-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
A Man in His Times
John L. Spivak©1967
Horizon Press
New York, NY
LCCC#67-17783
--[2]--
24
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Since an elected man's career often depends on favorable publicity,
politicians go out of their way to be given a good press. In Washington, one
of the world's great gossip centers, newsmen are constantly fed bits of
"inside" information by politicians in the tacit understanding that the
correspondent will scratch the politician's back whenever he can. The result
is that little happens in the capital that good newsmen do not hear about,
and even when something has been told to them "off the record," not writing
it does not preclude gossiping about it.
I had developed friendly relations with a number of Washington correspondents
who were sympathetic to my exposes of Nazi and anti-Semitic activities. Since
they wanted this kind of material made public, several expressed regret that
the exposes were appearing in the New Masses; when they quoted from one of my
stories-solely on its news value-their editors cut the material out and
advised them that quotes from "that magazine might make readers say the paper
was spreading Red propaganda. So great had the fear of communism and "Red
propaganda" become that even editors who did not swallow all of it themselves
went along because it was the popular attitude. The Frankenstein's monster
they themselves had helped to fashion now hovered threateningly over them.
This fear, feeding on itself, was to reach its peak in an era which found
Americans living in terror lest their reputations, their jobs and even their
relations with old neighbors be destroyed should they be tainted, directly or
indirectly, by the word communism.
Their editors' attitudes did not deter correspondents from being helpful. Not
long after the Committee's explanatory news release, a correspondent told me,
"I hear some of Butler's testimony has been deleted."
"It's possible. Probably some stuff involving national security."
"What's been cut has nothing to do with national security."
"Then why would it be cut?"
I don't know," he said. "You're working on this thing, not me."
I had a good deal of confidence in him. It was from him that I had first
heard of the plot, and I knew that his list of contacts and news sources was
amazingly long.
I had met both McCormack and Dickstein. Though I wrote for a magazine which
they touched only with extra-long fire tongs lest they be contaminated, they
knew that I was intensely concerned with Nazi activities here. From all I had
been able to gather, it looked as if the Committee would die in a matter of
weeks, and I asked to see the transcript of Butler's testimony for possible
leads I could follow up. The answer was that no one outside the Committee and
its employees could see transcripts of testimony taken in executive sessions.
Since news stories and the Committee's own press release had named some of
the prominent persons Butler mentioned, I persisted in asking why, if there
were no secrets involving the national security, I could not see it. Other
newsmen joined me in asking for the Butler testimony. Presumably to quiet the
growing public concern over why it was not made public, the Committee
published a 125-page document containing the General's and others'
testimonies. The report was clearly marked "Extracts." On the last page, the
following appeared in bold type:
"In making public the foregoing evidence, which was taken in executive
session in New York City from November 20 to 24, inclusive, the committee has
ordered stricken therefrom certain immaterial and incompetent evidence, or
evidence which was not pertinent to the inquiry, and which would not have
been received during a public hearing."
The extracts held me spellbound; this was living history—personalities,
colorful characters, secret maneuvers on national and international scales.
This was a planned gamble with the most powerful government in the world as
the stakes. Aaron Burr's dreams were mad, but the men behind this plot were
not mad; they were fools, no matter how influential they were. With Hitler
already on his march toward devastation, the plotters had sent a man with
little knowledge of history and government to study how fascists achieved
power. This done in a once-over-lightly fashion, he was instructed to
approach one of the most decorated, patriotic and respected military men in
the country. No one seemed to have bothered to make even a cursory study of
the prospective leader's character and views. If they had bought bonds in the
same lackadaisical way, without thorough inquiries into their potential
possibilities, they would have been bankrupt in no time; but buying bonds
involved hard cash and thus had to be considered carefully, whereas all the
conspiracy involved was just seizing control of the United States!
