the aftermath. How
(22:26):
did we as a country get from there to hear?
And what happens to our hero Smedley Baller? Yes, and
what happened to me and Lucius well, you two aren't real,
is the thing. What you're just general representations of anonymous, greedy,
(22:46):
scheming plutocrats of the era. Oh well, I suppose that
does explain a few things, Ah, like why we're not
on quikipaedia. Well, I'm real. What winds up happening to me?
We'll find out together, Smedley. After the break the end
(23:06):
of our story. All right, your little rat parties over.
Everyone's gone home but me. I've been waiting patiently, so
let's hear about the rest of my life. I can
(23:29):
take it. I've been doing some deep breathing to prepare. Yeah,
it doesn't count if you're doing it into a cigarette,
Major General, you deep breathe all way off, deep breath.
I have got it. Quit these, okay, Smedley, It's time
to find out what happened to you? Well hot damn
at last, blowing the whistle on the alleged Banker's Coup
(23:50):
of nineteen thirty four was not the end of Smedley Baller,
not by a long shot. Now. Speaking out about the
plot had real consequences for Smedley. It further isolated him
from conventional politics. He lost friends, he knoked just about
every remaining bridge. Here's talking about Smedley. He is not
an honored guest at the White House. He's not being
(24:13):
asked for his opinion on world affairs by the New
York Times or you know, the policy mandarins of his day.
His name is never spoken in polite company, but wild.
He lost his credibility among the mainstream. Blowing the whistle
made Smedley a hero for working class folks, and it
really accelerated his transformation into a far left fire brand,
(24:36):
like a caterpillar becoming a beautiful pinko butterfly. In March
of nineteen thirty five, a couple months after testifying about
the plot to remove President Roosevelt, Smedley published his most
famous work, War is a Racket. It's a fifty two
page pamphlet based on his most famous speeches. As Jonathan
(24:58):
Katz pointed out to us, the pamphlet takes his condemnation
of powerful interests a step farther and Smedley's own words,
war is a racket. It always has. It is possibly
the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one international in scope. It is
the only one in which the profits are reckoned in
dollars and losses in lives. We asked Jonathan Cats about it.
(25:23):
Butler is angling toward what ends up being dubbed in
a later generation the military industrial complex. The allegations of
the military industrial complex the Butler's talking about are very specific.
He seeing the people who manufacture munitions, like the DuPont family,
who made their bones producing gunpowder. They essentially tricked the
(25:43):
American people into joining World War One. Smedley wrote, beautiful
ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out
to die. This was the war to end all wars.
This was the war to make the world safe for democracy.
No one mentioned to them as they marched away that
they're going and they're dying would mean huge war profits.
(26:04):
Smedley talks about what he called the metal business, the
system of awarding soldiers medals for valor, and he makes
it clear he thinks it's all a scam to convince
boys to go off to war and die for some
honor and a measly wage. I mean, here's the most decorated,
the most celebrated, the most honored officer in Marine Corps
history at the time, saying things like having stuffed patriotism
(26:26):
down their throats. It was decided to make them help
pay for the war too, so we gave them the
large salary of thirty dollars a month. All they had
to do for this munificent sum was to leave their
dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches.
Each canned Willie when they could get it, and kill
and kill, and kill and be killed. Starting around the
(26:50):
time of war as a racket's publication, Smedley increasingly considered
himself to be a radical, anti imperialist, anti capitalist, far
far outside the mainstream. Don't understell. I even called myself radical,
straight up, flat out, and I called out so called
radicals who are less radical than me. Yes, if you're wondering,
it was a contest, but no medals on account of
(27:12):
the earthfore mentioned. Smedley continued to make his living writing
magazine articles for socialist rags like New Masses and Common Sense.
He also wrote for mainstream publications like Readers Digest and
Ladies Home Journal. On top of all this, he did
radio broadcast as well, and he kept working the speaker's circuit.
(27:33):
In the span of a couple of years, he claimed
to have given one thousand, two hundred rousing speeches in
seven hundred different American towns. Many found Smedley's agitating, well, agitating,
Oh yeah, man, So much so that in January of
nineteen thirty six, United States Marine Corps informants infiltrated a
(27:54):
meeting to keep a close watch on Old Gimlet Eye.
