Missed a Birthday There
Shame on us for forgetting Smedley Butler (July 30th, 1881), the man who outed The Business Plot conspirators (if you believe software engineers who moonlight as historians). As usual, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this.
posted by Anonymous at 9:55 PM
2 Comments:
General Butler's story about the Liberty League conspiracy seems to me wholly credible, given his intelligence, record of courage (TWO, count 'em, not one, Medals of Honor) and national stature, and total lack of reason to make it up.
The story, if memory serves, was picked up by the Masses (unfortunately by an anti-semite) and dismissed in Time and the NY Times. But given the intense hatred of Roosevelt, the nakedly pro-fascist elements in American companies, the use of the far-right American Legion to beat up strikers, it's believable.
Part of Butler's version is meeting with a guy named Jerry MacGuire in a hotel resort, leading the guy on in an attempt to find out what was going on; it's very possible that although his story was dimissed (recall that Time under Henryh Luce was a little to the right of Caligula), it may have shut down a very real coup attempt.
I read a short book on this awhile back which was unfortunately narrative, and thinly researched. I suspect that individual company archives from say Texaco and Ford, American Legion records and certain other quasi-veterans organizations might reveal some very unpleasant history indeed. ( The VFW was the honorable vets org, the Legion was something of a union-busting thug's front.)
It occurs to me to ask Studs Terkel about this.
It also strikes me that Butler's unassailable reputation suffered in history when he opposed intervention in WWII, not from anything like pro-fascism, but from a long sad history of why men were sent to die- although considering his experiences with militarism it's completely understandable. That may be why this story is fairly quiet.
If you haven't read Mark Twain's Comments on the Killing of 600 Moros, do so. One of the great anti-war essasys - partially quoted here: http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/medialib/timeline/docs/sources/theme_primarysources_Military_2_11.html
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