The man with the silver plate in his head was arbitrarily chosen to further
the plot and given more money for expenses than he had ever had in his
personal account. Apparently he was so thrilled that he could not resist
showing how important he was by displaying the bank deposits and tossing
$1,000 bills around. He was like a New Haven man who used to breakfast at
Childs' when I was peddling papers in front of the restaurant. I remembered
him as a tall, thin, middle-aged man who had somehow acquired wealth beyond
anyone's dreams. He had $1,000 in cash and carried this proof of his kinship
with the Morgans and the Rockefellers in ten $100 bills, which he showed to
impress people. He certainly impressed me. I had never seen $1,000 at one
time or known what a $100 bill looked like. It did not matter whom he
impressed with his wealth, even if only the newsboy on the comer. Tightly
clutching the money, he would display the top $100 bill and carefully thumb a
comer of it to one side to disclose another $100 bill, and under that still
another, and another, and another. Not until I grew up did I realize how
pathetic was this man's need.
The reasons given for making public only extracts of the Committee testimony
smelled like what my cat does in his pan. The Committee had already published
hearsay evidence, and this sudden sensitivity about publishing similar
testimony was puzzling. For days I tried to learn what Butler testimony had
been cut out. All my efforts were fruitless. A wall of granite had suddenly
appeared, but all that did was whet my appetite to know what was going on,
for obviously something was. The Committee had announced that it intended to
subpoena all those named by Butler, yet it later issued a formal announcement
that it had no evidence on which to question the prominent persons named.
I met for a drink with a correspondent who was very knowledgeable about
what was going on in the capital and was as perturbed by a fascist threat as
I. I asked if he had any idea why the Committee had published only extracts.
"I was told that a member of the President's Cabinet asked that certain
testimony be deleted," be said.
"Any idea of what was cut out?"
"Names, mostly. Two of the names were Democratic candidates for President of
the United States."
"The Committee's press release mentioned John W. Davis. Who was the other?'
"Al Smith."
"In a fascist plot? I don't believe it!"
Davis had been a candidate in 1924 and was now one of the chief attorneys for
J. P. Morgan & Company. It was possible that, without being told everything,
be had been drawn into some aspects of the conspiracy, though he had publicly
denied writing the speech Butler was asked to deliver at the Legion
convention in Chicago. But Alfred E. Smith, "the happy warrior," a man who
rose to heights from the sidewalks of New York, a very good Governor whose
trusted adviser was Jewish, would certainly not be pro-fascist or pro-Nazi! I
knew he was bitter against Roosevelt, but that was for personal reasons. Yet,
Al Smith was very close to John J. Raskob and was a co-director with him and
Irenee du Pont of the American Liberty League. The idea of Al Smith's being
mentioned in connection with this plot was incredible, but such things had
happened in other countries faced with severe political and economic stress.
I resumed my search for what had been deleted, but I got nowhere. Even
usually garrulous politicians walked about with padlocks dangling from their
lips.
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee had asked the House to extend its life to
January 3, 1937, so it could continue with its investigations, but the House
refused; the Committee died, as I had been tipped off it would. I knew that
the Committee was eager to continue probing into Nazi and communist
activities, if not the fascist plot, but apparently the House had had enough
of committees investigating political philosophies and their propagandists.
Within four years it had authorized two such committees, and both had left a
bad taste in the public's mouth; the Fish Committee was born of forgeries,
and the closing days of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee were marred by talk
that it was suppressing testimony because persons named were too powerful. It
even seemed possible that the latter committee had been killed because
unidentified influential forces feared public opinion might compel a deeper
investigation into the fascist plot and concluded it would be better to
forego even investigations into communist activities than risk that.
Nevertheless, the Committee had plowed the virgin field of Nazi and
anti-Semitic actitivies[sic] in the United States, and I wanted to do at
least one article on that work and its significance. At my request, on
January 11, 1935, about a week or so after the Committee died, Congressman
Dickstein gave me a letter of introduction to Frank P. Randolph, the
Committee's secretary, informing him that I planned "to write a series of
articles on the work of the committee. Will you please permit him to examine
the official exhibits and make photostatic copies of exhibits which were made
public. If necessary consult John [McCormack] about it."
