Medal of Honor | General Smedley Butler - War is a Racket - Forgotten History

Makes me so damn mad a whole lot of people speak of you as tramps. By God they didn't speak of you as tramps in 1917 and 18. Let me tell you something, I've been all over the world. I've seen you fellas on the streets in Washington. There isn't as well-behaved group of citizens in the world that's sitting right in this camp. Take it from me, this is the greatest demonstration of Americanism we've ever had. Pure Americanism. Willing to take this beating as you've taken it. Stand right steady. You keep every law. And why in the hell shouldn't you? Who in the hell has done all the bleeding for this country and for this law and this constitution anyhow but you fellas? Many Marines have demonstrated their courage on the battlefield in many wars. But Smedley Butler displayed a courage that is unprecedented in U.S. history. By maintaining his oath to the Constitution, he became the sworn enemy of the very people he fought for, becoming an even greater hero. Who was Smedley Butler? Besides being twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, how did he display even greater courage and preserve the U.S. Constitution, preventing a coup, installing a military dictatorship? Why was he hated by the large captains of industry and politicians alike? Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, former soldier, Marine Corps scout, sniper, history professor, historian, and book author. And we will answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History. Born on July 30, 1881, Major General Smedley Butler was the eldest son of a Quaker family from Westchester, Pennsylvania. Butler came from a line of civil servicemen. His father, Thomas Butler, was a Republican representative for the state of Pennsylvania in Congress, and his maternal grandfather, Smedley Darlington, was also a Republican congressman. Butler served in several major world conflicts, including the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine-American War, and World War I. He had been appointed commanding officer of the gendarmerie during the 1915 to 1934 United States occupation of Haiti. During his time in service, Butler became known for his bravery and relentless leadership in battle, and he was awarded several distinctions, including two Medals of Honor. The first was for his actions at Veracruz, Mexico, on April 22, 1914, and the second for his actions on November 17, 1915, in Haiti. For his actions as a 37-year-old brigadier general in France during World War I, he was awarded an Army Distinguished Service Medal, the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, a Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and the French Order of the Black Star, akin to a knighthood. From 1924 to 1925, he was appointed as the Philadelphia Director of Public Safety, as the mayor, W. Freeland Kendrick, wanted a military man to root out police corruption and attack organized crime related to prohibition, gambling, and money laundering. After this short-term position was completed, Butler took time to reflect. He became disillusioned with the many wars America had fought on behalf of big business interests. His insights provoked great controversy and political retaliation after he published his book on the subject, putting his experiences and beliefs out to the public. After Butler retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in October 1931, he made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s, giving his speech, War is a Racket. The speech was so well-received that he wrote a longer version as a short book published in 1935. His work was considered in Reader's Digest as a book supplement, which helped popularize his message. Butler discussed how business interests commercially benefit from warfare at the expense of the soldier and citizen. Butler recommended the following three steps to disrupt the war racket to save American lives in the future. Making war unprofitable, Butler suggested that the means for war should be conscripted before those who would fight the war. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. He had another quote that was quite substantial. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all things that provide profit in wartime, as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get. Another quote. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6% over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100%, then the flag follows the dollar, and the soldiers follow the flag, end quote. Butler then delved even deeper into the evils of warfare to support corporate profit. His main insights came to light after President Woodrow Wilson threw the United States into World War I to protect the business interest of his financial and political benefactors. Quote, I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. Looking back on it, I feel I might have even given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism, end quote. Smitley Butler also believed that acts of war should be decided by those who fight it. He also suggested that Congress pass a limited referendum to determine if the war is to be fought, is it worth it to the nation as a whole, and is it in the nation's best interest. He also believed that limitations should be imposed, limiting militaries to self-defense. For the United States, Butler recommended that the Navy be limited, by law, to operating within 200 miles of the coastline and the Army restricted to the territorial limits of the country, ensuring that war, if fought, can never be one of aggression, only defense. