Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #47: The Business Plot - When Bankers Tried to Topple the White House

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

In this Short Suck, we dive into the almost-forgotten story of The Business Plot - when a group of powerful bankers and corporate bigwigs allegedly tried to recruit one of America’s most decorated Marines, Smedley Butler, to lead a fascist coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. We’ll sift through testimony, shady alliances, and a very convenient death to ask: how close did the U.S. actually come to going full fascist in the 1930s?For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1934, an astonishing and deeply disturbing claim reached the American media and through it the American public. There had been a plot to overthrow U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. government in general in favor of a fascist government backed by capitalist tycoons. Supposedly hatched the previous year, the claims of the conspiracy came from a very conspicuous and reliable source. Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated war heroes of his time, a man who had spent 33 years in service of the Marines. The Major General had fought in almost every conflict of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a dashing hero, praised by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, a devout Quaker,

and he'd been awarded with so many medals, you could probably hear the dude coming from a mile away if you wore all of them at once. In his post-Marines career, he had spent time advocating for veterans. In other words, he was about as legit as you could get for a source, And when he made this very serious accusation, the media collectively laughed. A conglomerate of prominent business owners wanting to seize power from FDR, the man who favored policies that curb outsized corporate influence? Ridiculous? Absurd. Hogwash.

Poppycock. Balderdash. Why would they do that? What motive could they possibly have? Profits? Get out of here. But Smedley knew a coup when he saw one. This all sounded awfully familiar because he had made a career of promoting American influence in other countries,

dooming entire nations to decades under dictatorship so American business interests could get what they wanted quickly and cheaply. Smedley had first-hand experience with the conspirator's side. The question was, how well would he do on the other side? Could he stop the conspiracy if indeed there was one to storm the White House and overthrow FDR? Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty right now.

Your only chance is to leave with us. On July 17, 1932, thousands and thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., they set up tent camps. They demanded immediate payment of bonuses due to them according to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924. We talked about that briefly in the recent General Patton episode. The act stated that bonuses would be paid no earlier the 1925 and no later than 1945. Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, led what was dubbed the Bonus Army, and they were all encouraged by an appearance from a recently retired and greatly admired Marine, Smedley Butler.

For 33 years and four months, Butler had been a United States Marine, a veteran of nearly every overseas conflict back to the war against Spain in 1898. He is the only Marine to be awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, as well as two medals of honor, all for separate actions. Born in 1881, Major General Smedley Butler, was the eldest son of a Quaker family from Westchester, Pennsylvania. He came from a line of civil servicemen. His father, Thomas Butler, was a representative for the state of Pennsylvania in Congress,

and his maternal grandfather, Smedley Darlington, got to keep that name Smedley going, was also a Republican congressman. but Butler would hold no such affinity for campaigning or giving speeches. He was a man of action. But acting, fighting for the principles of freedom and justice, just like he had been taught as a young Quaker, was different than what he thought it was going to be. He had learned about the American Revolution growing up,

plucky soldiers, going up against the British Empire, and what seemed like an impossible feat to pull off. But they did it twice, if he count the war of 1812. Now, however, at the close of the 19th century, the U.S. was not the plucky, underdog, it was an imperial power in its own right. Butler's first experience of conflict would be in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Only 17, he lied about his age to get a direct commission as a second lieutenant. Thousands of young men like Smedley Butler were convinced to sign up for America's first overseas war of empire on the promise of ending Spanish tyranny and imperialism, even though it had

a lot more to do with territorial expansion, opening new markets, economic gain and sugar and tobacco industries and asserting global power in the form of strategic naval bases. But based on what was sold to him, Butler was eager to take up the cause. The following year in 1890, the 18-year-old, now a first lieutenant, saw his first taste of active combat in the Philippines. In October that year, he led 300 Marines to take the town of Noveleta from Filipino troops of the New Philippine Republic. In the initial moments of the assault, his first sergeant was wounded.