He spoke at the Cleveland Public Auditorium with a collection
of radical journalists and anti fascist rabbi, members of the
Communist Party, and the legendary poet linksd In Hughes. Smedley
called them everyone in the room to set aside religious
and racial feelings and unite against fascism and war. And
(28:16):
how did that go over? You're wondering? Well, the Marine
Corps spies and attendants concluded Smedley, Butler had either gone
insane or was a traitor. The shots didn't get it.
I saw war for the racket that it was and
spoke up accordingly. But Smedley always stopped short of calling
himself a pacifist or calling for the abolition of the military.
(28:41):
One biographer points out that Smedley infused his stump speeches
with diehard support of law and order and duty bound manliness.
The trick was that I was against war, but couldn't
come out and say I'm a pacifist. You know, why
do you know what people hear when you say pacifist,
they hear weener? You under try, Go ahead, you give
it a try. Say I identify as a pacifist. Okay,
(29:04):
here goes, I identify as a pacifist. Yeah, okay, question
about that? Yeah, sure, When did you discover that you
are a self righteous weener? Because that's all I heard.
Very funny, but seriously, yes, part of my message resided
outside of mainstream political discourse. We've established that. Yet somehow
(29:26):
I kept ashes in the seats at every stop. That's
because I came down very much on the side of
national defense. I wanted a defense that not even a
rat could crawl through, so decidedly not a weenie. There
always a marine till the day I die. But let
me tell you what was really behind my rhetoric. The
Great War. World War One was supposed to be the
(29:49):
war to end all wars, but by the mid to
late nineteen thirties, I could see it was all going
to happen again, only the second time around it would
be bigger. We're talking about the long, slow lead up
to World War Two here. Unfortunately, Yes, the idiot's running civilization.
We're going to light it all on fire all over again.
Roosevelt was one of them, an interventionist through and through.
(30:10):
He was bounded drag us into the middle of it,
and as the dominoes fell, leading country after country into
the Second World War, Smedley always stood against the US
being pulled into the conflict. The marine, soldiers, sailors, and
gunboats belonging to the United States should all be brought home.
Let the financial interests fight their own battles a further.
(30:32):
The United States needs to get out of the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska,
Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal. Sometimes Smedley took his
messages far outside the bounds of politeness. What do you mean,
Like the time I said, if there was another war,
I'd put Fdr. Son James on the front line. That's
never the children of the President or the senator or
the Wall Street elite. It's always the common boys. Or
(30:56):
there's the time he took to the radio in nineteen
thirty nine speaking directly to American mothers. Now you mothers, particularly.
The only way you can resist all this war hysteria
and beating of tom toms is by asserting the love
you bear your boys. When you listen to some well worded,
some well delivered war speech, just remember it's nothing but sound.
(31:17):
No amount of sound can make up for the loss
of your boy. After you've heard one of those speeches
in your blood's all hot and you want to bite
somebody like Hitler, Go upstairs to where your boys asleep.
Look at him. Put your hand on that spot on
the back of his neck, the place you used to
love to kiss when he was a baby. Just rub
it a little. You won't wake him up. He knows
it's you. Just look at this splendid young creature who's
(31:41):
part of yourself. Then close your eyes for a moment,
and I'll tell you what can happen. Somewhere five thousand
miles from home, night, darkness, cold, a drizzling rain. The
noise is terrific. All hell has broken loose. A star
cell burst in the air. It's unearthly flare lights up
the muddy field. There's a lot of tangled, rusty barbed
(32:04):
wires out there, and a boy hanging over them. His
stomach ripped out, and he's feebly calling for help and water.
His lips are white and drawn. He's in agony. There's
your boy, the same boy who's lying in bed tonight,
the same boy who trusts you. Are you going to
run out on him? Are you going to let someone
beat a drama, blow a bugle and make him chase
(32:25):
after it? Thank God, this is a democracy, and buy
your voice and your vote, you can say of your boy.
Those are Smedley's actual words too. And look, we all
know Smedley is no hero. As we've talked about over
and over, there have been many times when, by his
own admission, even Smedley was the villain, the very face
(32:47):
of evil and corruption. But Smedley, given the times, you
could have gotten away with it, freeing clear. You could
have been Senator Butler. You could have retired to his
sweet corporate gig like Douglas MacArthur when he became chairman
of a typewriter company and lived in the Waldorf Historia.
That could have been you. That was not my path.
(33:07):
And you know what, that's the thing I dig about you.
You dedicated the last years of your life to telling
the masses about all this wrongdoing. You pulled back the
great curtain of global business and resource extraction. Here you
are and aristocrat yourself, speaking out about the clear and
present danger aristocracy poses to all democracy. That's rare in history.