Randolph, harried by the mountain of work required to close the Committee's
records, gave me stacks of documents, exhibits and transcripts of testimony
on their way to the Government Printing Office. Among them I was amazed to
find not only the Butler testimony in executive session which I had tried so
hard to get, but also a typed copy of the Committee's report to the House on
its investigations. The report to the House was lengthy, but the heart of it
was contained in a few paragraphs:
In the last few weeks of the committee's 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.
This committee received evidence from Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler (retired),
twice decorated by the Congress of the United States. He testified before the
committee as to conversations with one Gerald C. MacGuire in which the latter
is alleged to have suggested the formation of a fascist army under the
leadership of General Butler.
MacGuire denied these allegations under oath, but your committee was able to
verify all the pertinent statements made to General Butler, with the
exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the
organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of
MacGuire with his principal, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while
MacGuire was abroad studying the various form of veterans' organizations of
Fascist character. . . .
I compared the transcript of Butler's testimony in executive session with the
one made public and marked "Extracts." The names French mentioned in his news
story were not the only ones deleted, and not everything cut from Butler's
and French's testimony was hearsay by any means. In its several public
statements, the Committee had implied that perhaps MacGuire was just
name-dropping to impress the General, but certainly what Butler had testified
to clearly necessitated more probing. The Committee had not done it, nor
could it plead lack of time; it had known about the plot weeks before it
asked Butler to appear, and after the General's testimony the Committee still
had six weeks, more than sufficient time to hear everybody named and to do so
without attracting attention.
I copied the parts which had been deleted from Butler's description of his
talk with Clark. This was direct evidence of a conversation with a named
principal in the conspiracy.
Butler: He [Clark] said, 'You know the President is weak. He will come right
along with us. He was born in this class. He was raised in this class, and he
will come back. He will run true to form. In the end be will come around. But
we have got to be prepared to sustain him when he does."
Deleted too was Butler's testimony about the new organization set up by
Irenee du Pont, known for his financial support of reactionary groups, an
organization of which Raskob and Al Smith were directors. The treasurer was
Grayson Murphy, for whom MacGuire worked. Deleted was Butler's testimony that
MacGuire had advance knowledge of Alfred E. Smith's plans to break with
President Roosevelt and attack him:
Butler: I said, "What is the idea of Al Smith in this?"
"Well," be [MacGuire] said, "Al Smith is getting ready to assault the
Administration in his magazine. It will appear in a month or so. He is going
to take a shot at the money question. He has definitely broken with the
President."
I was interested to note that about a month later be did, and the New Outlook
took the shot that he told me a month before they were going to take. Let me
say that this fellow [MacGuire] has been able to tell me a month or six weeks
ahead of time everything that happened. That made him interesting. I wanted
to see if he was going to come out right. . . .
Such testimony certainly warranted asking the go-between from whom he got
such accurate information about moves that seemed related to a fascist plot.
Though the sub-committee of two, McCormack and Dickstein, questioned MacGuire
about many things, nothing was asked about how the bond salesman knew of Al
Smith's plans.
Butler quoted MacGuire as saying: "The Morgan interests say you cannot be
trusted.... They want either [Douglas] MacArthur or [Hanford] MacNider [a
leading power in the American Legion]. You know as well as I do that
MacArthur is Stotesbury's [a leading banker] son-in-law in Philadelphia
Morgan's representative in Philadelphia . . . ...
Instead of asking MacGuire who told him what the Morgan interests were doing
in this, the Committee simply deleted this from the published testimony.
In Paul Comly French's testimony of his talk with MacGuire, the following was
deleted:
French: He [MacGuire] said he could go to John W. Davis or Perkins of the
National City Bank, and any number of persons and get it [money for the
organization].
Of course, that may not mean anything. That is, his reference to John W.