Butler briefly panicked, but he quickly regained his composure and led his Marines in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. By noon, the Marines, under his command, had dispersed the native defenders and taken the town. Two weeks before his 19th birthday, Butler would be shot in China during the boxer rebellion while climbing out of a trench to rescue another Marine who had been shot. The Marine who then rescued Butler would also be shot, and then the men, while wounded, would battle their way to safety. Four enlisted men would receive the Medal of Honor for heroic acts in this battle. Butler would end up serving in several major world conflicts, including the Spanish-American War, as I've said, the Philippine-American War,

the Boxer Rebellion, World War I. He would also see action in Central America during the so-called banana wars conflicts that would start to change his perception of America from noble white knight to maybe brutal imperial oppressor in moments. During his time and service, Butler became respected by his peers,

beloved by his men, and was known as the Fighting Hell Devil Marine, Old Gimlet Eye, that's a pretty solid nickname, the leathernecks friend and the famous fighting Quaker of the devil dogs. Best-selling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Current president, Frank and Roosevelt's distant cousin, Theodore, was said to have called Butler the ideal American soldier.

Over the course of his career, he received the Army and Navy distinguished service medals, the French Audra de la Trois Noir, and in the distinction that would ensure his place in the Marine Corps Pantheon, as I mentioned earlier, the Medal of Honor, twice. And as an insider to the mechanisms of American warfare, Butler knew what most American citizens did not know, back before the Internet, historical podcasts, and 24-7 news, that he and his fellow Marines had helped destroy numerous democracies,

that they had helped put into power the Hitler's and Mussolini's of Latin America. Dictators like the Dominican Republic's Raphael Trujillo, Nicaragua, soon-to-be leader, Anastasio, Somosa, men who would employ violent repression using their U.S. created militaries to protect not their own people, not even diplomatic ties to America necessarily, but American corporate investments that would fund and keep them in power. There were institutions like Citibank, J.P. Morgan, the investments of Wall Street financier Grayson M.P. Murphy.

Along with this, Butler was also a pioneer in the militarization of the police, first spearheading the creation of client police forces across Latin America, then introducing those tactics to U.S. cities during a two-year stint running the Philadelphia police during Prohibition. And maybe that led him to do a little soul searching. After leaving the service, Butler held many roles, but became best known for his activism. He was a well-known or well-known among veteran circles

as a champion of veteran rights. The Marine who had fought on behalf of the U.S. government was now fighting with the U.S. government to make sure it actually took care of the soldiers who had sacrificed so much on behalf of it. This included supporting these so-called bonus Army, a large group of veterans and veteran supporters who lobbied Congress for payments of bonds issued to veterans prior to the war. And he probably would have kept at it had he not been approached

by Gerald C. McGuire and Bob Doyle, uh, Doyle, excuse me. McGuire was a 37-year-old bond salesman and Navy veteran employed by one of Butler's indirect employers. Grayson P. Murphy and Doyle was a commander of the Massachusetts American Legion. Both men asked him to run for the national commander of the American Legion. For some reason, they were very, very into that idea. On July 34, 1933, Butler had a second meeting with McGuire and Doyle. This time, they offered to get hundreds of supporters at the American Legion Convention to ask for a speech. McGuire left a typewritten speech with Butler that they proposed that he read at the convention. According to Butler, it urged the American Legion Convention to adopt a resolution calling for the U.S. to return to the

gold standard so that when veterans were paid the bonus promised to them the money they received would not be worthless paper hmm butler thought all of this was uh fucking weird why did this guy want him to talk to the american legion so badly about the gold standard why him what was this really about his bullshit detector was beeping wildly around august first mcguire visited butler alone at the butler's converted farmhouse along Philadelphia's main line. And for somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, McGuire slowly and steadily jerked him off. Not in a sexual way.

Just in a, I want you to know how much this means to me wait. You understand, right? Sometimes you jerk off a guy in a converted farmhouse because you're hot and bothered and you want that wean. But other times, it's just business. 1-800 business. No, in that farmhouse, both men kept their clothes on from what I can gather. And McGuire told Butler that Grayson Murphy underwrote the formation of the American Legion in New York.

You know, your old boss, don't you want to be part of the organization that your old boss is in? Come on, back to Gold Standard, motherfucker. Give the speech. But Butler is not interested. This is not what he wants. All he starts to want is for this guy to leave him the hell alone. McGuire will do anything but that, though. On September 24th, McGuire went to Newark, where Butler was attending the reunion of a National Guard division.

supposedly showed up at his hotel room and tossed a wad of cash on his bed $18,000. Equivalent to almost half a million dollars today, so a lot of money, but that didn't work either. Butler still does not want to read a speech that somebody else wrote or be the face of these guys pushed for the gold standard because he doesn't think it's about what they're claiming it's about.