(33:34):
You traveled the country like a one man protest movement
against war and imperialism, and people followed you and Smedley
it almost killed you. Historians talk about what a tremendous
told the travel schedule took on your health. When you've
been around as long as I have, you learned that
all people great and small die, President's, paupers and plutocrats alike.
(33:56):
The only real choice we have is how we spend
our time along the way to that unknown, inevitable horizon.
We just wish you had. I don't want to say
a better ending, and I don't want to say a
bigger ending, just an ending of any sort. And we
understand that's because what you were, a part of what
you did makes the story of America complicated. Jonathan Katz
(34:20):
gets that too. He says we can share the sanitized
stories of heroes quote unquote like George Patton and Douglas
MacArthur because everybody knows about the wars they fought in
their legacies aren't as complicated to explain talking about Smedley Butler.
The good and the bad both require talking about things
(34:41):
that we don't like to talk about as Americans, but
we're talking about our own history with Smedley. He was
involved in so many missions and conflicts that few Americans
even know about, and to explain what he did requires
engaging with some uncomfortable truths about atrocities Uncle Sam committed abroad,
plus facing up to the fact that some of the
names behind the United States best known institutions were well
(35:04):
actual fascists. That's right. The these facts don't vibe with
the story of America we like to tell ourselves. And
Major General Butler, you just didn't fit the narrative. Maybe
that's why you're not in the textbooks. Maybe that's why
we still haven't learned the lesson you were trying to
teach us. And maybe that's why all those powerful forces
(35:27):
you were speaking against are alive and well today. So
watch the end of me, like the end end, sir?
Are you sure you want to hear this? After all
I've seen, believe me, I can take it. Okay. It's
June nineteen forty World War two began some months ago.
(35:48):
You had come to the hospital complaining of gut pains.
The doctors called a cancer ethel and the family stayed
by your side. You had an okay room at Philadelphia's
Naval Hospital. Decent view, a very good view. Good, that's important.
Your family drove the new car around your car. You
could see it from the window, though you never got
(36:10):
a chance to drive it. Smedley. You die on June
twenty first. Huh, that's just good a day as any.
The very next day, France, thought by all to be
the most powerful military in the world, surrenders to Hitler's army.
The Second World War continues. Smedley's story falls away from
(36:35):
the public mind as thousands die on battlefields, then hundreds
of thousands in their homes, then millions more in death camps,
and then the atomic bomb. One war ends, another begins.
Smedley's military successors call this the Cold War. There are
(36:57):
only a handful of memorials to Smedley Butler that exists today.
An ordinary headstone in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, a plaque
in Philadelphia, and a bench in Haverford. The fancy private
school he dropped out of before heading off to Cuba
to fight as a teenager. That plaque in Phillies City
Hall is a commemoration of his time as Director of
(37:17):
Public Safety. There's nothing about a coup or war or
the dangers of dictatorship. Sir. History may never acknowledge that
you prevented a coup. But Alex said something to me
the other day that got stuck in my head, and
I think it's the right note to end on the
(37:38):
real coup, Major General Butler is the rebellion you staged
within yourself. You're one eighty from warhammer to anti war activist.
That's the coup that mattered most, the coup I staged
on my shelf. Let's hope there's a coup like that
(37:59):
in all of us. Yeah, that's good. I like that, Maggitch,
Let's start a coup. As a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts, our hosts are Alex French and
(38:21):
Ben Bowan. The show was written by Alex French, with
additional writing by Joe ken Ocean. Original music and scoring
by Joe ken Ocean, character voices by Joken Ocean. I
broke the story first, Oh and don't you hair? Brained
history loving Hubris heavy hecks at I Hot, I'll foget
it anelis but this is our producer. Emilia Brock is
(38:43):
our senior producer. Sound design, mixing and mastering by Alexander Overington.
Our story editor is Lacy Roberts. Fact checking by Austin Thompson.
Logo illustration by Lucy Knthania. Production support provided by Daisy Church.
The Heat Fraser is our recording engineer. Recorded at the
(39:05):
iHeart Studio in New York. Executive producers are Jason English,
Virginie Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you're enjoying
the show, help us get the word out by leaving
a rating in your favorite podcast app. Well, clearly you
enjoyed it. You listened all the way through, so leave
us five stars and should you refuse? My response is
(39:26):
only two words, dry up. Thank you for listening to
Let's start a coupe School of Humans
Host
Ben Bowlin
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