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version of his book, correspondent Lowell Thomas praised Butler's moral as well as physical courage. Thomas had written Smitley Butler's oral autobiography. It contains this summary, quote, War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most ambitious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes, end quote. Butler confessed that during his decades of service in the Marine Corps, quote, I helped make Mexico, 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 a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912. Where have I heard that name before? I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, I helped see to it that standard oil went its way unmolested, end quote. Butler's book and revelations were explosive, and the large corporations that benefited most from global conflict immediately had their knives out for him. He was lured into a political ambush by the leadership of the American Legion, but he saw through it. Butler was well known for his advocacy for veterans' rights and was a vocal opponent of how the government treated veterans. He was especially incensed after the Washington Bonus Army fiasco in 1932, which he opposed. There were many in business and industry who felt that the White House, principally Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and later Franklin D. Roosevelt, were restricting big business and they wanted their monopolies. This was especially true of the feelings they held towards Roosevelt for his taking the U.S. off the gold standard and his starting to lean towards eliminating business with Nazi Germany and Japan due to their political positions. Leaving the gold standard was a major problem for many high-ranking officials, businessmen and bankers in 1933. Although there were several recognized issues with money backed by gold, such as dependency on gold production and short-term price instabilities, many bankers were fearful that their gold-backed loans would not be paid back in full by the President's new policies. Butler saw these issues no different from Woodrow Wilson declaring war against Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1917, because if the Allies lost that war, billions of dollars would be lost that were held in European banks and Wilson owed a lot of political favors. In addition, FDR social projects, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 smacked of communist-style socialism and required the wealthy businessmen to compete with the federal government on bidding their projects, if there were any bids at all. The plan was to bring Butler in to lead a 500,000-man private army and lead a peaceful march into Washington, D.C. in a show of force to replace Roosevelt in favor of a nationalist government run by the military, leaving FDR as a figurehead. Knowing that this was perhaps the most serious violation of the U.S. Constitution, Butler declined, and he was hauled into McCormick-Dixton congressional committees on un-American activity in November of 1934. Ironically, those whom Butler accused of plotting to overthrow the government called him a liar. Those he accused included the DuPont and Rockefeller families, Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of both Presidents, Robert Sterling Clark, an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, Gerald C. McGuire, a bond salesman, and Robert Doyle. McGuire and Doyle were prominent members of the American Legion and had amassed a fortune in their Legion account that was not used to help veterans. Instead, they were using that money to try and organize an army of veterans that would serve their purposes, and they had help from Bush and others. Butler gave his testimony and provided his evidence, including the testimony and written notes of Philadelphia record writer Paul Conley French, who agreed to meet with McGuire as well. During this meeting, McGuire told French that he believed a fascist state was the only answer for America and that Smedley was the ideal leader because he could organize one million men overnight. Later, it was stated that everything Butler testified to under oath was verified to be accurate, but Butler had the evidence. Quickly becoming known as the White House Coup and the Wall Street Putsch, many major news sources owned by these big business groups derided Butler's claims, as the committee's final report was not made available to the public. It was considered too explosive. In essence, Butler had exposed the fact that big business dictated American foreign policy for financial gain. They owned the politicians, all the way to the White House, and that we the people paid for it with our lives. Those implicated laughed off Butler's claims. Evidence of the validity of Butler's testimony was not released until the 21st century, when the committee's papers were published in the public domain. No one was ever prosecuted in connection to the plot. What is now known was that Major General Smedley Butler, a critic of unrestricted capitalism, was also a staunch opponent of militarized socialism, once again becoming a hero when he stood up to the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country who wanted to overthrow a president. Butler also made many enemies as he was also opposed to Jim Crow laws and a segregated military. He felt that black and Native Americans should have all the rights of whites, and that should include no discrimination in society or the military. Smedley Butler died on June 21st, 1940, his reputation as a warrior and patriot intact, as was his legacy of service to the nation and the Constitution.