There's something they're not telling him. Then in early 1934, Butler received a series of postcards from McGuire sent from hotspots of fascist Europe, including Hitler's Berlin. Interesting. In August of 1934, McGuire called Butler from Philadelphia, asked to meet up yet again. Either completely fed up or seriously worried something crazy is happening or both. Butler suggested an abandoned cafe at the back of the lobby of the Bellevue Stratford Hotel on August 22nd, 1934, and McGuire accepted.

At this meeting, McGuire allegedly first recounted everything he had seen in Europe. He learned that Mussolini and Hitler were able to stay. in power because they kept soldiers on their payrolls in various ways. But that setup would not suit us at all, the businesswoman, or excuse me, businessman said. But in France, however, McGuire had, quote, found just exactly the organization we're going to have. Called the Quadafu or Fiery Cross, it was like a more militant version of the American Legion, an association of French World War veterans and paramilitaries. On February 6, 1934, six weeks before McGuire arrived,

the Quadafu had taken part in a riot of mainly far-right and fascist groups that had tried to storm the French legislature. The insurrection was stopped by police. After least 15 people, mostly rioters were killed. But in the aftermath, France's center-left prime minister had been forced to resign in favor of a conservative. Maguire had attended a meeting of the Quadafu in Paris. It was the sort of super organization he believed Americans could get behind,

especially with the beloved war hero, like Butler at the helm. After laying all this out, he finally made his real proposal, the true reason he wanted to work with Butler. And I'll share that reason right after this week's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon, get the entire catalog ad free, these episodes early and more. Thanks for listening to those ads. And now, what was the real reason McGuire wanted to work with Butler?

McGuire wanted Butler to literally storm the Capitol. He wanted the heavily decorated Marine to lead half a million veterans, literally an army, a half million strong, in a march on Washington, blending the Quadafo's assault on the French legislature with the March on Rome, that had put Mussolini's Facidi in power in Italy a decade earlier. And how is he going to gather up this army?

Money. Lots of money. During the Great Depression, a whole bunch of battle tested American veterans, many of whom had fought in World War I, well, they're drowning in poverty and desperate for money and purpose. Who had money to fund an army that big? Well, the army would be financed and armed by some of the most powerful corporations in America,

including DePont, the nation's biggest manufacturer of explosives and synthetic materials. And why exactly? Were they going to be revolting in a way that could end with a lot of men being put to death for treason? Or in civil war? For one simple reason. To stop Roosevelt's New Deal,

Back in the summer of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt, governor of New York then, was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt addressed the problems of the Depression by telling the American people that I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American People. In the election it took place in the fall of 1932, Roosevelt won in a landslide. The New Deal, Roosevelt had promised the American people, began to take shape immediately after his inauguration. in March of 1933. Based on the assumption that the power of the federal government was needed to get the country out of the Depression, the first days of Roosevelt's administration saw the passage of banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs. Later, a second new deal evolved. It included union protection programs, the Social Security Act,

and programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. And it all worked wonderfully for the average American citizen. The National Recovery Act's Public Works Administration launched infrastructure projects that put scores of desperate, skilled craft workers back to building bridges, tunnels, you know, transit networks. The Emergency Civil Works Administration targeted largely at the unskilled and the poorest workers paid the food and heating bills for many during the harsh winter of 1933 and the 1934. The Civilian Conservation Corps took the young unemployed off of the city streets and away from crime. It gave them hot meals, new clothes. a paycheck in return for doing things like clearing firebreaks and planting trees all over the country.

With the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Federal Government paid farmers growing stable crops and livestock to reduce agricultural supplies. By limiting production, the Act aimed to create a balance between supply and demand, thus increasing the prices farmers received for their crops. And the Tennessee Valley Authority broke ground for new hydroelectric dams and transmission towers to bring cheap electricity to the most impoverished areas of the South. Sounds pretty fucking amazing, right? What the hell was there not to like about this plan? Well, not everybody was a fan. From the left, some individuals and groups believed the New Deal didn't go far enough in using the full resources of federal and state governments

to cure the problems of unemployment, relief, recovery, and reform. In response to the incremental progress of the New Deal, Minnesota voters returned Floyd Olson to the governor's office for a third time on the farmer labor ticket that vowed to establish state control of most productive assets. I am not a liberal, Olson boasted. I'm a radical. You might say I'm radical as hell.