Davis and Perkins. . . . we discussed the question of arms and equipment, and
he suggested that they could be obtained from the Remington Arms Company on
credit through the du Ponts. I do not think that at that time he mentioned
the connection of du Pont with the American Liberty League, but he skirted
all around it. . . . he suggested that Roosevelt would be in sympathy with us
and proposed the idea that Butler would be named as the head of the C.C.C.
[Civilian Conservation Corps] camps by the President as a means of building
up the organization....
The CCC was a government work project giving employment to young men of
military age. Another fascist army using CCC men was allegedly proposed by a
Wall Street operator who said he controlled $700,000,000 which he could make
available; this second plot —if it was a separate one—did not attract as much
attention as the one involving General Butler.
These illustrative passages, crying for more probing, were deleted by the
Committee. I knew the Constitution authorized the Congress to delete such
matters as, in its wisdom, required secrecy. This was usually interpreted to
mean matters involving the national security. Certainly national security was
involved in this, but the issue was a plot the people were not only entitled
to know about but had to know about in all its aspects for their own
protection. If Butler's testimony had touched on national security secrets, I
would either have stopped reading them (as I did once when confidential
material was placed before me, along with other documents, during a
LaFollette Senate investigation) or certainly have refrained from mentioning
them in a story. As I was copying the deleted parts, I was conscious of a
sense of relief that, despite my persistent efforts, I had not been
officially shown the unedited testimony; if I had been permitted to read it
off the record, I could never have used a word of what I was now transcribing.
I felt, too, a very definite resentment against this Committee, for which I
otherwise had strong approval—this Committee which had subpoenaed Nazis,
fascists, and communists, yet did not question those whose names were
mentioned in testimony about a treasonable plot against the United States.
The rich and influential seemed to have a unique ability to avoid being
called before a committee investigating un-American activities. So far as I
could determine, there had not been even one telephone call to these
personages to ask—just for the record and with the greatest apologies—if they
had ever heard of this plot. Instead, after announcing it would summon
"bigger names" than General Butler, it did not even ask MacGuire who had told
him the things he told the General.
It was possible, of course, that the deletions were not due to pressures by
any of those named by Butler, but to a policy decision on the highest level.
What would be the public gain from delving deeper into a plot which was
already exposed and whose principals could be kept under surveillance?
Roosevelt had enough headaches in those troubled days without having to make
a face-to-face confrontation with men of great wealth and power. Was it
avoidance of such a confrontation? Was it a desire by the head of the
Democratic Party to avoid going into matters which could split the party down
the middle, what with Davis and Smith, two former party heads, among those
named by Butler?
I had no illusions about the number of readers I reached through New Masses,
but it was the only publication I knew of that was willing to finance digging
into Nazism, fascism and anti-Semitism here and to publish what I found; I
cared little if the magazine's primary interest was to show that big business
in the United States, which was ready to finance a fascist coup as big
business had done in Italy and Germany, was thus an enemy of democracy and
the people. Americans were entitled to know that a committee of the Congress
was suppressing testimony without even checking it out. It was a
possibiilty[sic] such as this, I suspected, that caused the far-sighted
Founding Fathers to forbid legislation abridging freedom of the press. In our
form of government, the people themselves are supposed to be the final
judges, and the people were not being told everything about a plot to seize
their government.
There is a difference between cynicism and anger, and I was not cynical about
this. A plot of this nature was too vital to the country to be shrugged off
with a cynical "what can you expect from politicians?" I was both angry and
troubled that after a conspiracy of this magnitude had been disclosed by a
national hero and verified by a committee of the Congress, nothing was being
done about it. If it were not that an alert reporter had revealed testimony
given behind closed doors, the country might never even have heard of the
plot. I wondered how many matters of great importance are buried in
"executive sessions" on the judgment of only two or three Congressmen,
perhaps without even their own colleagues hearing about it, and what motives
really actuated burying testimony.
