Part 2
MacGuire, not surprisingly, denied that such a plot existed. Instead, he claimed his activities had been political lobbying to preserve the gold standard, but he quickly destroyed his credibility as a witness by giving contradictory testimony. While the final report agreed with Butler that there was evidence of a coup d'état plot against Roosevelt, no further action was taken on it. The Committee's authority to subpoena witnesses expired at the end of 1934, and the Justice Department started no criminal investigation.
Part of the reason for the lack of prosecution of the alleged plotters may have been the untimely death of the only man who could have testified against the rest: Gerald MacGuire. He died at age 37 from complications of pneumonia, less than a month after the Committee released its report. MacGuire's physician claimed that his death was partly the result of the stress of the charges made by Butler, but there is no reason to assume that MacGuire's death was in any way suspicious.
The Committee's report excluded many of the most embarrassing names given by MacGuire, and repeated by Butler. MacGuire had claimed that 1928 Democratic President candidate Al Smith, General Hugh Johnson (head of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration), General Douglas MacArthur, and a number of other generals and admirals were privy to the plot. Since Butler had no evidence of their involvement, other than MacGuire's claims, it was certainly reasonable for the Committee to exclude these details from the final report as "certain immaterial and incompetent evidence." But in conjunction with MacGuire's apparent advance knowledge of the details of internal White House staff activities, it certainly suggests that if a coup was planned, it had significant support within the Roosevelt Administration.
The News Media Downplays The Plot
The news media gave an inappropriately small amount of attention to the report. Time magazine ridiculed Butler's claims. The week following Butler's testimony, Time described it as a "Plot Without Plotters," simply because the alleged plotters claimed innocence. But Time admitted that Veterans of Foreign Wars commander James Van Zandt confirmed that he, too, had been approached to lead such a march on Washington. The leftist magazine New Masses carried an article by John Spivak that included wild claims of "Jewish financiers working with fascist groups." Spivak's article spun an elaborate web involving the American Jewish Congress, the Warburg family, "which originally financed Hitler," the Hearst newspaper chain, the Morgan banking firm, the du Ponts, a truly impressive list of prominent American Jewish businessmen, and Nazi spies! Spivak's article raised some disturbing and legitimate questions about why much of Butler's testimony was left out of the final committee report. But these important concerns were seriously undermined by Spivak's paranoid ravings. The left-of-center magazines Nation and New Republic were unconcerned about it, since in their view "fascism originated in pseudoradical mass movements," and therefore could not come from a wealthy cabal.
Newspaper descriptions of the final report are also astonishing for how lightly most treated it. A New York Times article about subversion and foreign agitators started on the front page, but gave only two paragraphs to the coup plot inside the paper. "It also alleged that definite proof has been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington... was actually contemplated." It was not a major story.
The San Francisco Chronicle took the story more seriously. The only headline with a larger type size that day concerned the recent fatal crash of the airship Macon. The Chronicle carried an Associated Press story headlined, "Justice Aids Probe Butler Fascist Story." The first five paragraphs were devoted to Butler's allegations. The Chronicle quoted the Committee report that it "was able to verify all the pertinent statements by General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting creation of the organization."
A third newspaper sampled showed an even more astonishing lack of interest than the New York Times: the Sacramento Bee used a substantially different Associated Press wire story that emphasized propaganda efforts by foreign agents. Another AP wire story, at the bottom of page five, described Butler's allegations, taking the Committee's report at face value. This wire story includes the comforting knowledge that the committee found "no evidence to show a connection between this effort" and any foreign government.
An apparently serious effort to overthrow the government, perhaps with the support of some of America's wealthiest men, largely substantiated by a Congressional committee, was mostly ignored. Why? Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, wrote a book in 1939 about the concentration of American journalism. He claimed that, "In 1934, 82 per cent of all dailies had a complete monopoly in their communities." Newspaper chains, in Ickes' view, "control a dangerously large share of the national daily circulation and in many cities have no competition."
Ickes' book was largely devoted to proving that the major newspapers of the United States were intentionally distorting the news, and in some cases, directly lying. Ickes argued that newspaper editors did so in the interests of both their advertisers and in defense of the capitalist class. Ickes mentioned the Liberty League as one of the "propaganda outfits" who were allied with the major newspapers. Indeed,the New York Times, one of the papers that had downplayed the Committee's report, had editorialized in favor of the Liberty League's formation.
Did newspapers and magazines onsciously play down the plot, because it represented an embarrassment to people of influence? Or did editors simply give it low visibility because they regarded it as an absurd story?
We must consider another disturbing possibility. Butler was associated with the loose alliance of progressive and populist forces that were dragging Roosevelt towards the left. It is easy to forget that for much of Roosevelt's first term as President from 1932-36, he was the rope in a tug of war between conservative and progressive forces in America. The popularity of men such as Senator Huey Long (D-Louisiana) and the nationally known radio priest Father Coughlin-and the need to short-circuit their rising political power-appears to have caused Roosevelt's increasingly leftward movement in 1935-36.
