Do the rich sway public policy and who rules? Absolutely. The lengths they are willing to go to were put on full display in the 1930s. Believe it or not, Wall Street was prepared to back a fascist coup in the US.Major Gen. (Ret.) Smedley D. Butler, a decorated and recently-retired marine after 33 years of service, was both the right and the wrong man to lead the coup. While he had the charisma and competence for such an effort, his patriotism and love for democracy compelled him to expose the affair.Butler was a top three pick to command the navy, but he retired in 1931 as his outspoken and controversial nature left him passed over. In July 1932, he joined thousands of World War I veterans who camped in Washington DC to demand immediate payment of bonuses they were due under the World War Adjusted Compensation Act. This 'Bonus Army' of tens of thousands was removed under the direction of Republic President Herbert Hoover.Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 election, but his policies alarmed some Americans. His expansion of government spending was but one controversial aspect. In January 1934, he confiscated all private gold in the US. Former owners were compensated at $20.67 per ounce, which was well below market rates.In his book, The Plot to Seize the White House, Jules Archer put it this way."’[C]onservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy." "Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor.”Cue the real life Jerry MacGuire. Gerald MacGuire, as he was more formally known, initiated a series of meetings with Butler starting in 1933. MacGuire was the former Connecticut commander of the American Legion, a WWI veteran who sold bonds for the prominent Wall Street brokerage house Grayson Murphy & Company. For the initial meeting, he was accompanied by Bill Doyle, who at the time was the Legion’s leader in Massachusetts.“They presented to me rather a confused picture,” Butler later told Congress. MacGuire told him he had travelled across Europe to find out how the soldiers were used as a political force in various countries there. Although MacGuire talked about wanting to “support the president” and defending veterans’ bonuses, his true intentions were finally made plain after a year-and-a-half of occasional meetings.MacGuire was the middle man for Wall Street interests that wanted a fascist coup of the United States. In what history has since deemed, 'The Business Plot,' the plan was to form a front organization of 500,000 veterans, one Butler would lead to march on Washington and usurp power from Roosevelt. The president would function more like a figurehead while Butler made the real decisions as 'Secretary for General Affairs.'Butler said he met with Robert Clark, who was heir to the Singer Sewing Machine Company, who confirmed everything MacGuire had said. Those ready to help included executives from the DuPont Corporation (including Irenee du Pont); the Democrat candidates for president in 1924 and 1928, John Davis and Al Smith; several people associated with the J P Morgan banking interests (including Thomas Lamont, great-grandfather of Connecticut governor Ned Lamont); and Grayson Murphy, a director of Goodyear Tire, Anaconda Copper and Bethlehem Steel. Weapons and ammunition would be supplied by Remington UMC, which Du Pont had just bought.According to Butler, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Gen. Hanford MacNider, who later became U.S. Ambassador to Canada, were touted as alternative revolutionaries if he declined the role. Butler said he was not interested, despite hearing there was $3 million of backing for the plot.“If you get 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you and we will have a real war right at home,” Butler told MacGuire.At congressional hearings, Butler told Congress all he knew, including names of the would-be conspirators. However, Congress gave them a pass.“This committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men,” said the committee’s preliminary report.“The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into the testimony which constitute mere hearsay.”MacGuire was brought before Congress, however, confirming some of Butler’s testimony while denying that he asked him to lead a coup. However, the final report of the committee, issued February 15 1935, said his desire to raise up a “fascist army” were corroborated by correspondence between MacGuire and Clark.“In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”On March 25, 1935, MacGuire died at the age of 36, allegedly of pnemonia.President Roosevelt censored some of Butler’s testimony, though the redacted portions were released decades later by journalist John Spivak.In 2007, a BBC investigation alleged that Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of US presidents, was to have been a 'key liaison' between the business plotters and the Nazi regime in Germany.It seems neither Roosevelt, Bush nor any of the people Butler named, appreciated democracy as much as he did. Following his testimony, Butler said the following in a Universal Newsreel.“My main interest in all of this is to preserve our democratic institution. I want to retain the right to vote, the right to speak freely and the right to write. If we maintain these basic principles, our democracy is safe. No dictatorship can exist with suffrage, freedom of speech and print.”