Since MacGuire had denied essential parts of Butler's testimony which the
Committee itself said it had proved by documents, bank records and letters, I
went to the Department of justice, which is in charge of criminal
prosecutions, to ask what it planned to do about MaeGuire's testimony. I was
told it had no plans to prosecute.
It was Church and Chapel Streets all over again. Whether the law was enforced
depended on the advisability of enforcing it, and that in turn depended on
how strong you were and how much influence you could muster. I had never
heard of a law that read "suchand-such an act is illegal and anyone
committing it shall be tried and, upon conviction, be sentenced to blank
number of years in prison-but only if the law-enforcing agencies believe it
advisable to prosecute."
I telephoned Congressman McCormack for an interview. He knew that I was
interested in Nazi and anti-Semitic activities and that I was writing about
them for the New Masses. The chairman was a slender man of medium height,
about forty, naturally warm and friendly. He motioned me to a chair alongside
his own at his desk. As usual I had prepared my questions beforehand, and
when I got to the sixth or seventh, which dealt with deletion of some of
Butler's testimony, he said assuringly:
"Oh, somebody's been telling you things."
"No, no one's been telling me things. I have the transcript of Butler's
testimony in executive session containing the deleted parts.
"I can't imagine how the transcript of an executive session got into your
possession," he exclaimed.
The interview had progressed in a friendly manner up to this point, but now
it seemed that a Congressional investigating committee was being
investigated. He said abruptly:
"I don't have to answer your questions."
"That's right, you don't."
"And I don't have to give you an interview."
"That's right, too."
"Well, then, cancel the interview."
Since my first few questions were trivial, designed to put him at ease and
accustom him to seeing me take notes, he had not said anything of value so
far. I said readily:
"Okay, I'll cancel it. But don't you think you had better answer the
questions?"
I will not answer any more questions. It is obvious to me that they are
cleverly arranged—all leading to one point—you want to hang me."
"No, I don't want to hang you."
"I'll take your questions and answer such of them as I wish. I want to think
them over."
Once we reached that agreement, he smiled broadly.
"Now, lees return to your saying you have an executive session transcript."
He looked at me with a quizzical air as if we were both holding poker hands
and I had just raised him in what he suspected was a bluff. I said, "I'm not
bluffing, Mr. Chairman," and mentioned several deleted passages. His eyes
clouded. "I'll have to find out about that,he said. I motioned to his
telephone. He looked at me even more quizzically and reached for it. The
first call went to Dickstein, who must have told him he had his copy of the
transcript. Methodically McCormack called the other members of the Committee.
I do not know what they told him, but they must have said that they either
never had a copy or, if they did have a copy, still had it. McCormack
completed his calls and looked at me with a very friendly smile. "It wasn't a
bad try. Somebody's been gossiping. You almost had me believing you had a
transcript."
By then I was enjoying the situation and could not resist saying, I assume
that all your Committee members have their copies, but do you have yours?"
We both laughed. He reached out and touched my knee. 'John,' he said, "have
you really got a transcript?"
I really have."
I suppose that if the Committee had still been in existence I might not have
admitted it. He could have subpoenaed me. But if be had, it would have been
fun saying the Committee had given it to me.
Among the questions I left with him were:
"Did you ever look into the potential fascist groups like the American
Liberty League, Father [Charles E.] Coughlin's organization, the Crusaders,
etc?"
"Did you ever investigate why the American Legion passed the gold resolution
when MacGuire was in Chicago with a lot of money?"
"Did you ever get to the bottom of the report that John W. Davis wrote the
gold speech the Legion passed in Chicago?"
McCormack promised to give me written answers within three days to such
questions as he was willing to answer. On the third day his letter was in my
mailbox. The closest he came to answering my series of specific questions
about the editing was: "The reason for certain portions of General Butler's
testimony in executive session being deleted from the public record has been
clearly stated in the printed public record."
