One Man’s Integrity May Have Stopped a Coup
The 1934 plot to overthrow FDR and the man who stopped it
The January sixth event at the capitol building elicits various interpretations. Some call any reaction overblown and others say we were close to a coup. However we may see it, members of congress may view the events in light of an actual plot in 1934. The plans were eerily similar to what actually happened on January sixth. The difference is the one man who did the right thing.
The year was 1934 and political fires burned throughout the world. Our nation suffered in the midst of the great depression. NAZIs recently came to power and began running Germany under what was then called Hitlerism. Communism raged under Stalin in the Soviet Union as he enforced the great famine in Ukraine. Italy was well in the midst of Mussolini’s fascism and political unrest raged in France.
Some thought fascism was a solution to every nation’s economic and political ills. Among them some of the financial leaders in business and on Wall Street.
FDR administration begins during political turmoil at home and abroad
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was into his second year after assuming the presidency in the United States. Surviving a more contentious convention as much as a powerful election and in 1932, he became the second Roosevelt to sit in the White House. His presidency would coincide chronologically with the rise and fall of the NAZI regime.
As I wrote in my piece on Fr. Charles Coughlin, some hated Roosevelt and others loved him until he began to make changes they did not like, then hated him. Among his enemies were some of the movers and shakers of Wall Street and government, many from Roosevelt’s own party. Seeing a path to undo the election of 1932, they tried to enlist Major General Smedley Butler not realizing he was a true patriot.
One of the great illusions Roosevelt pulled off was his ability to walk. He survived polio and long before he began his presidential aspirations, he suffered paralysis in his legs. His handlers hid it well from the American public.
Americans needed to know their president was strong, healthy and not debilitated in any way. So, he pulled off the illusion he could actually walk using various methods and placement of individuals who appeared to be guarding him. They actually supported him so that he could walk across a stage and/or to a podium and more. He also arranged to ensure the media never photographed him in a wheelchair. Of course, the predominant communications media at the time was radio so pulling off you could not walk was much simpler then.
The problem with the gold standard
Roosevelt realized one of the problems affecting the US economy was the gold standard. In other words, our money was backed by gold reserves. Many people no longer trusted banks and so they would convert their savings into gold coins and hoard them, keeping their money out of the economy. This practice hurt the banking system and the economy. You may remember stories of your grandparents or great-grandparents storing money in mattresses or other even less safe places because they did not trust banks.
Roosevelt, from the beginning days of his presidency, worked to bring the United States off of gold to put an end to this practice among other issues. This alarmed many on Wall Street. Without a gold standard, they believed they would lose much of the millions they had in investments.
Time to take matters into their own hands
Others worried that Roosevelt’s policies were a turn towards socialism. This is because unemployment was high so he wanted to put people to work by the government funding their jobs. Of course, one of the concerns for capitalists when they hear the approach of socialism is that industries will be nationalized. They saw a need to take whatever steps to replace Roosevelt immediately and Smedley Butler was their candidate.
A veteran of several wars, Major General Smedley Butler was a well respected war hero, Marine veteran and former police chief of Philadelphia. He too disagreed with Roosevelt but respected democracy.
The backers of the coup planned to build up Butler among the veterans as a political power. Modeling their action after a similar movement called the Croix de Feu in France, they wanted him to mobilize the patriotic men against the president so he could be replaced by a force more friendly to their financial interests. Butler could easily rally the veterans.
He was to begin with an address to the American Legion in Chicago in favor of returning to the gold standard and then speak to other American Legion conventions. Building veterans’ trust, the leaders of the plot planned to create an office for Butler, in FDR’s administration, called the Secretary of General Affairs. He was to help the allegedly overworked Roosevelt manage the government.
Roosevelt would come to appear debilitated, his handicaps put on display and he would become a figurehead while Butler would strengthen his hold on government. Finally, there would be a march on Washington by half a million veterans who would force Roosevelt out and put Butler in as the fascist dictator.
A man of integrity
Butler, former chief of police in Philadelphia, wanted nothing to do with the plot but played along to gather evidence to report the affair to the authorities. He called in a Philadelphia journalist probably through his connections with that city. He needed a witness sympathetic to his concerns. After learning the whole list of plans including how much they were willing to pay him and finance the operation, he reported it to the McCormack-Dickenstein House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. The plot died there. The committee held hearings in 1934 on Butler’s claims and issued a final report in 1935.
According to Butler’s testimony, the plotters included bond salesman Gerald C. MacGuire, Robert Sterling Clark — heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and William Doyle a leader in the American Legion. They were willing to front fifteen million dollars for the plot to ensure the whole thirty million dollars at risk would not be lost with the change to the gold standard.
The committee heard all the testimony and although no coup ever happened, due to Butler’s faithfulness to democracy, they determined Butler’s concerns were valid.
Butler for his part believed the findings were a whitewash because they did not call in those whom he believed were actually behind the plot. He named them. They included major democratic party figures who opposed Roosevelt and his policies right from the convention. Figures he named included:
Alfred E. Smith, like Roosevelt, a former New York Governor who ran unsuccessfully against Herbert Hoover in 1928. He was the first serious Catholic candidate for President of the United States in 1924. He lost the Democratic Party nomination to Roosevelt at the 1932 Convention. Smith never supported FDR.
Joseph Ely, Governor of Massachusetts. He nominated Smith at the 1932 Democratic Convention. Ely, a Massachusetts Protestant was a staunch opponent of legendary Massachusetts Irish Catholic politician James Michael Curley, a Roosevelt supporter, and defeated him for nomination to Massachusetts Governor for his party in 1930. He won the governorship of the Commonwealth that year.
General Douglas MacArthur, who was U.S. Army Chief of Staff. He went on to victory in World War II. Famously he crossed swords with Truman in 1951 over US policy on the Korean peninsula. Truman fired him immediately.
Louis Howe, Secretary to President Roosevelt. He died of illness during Roosevelt’s first term.
No one was ever charged in the plot and the media never took it seriously.
A different man would bring a different outcome
The final report of the committee remained classified for over sixty years and so the plot was easily forgotten.
The events of January sixth however sound ominously similar to what was actually planned. Whether they were related or not, it is fascinating to see that as is often the case, events are not what they actually always seem.
Butler died in 1940 and never saw the events that led to the US involvement in the war in Europe and in the Pacific. His integrity at that time may have been the difference between what the world looks like now and what it could have become if he said yes to the money and the bizarre plot.
Sources:
The Plot to Overthrow FDR: Government Printing Office
Smedley Butler And The Plot To Overthrow FDR — Yesterday’s America
The Planned 1933 Fascist Coup in America, by Larry Romanoff — The Unz Review
Investopedia:
When FDR Abandoned the Gold Standard
Smedley Butler and the 1930s Plot to Overthrow the President
Wikipedia:
McCormack–Dickstein Committee — Wikisource, the free online library
Britannica:
Al Smith | American politician | Britannica]
Newspapers:
International News Service, Butler Says Fascist Probe Inadequate, Tyrone (PA) Daily Herald, February 18, 1935
Washington News Service, Congress Inquiry Shows Fascist Danger Is Real, The American Israelite, February 25, 1935
Associated Press, V.F.W. We Believe Butler, Dubuque (IA)Telegraph Herald, November 22, 1934
Photo: OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPHUSMC Archives from Quantico, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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