Smedly Butler
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” Smedly Butler, in 'War Is A Racket'
These are the words of Major General Smedly Butler, the most decorated United States Marine Corps (USMC) member in history. After the war, he began a campaign of veterans advocacy. He discussed war profiteering in detail, especially in his 1935 book 'War Is A Racket." I have read this book, or rather long essay as it's only a one hour audiobook and highly recommend it, no matter the format. It is an amazing portrayal of what he felt to be the betrayal of First World War veterans. First by Wall Street encouraging the United States to join that war and second, by exposing the war profiteering that occurred throughout and finally, of veteran's advocacy by speaking on behalf of wounded, unemployed, and destitute veterans. In this book, he predicted the war with Japan, the economic pressures the USA had placed on them eventually forcing them into either submission or a covert attack.
In the years after military service, General Butler became an advocate for veterans issues, an anti-capitalist, and spoke frequently with pacifist groups touring for the organization 'Veterans of Foreign Wars.' He was a member of the Republican Party at the time (though that meant something very different back then) and wrote for socialist magazines like 'Common Sense'. He felt that the combination of war profiteering and military adventurism was akin to a form of fascism. He worked on the education of soldiers saying, among other things, that the goal of the Veterans of Foreign Wars was to "educate the soldiers out of the sucker class." Ironically, as he would assuredly loathe Donald Trump, who apparently agrees that soldiers are suckers.
In 1933, General Butler, already famous as a decorated veteran and skillful orator, was approached by a group of senior businessmen in DC who had under their influence approximately half a million vets and others who would launch a coup d'etat. It was proposed that he could mobilize this 'army' and use them to establish a fascist dictatorship after the model of Mussolini's March on Rome. He refused and later in 1934 testified before Congress under oath about this appalling plan. It was naturally denied and because no records of this exist, it was a 'he said/he said' resulting in no charges being laid. Congress did point out in summation, that while General Butler's testimony was credible, there was no evidence. The real events or how close it came to happening will never be known.
General Butler died of Cancer in on June 21st 1940.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/SmedleyButler.jpeg
Andrew, Sept 9th, 2020