Other than this he gave me a broad general statement which said nothing. I
quote a paragraph to give the flavor of the answer from an able Congressman
who found himself on a tightrope that was sagging uncomfortably. He wrote:
The breaking up of any intolerant movement, the objective of which is to
group Americans against Americans, or persons against persons, because of
race, color or creed, is beneficial to the country and the people as a whole.
The same opinion applies to a movement dedicated to the overthrow of
government by legal or illegal means, or a combination of both, employing
force and violence, if necessary to obtain the desired objective. The use of
lawful and legal means is a right which every person or movement possesses to
change, in whole, or in part, our government, even though one may not agree
with the methods employed, or the purposes and objectives of such a movement.
No person or movement has a right to resort to illegal means to accomplish
this end. When such methods are employed, the resort to violence and force,
to try and obtain the overthrow of government, whether or not it is or can be
accomplished, it is beyond the pale of the Constitution, and of rights
guaranteed thereunder.
I liked the chairman personally, but he was so obviously embarrassed that I
felt sorry for him. I later went to Co-chairman Samuel Dickstein, who
explained that the Committee had deleted certain parts of the testimony
because they were "hearsay."
"But your published reports are full of hearsay testimony."
"They are?" he said.
"Why wasn't Grayson Murphy called? Your Committee knew that Murphy's men are
in the anti-Semitic espionage organization Order of '76?"
"We didn't have the time. We'd have taken care of the Wall Street groups if
we had the time. I would have no hesitation in going after the Morgans."
"You had Belgrano, Commander of the American Legion, listed to testify. Why
wasn't be examined?"
"I don't know. Maybe you can get Mr. McCormack to explain that. I had nothing
to do with it."
The chairman had already indicated that he did not want to, explain;
apparently members of his special committee were not always informed of what
the chairman did.
To one of my questions, McCormack's letter had given me definite assurances:
You were particularly anxious to find out if the Nazi movement in this
country is as active today as it was when the investigation started. As a
result of the investigation, and the disclosures made, this movement has been
stopped, and is practically broken up. There is no question but that some of
the leaders are attempting to carry on, but they can make no headway. Public
opinion, as a result of the disclosures of the investigation, is aroused.
Unhappily, the Congressman was incorrect. It was in this very period that the
invasion of the United States by Nazi secret agents, along with an
intensification of anti-democratic and hate propaganda, was moving towards
its peak. I am sure that McCormack, Dickstein and their colleagues believed
that the disclosures before their Committee had broken up the Nazi propaganda
and spy rings. They saw no threat from Nazis, though they did see a dangerous
one from American communists. The country was bedeviled by seemingly endless
strikes, and these were attributed chiefly to communists-as if communists
created conflict between employers and employees.
I assumed that General Butler did not know that portions of his testimony had
been deleted, and I decided to ask him. If he knew and said so publicly, be
would reach a vastly greater audience than was available to me through the
New Masses. Besides, I wanted to see him in person. I had never been
interested in personages—I was interested in the ordinary man and the
so-called common people—but ever since I had first checked into his
background he had intrigued me. I telephoned him at his home in Newton
Square, Pennsylvania, a few miles from Philadelphia, and said I was from the
New Masses and I wanted to see him about his testimony before the McCormack
Committee.
"Come on out," he said heartily. "Glad to see you."
It had snowed heavily the night before. Not all roads to his house had been
opened, and my taxi could take me only to within a block of it. I had to wade
almost knee-deep through snow to get there. My pants were wet, my oxfords
were filled with snow-and there are few things that can chill enthusiasm more
effectively than oxfords filled with melting snow. He must have watched me
struggling through the whiteness, for when I reached his house he opened the
door before I could knock. He was a slender, almost spare man, with receding
hair, lined and sunken cheeks, thick eyebrows and furrowed lines between his
keen eyes. His nose was generous, his underlip set in a permanent pout. He
looked at me almost with affection as he extended his hand. He said nothing
about my wading through the snow; wading through snow or water must have been
a normal way of life to him when there was a job to be done.