Is it possible that Butler concocted this story as a way of creating animosity towards conservatives by Roosevelt? If Butler had lied to the Committee, and no such conspiracy was ever planned, why did MacGuire apparently perjure himself before the Committee? Or, alternatively, could leftward leaning members of the Roosevelt Administration have manipulated Butler into believing that such a plot actually existed as a way of creating animosity towards conservatives, thus dragging Roosevelt to the left? Either theory could explain why MacGuire, Murphy, Clark, or the other supposed plotters were never prosecuted.
Yet another possibility (though less likely) is that there was no prosecution because Roosevelt's own advisors had taken part in the plot, as MacGuire claimed. A criminal prosecution would have washed the Roosevelt Administration's dirty laundry in public.
Why Is The Plot So Poorly Known?
Butler's account of the MacGuire plot was a very serious accusation. If MacGuire had told Butler the truth, a large number of wealthy men had made serious plans to overthrow representative government in the United States - though their concern that Roosevelt was creating a government in the style of Mussolini or Hitler, might provide some legitimate reason for their actions. Why doesn't this plot appear in history books? That conservatives might discount the plot is not unexpected; that liberals have tended to ignore the plot is a little more surprising. It is hard to imagine how different American politics was in the 1930s. The collapse of the world economy had shaken the faith of many Americans in individualism and free market capitalism. Many traditionalists, here and in Europe, toyed with the ideas of Fascism and National Socialism; many liberals dallied with Socialism and Communism. Prominent populists such as Huey Long and Father Coughlin sided with progressives in support of isolationism, redistribution of wealth, and a federal government that would play a more active role in the American economy.
In hindsight, the moral and economic deficiencies of these various collectivized systems are now clear. In 1934, however, people of good will persuaded themselves that Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were doing good, and ignored the great evils that were already underway. To turn over the rock exposing MacGuire's plot raises unpleasant questions about the political sensibilities of both right and left in 1930s America.
How Secure Are The Institutions of Legal Government In America?
How secure, indeed? It would be tempting to write off this entire matter as a group of con men separating wealthy conservatives from their money by pretending to hatch a plot against the Roosevelt Administration. But there are too many disturbing pieces of evidence in this tale that suggest that the Zeitgeist of the 1930s was not limited to Europe. If MacGuire's claims to Butler were true, some U.S. military commanders were prepared to stand aside while 500,000 veterans marched on Washington and took Roosevelt captive. (Between the World Wars, the United States Army was so small that 500,000 veterans might have given them a serious fight - even if every officer remained loyal to Roosevelt.)
But unlike many European countries, American government was highly decentralized in 1934, and this would have worked against any serious military action against the legitimate government. Every state governor had control of state militia units, armed with out of date, but still serviceable military weapons.
In addition to the regularly organized state militias, the population of the United States, then as now, was heavily armed with the sort of weapons well suited to military operations. Whatever the advantages of the plotters' army of 500,000 veterans, they would have been far outnumbered by the unorganized militia of the United States - then as now, consisting of every U.S. citizen between 18 and 45, and legally obligated by state laws to fight at the order of the governor in the event of insurrection, invasion, or war.
But in a nation that was suffering from the ravages of the Great Depression, another model exists for what might have happened: the Spanish Civil War. The divisions over religion in America were not as dramatic as those that ripped apart Spanish society. But many Americans were beginning to lose their faith in American institutions - as evidenced by the growth of American Nazi and Communist movements during the 1930s. It is frightening to think of what might have happened if a general as capable as Butler had become the man on a white horse.
In the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, delivered at New York University in 1960 concerning the protections of the U.S. Bill of Rights:
I cannot agree with those who think of the Bill of Rights as an 18th century straitjacket, unsuited for this age…. The evils it guards against are not only old, they are with us now, they exist today….
Experience all over the world has demonstrated, I fear, that the distance between stable, orderly government and one that has been taken over by force is not so great as we have assumed.
Indeed, the plot that Butler exposed - if what MacGuire claimed was true - is a sobering reminder to Americans. We were not immune to the sentiments that gave rise to totalitarian governments throughout the world in the 1930s. We make a serious mistake when we assume, "It can't happen here!" Clayton E. Cramer is a software engineer with a Northern California manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. His first book, By The Dim And Flaring Lamps: The Civil War Diary of Samuel McIlvaine, was published by Library Research Associates (Monroe, NY) in 1990. Mr. Cramer's second book, For The Defense of Themselves And The State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right To Keep And Bear Arms was published by Praeger Publishers (Westport, Conn.) in 1994. Mr. Cramer recently completed his B.A. in History at Sonoma State University.
Bibliography
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Spivak, John L., "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy", New Masses, January 29, 1935, 9-15; February 5, 1935, (page numbers missing on the microfilm)..
Sacramento Bee, February 15, 1935.
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