There are people one meets and may never meet again with whom something
clicks the moment hands clasp. I felt a strong attachment to him immediately,
and though I never did see him again
I heard later of highly complimentary comments he made about me. I
felt as if I had known him all my life and apparently he felt the same, for
we had not been talking long before he said, "I think you're the man I've
been hoping to run into to help me do an autobiography. There are things I've
seen, things I've learned that should not be left unsaid. War is a racket to
protect economic interests, not our country, and our soldiers are sent to die
on foreign soil to protect investments by big business."
He was much occupied with the thought that American boys were being killed
not to protect their country, but to protect investments. He returned to this
theme several times in the hours we talked. His life, his adventures and
activities and what he had learned from firsthand experience and observation
would have made a fascinating book. I would have liked to do it, but I begged
off. Nazi activities in the United States were assuming alarming proportions,
and no publication other than the New Masses indicated any interest. The
Government itself seemed to ignore these activities here completely. When I
said that I thought I should concentrate on Nazi activities, he nodded
approvingly and offered to help by opening doors for me; he too was troubled
by the hate propaganda gaining momentum almost daily.
Butler was sixteen when the battleship Maine was sunk. Despite his parents'
disapproval, he enlisted in the Marines and, without ever attending an
officers' training school, went from private to commanding officer. He was
known for his strictness and toughness but, equally well, for -never ordering
his men to do anything he would not do himself. Those who served under him
told how in the heat of battle he went out personally to bring in wounded
Marines, and how when be happened by and saw his men unloading railroad cars
be pitched in with a helping hand. As a result his men gave him extraordinary
devotion. When he retired he did a good deal of public speaking, especially
to veterans' groups. He delighted in calling his listeners "dumb, stupid
soldiers." His audiences would grin and nod in agreement; from him they were
willing to take almost anything, because they sensed that behind the
gruffness was a genuine affection and concern for their welfare. He believed
the American soldier's job was to defend the United States and its democratic
system of government—not to give up his life on alien soil to protect
American foreign investments. As a Marine he had fought wherever his
superiors ordered and had come to the conclusion that "war is a racket."
Labor's Untold Story quotes him as writing, after he retired:
I spent 33 years [in the Marines] and during that period I spent 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. . . . I helped make
Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. 1
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to
collect revenues in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking
house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican
Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. 1 helped make Honduras "right"
for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, 1 helped see to
it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
When I saw him he said things about big business and politics, sometimes in
earthy, four-letter words, the like of which I had never heard from the most
excited agitators crying on streetcorners, from socialists speaking on the
New Haven Green or, in later years, from communists.
He was describing a primitive variation of what we are learning today about
the activities of our Central Intelligence Agency. We use military power to
enforce our political and economic policies just as other countries do when
they have the strength and consider it advisable. It is always done,
according to the official announcements, for high, shining moral objectives.
In our schools, our churches and synagogues, as in unctuous pronouncements by
heads of state, we are told to live by a set of nobly-expressed morals but
are expected to acquiesce when governments openly or surreptitiously violate
them. The changes in the global economic and political picture in recent
years have been vast, but we still tamper with governments that displease us,
we still instigate revolutions in countries which will not accept our
"guidance," we still send our men to fight in foreign lands, to kill and be
killed, without having declared war. If any average citizen violated the
Constitution as constantly and consistently as those who took solemn oaths
before God and their fellow men to uphold, defend and protect it, he would be
behind bars in short order.
I had heard radicals of every stripe say similar things, but now the man who
had been *in command of our occupying and shooting forces in foreign
countries was saying them, adding matter-of-factly such comments as: 'We
supervised elections in Haiti, and wherever we supervised them our candidate
always won." When speakers on the Green had denounced our military invasions
and "dollar diplomacy," I was always conscious that they were political
radicals, theoreticians who had read histories, economic philosophies and
mountains of statistics, concluded from these studies that "war is a racket"
and took to their stands to tell all passersby who would listen. But this
thin man was not a bookish theoretician; he was the man who had directed our
Marines to land on foreign soil to protect American investments, and he was
saying things stronger than I had ever heard on the Green.
I explained again that I was from the New Masses, feeling that he had not
understood when I telephoned him. "It's supposed to be a communist magazine,"
I said.
.So who the hell cares?" he said. "There wouldn't be a United States if it
wasn't for a bunch of radicals." An impish look came over his face. "I once
heard of a radical named George Washington. As a matter of fact from what I
read he was an extremist—a goddamn revolutionist!"
I gave him copies of what had been deleted from his and French's testimony. I
told him about Belgrano being sent away without even being asked one question
about what had happened in Chicago. I explained that though the Committee was
reporting to Congress that it had verified the plot, it had done nothing
about MacGuire's denials under oath. When I finished he said:
"I'll be goddamned! You can be sure I'm going to say something about this!"
He agreed to hold off making any comment about the deletions until I had
published my story, which appeared at the end of January 1935. On February
17, some two weeks after I made public the parts the Committee had edited out
of his testimony, Butler got on a national radio hookup and denounced the
Congressional Committee for suppressing parts of his testimony. Dickstein was
given the job of countering the attack in a similar broadcast, in the course
of which he said:
General Smedley Butler saw fit to employ this radio network to indulge in
general criticism of the work done by the Congressional Committee on
Un-American Activities and to cast aspersions on the character of such men as
Alfred E. Smith, Louis Howe, General MacArthur and Hanford MacNider. . . .
The Committee felt it should hear General Butler and . . . follow out the
"leads" which the General furnished to the members of the Committee. The
testimony given by General Butler was kept confidential until such time as
the names of the persons who were mentioned in his testimony could be checked
upon and verified. The Committee did not want to hear General Butler's
allegations without giving itself the opportunity to verify the assertions
made by him. It did not feel like dragging into the mud of publicity names of
persons who were mentioned by General Butler unless his statements could be
verified, since untold damage might be caused to a person's reputation, by
public discussion of testimony which could not be substantiated. This
accounts for the fact that when the results of the hearings were finally made
public, references to Alfred E. Smith and others were omitted. They were
wholly without consequence and public mention might be misinterpreted by the
public. The essential portions, however, of Gen. Butler's testimony have been
released to the public and his specific charges relating to the proposed
organization of a "soldiers' movement" have been thoroughly aired and passed
upon by the Committee. . . .
General Butler asks why Clark was not called before the Committee. Well, the
reason was that Mr. Clark has been living in France for over a year, as
General Butler well knows, and naturally he could not be subpoenaed, but on
the 29th of December, 1934, Mr. Clark was represented before the Committee in
the person of his attorney, and full information was given the Committee. Mr.
Butler didn't tell you this. . . .
And Mr. Dickstein did not tell everything, either. I was not happy with the
co-chairman's reply. When the story first broke, Clark had told American
correspondents in Europe that he would return for questioning if the
Committee wished. The Committee could have cabled him to do so, but all the
Committee did was ask Clark's attorney some questions about the hundred
thousand and more dollars given to MacGuire. Questions of far greater import
were not asked.
When the Committee's report to the House appeared, Roger Baldwin, who did not
look with friendly eyes on communists because they denied free speech and
press, issued a statement as director of the American Civil Liberties Union:
The Congressional Committee investigating un-American activities has just
reported that the Fascist plot to seize the government . . . was proved; yet
not a single participant will be prosecuted under the perfectly plain
language of the federal conspiracy act making this a high crime. Imagine the
action if such a plot were discovered among Communists!
Which is, of course, only to emphasize the nature of our government as
representative of the interests of the controllers of property. Violence,
even to the seizure of government, is excusable on the part of those whose
lofty motive is to preserve the profit system. . . .
I had studied the Committee's report. It gave six pages to the threat by Nazi
agents operating in this country and eleven pages to the threat by communists.
It gave one page to the plot to seize the Government and destroy our
democratic system.
pps. 314-331
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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