This, as you can imagine, scared a lot of people in America, scared the top executives and owners of massive, highly profitable companies, most of all. If the state were to control most of its productive assets, well, that meant the big corporations wouldn't be able to control them and all of the profit that comes with it. But most troubling of all, his opponents,

from Roosevelt's perspective, the former governor and now U.S. Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, called the Kingfish, who would campaign for Roosevelt in 1932, but now openly ridiculed the president. Early in 1934, Long founded his Share Our Wealth Society, which a year later boasted nearly 30,000 local chapters with 8 million members approximately that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. Holy shit. Unlike Olson, Long did not want a state ownership of business, but he did call for a massive redistribution of wealth through graduated income taxes and inheritance taxes intended to limit

personal earnings to $1.8 million a year. In Long's plan, the rich would finance a guarantee of a homestead allowance of $5,000 for every American family plus an annual income of $2,500. Denouncing Roosevelt as Prince Franklin, who lived on an inherited income, Kingfish boasted that he could defeat the president saying in one speech, he's scared of me. I can out promise him and he knows it. Long wouldn't live long enough to find out, though, if that was a possibility. No pun intended, he didn't actually ever get to challenge him because on September 8, 1935, long traveled to the state capital to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavey, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9.20 p.m., just after passage of the bill

effectively removing Pavi, the judge's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet away, striking Long as bodyguards, nicknamed the skull crushers, scary, then fired it west with their pistols killing him. I would hope they killed him. They shot him fucking 60 times. Literally shot him 60 times, at least 60 times, actually, according to two sources. He was very dead. Long was rushed to the hospital where doctors tried to stitch up his intestines and stop internal bleeding. They were not successful. And his last words were, God, don't let me die.

I have so much to do. Also opposing Roosevelt's New Deal. They were just some weirdos like Charles E. Coglin, a 43-year-old Catholic priest from Royal Oak, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, who had catapulted to national celebrity when CBS gave him a national radio show in 1930. He reached approximately, or reached approximately 35 million. million listeners on Sunday evenings with the golden hour of the little flower, a program that combined homilies of the gospel with attacks on the evils of communism, and also a tax on the malignant influence of Wall Street bankers who had brought about the depression by their

devotion to the gold standard. That was something Roosevelt actually did, though. In April of 1933, for example, he prohibited the export of gold and the conversion of currency into gold, effectively ending the U.S. time on the gold standard, and the Gold Reserve Act of officially devaluing the dollar, setting the price of gold at $35 per ounce, which was a significant reduction from the previous rate. This was a key step in stabilizing the dollar after a period of fluctuations, but Father Coglin did not think he had gone far enough. In response, he stridently denounced the New Deal as a conspiracy of communists, Wall Street, and the President's Jewish advisors. According to him, Roosevelt had become Franklin Double-Clellan.

crossing Roosevelt, the country's great betrayer, the country's great liar. Most FDR's critics were on the right, though. Those who saw the New Deal is nothing more than pure socialist authoritarianism. Measures like the National Recovery Administration, which regulated wages, working hours, and prices, were met with resistance from business leaders who felt it stifled their operations and their ability to accumulate wealth. One of the millionaire DuPont brothers, one of the alleged financiers of McGuire's plot to overthrow the fucking government, deem the economic plan, quote, Nothing more or less than the socialistic doctrine called by another name.

And now they wanted to take back the country. Butler's veteran army, McGuire, explained, would pressure the president, well, that's one way of putting it, to appoint a new secretary of state or secretary of general affairs, who would take on the executive powers of the government. If Roosevelt went along with a plan, he would be allowed to remain on as a virtually powerless figurehead like the king of Italy. Otherwise, he would be forced to resign in full, placing the new super secretary and leader of the U.S. in the White House.

To Butler, this all sounded a whole lot like exactly what it was, a coup, overthrowing one leader in their system of government, putting in a new leader and a new system of government in charge. It sounded a whole lot like some shit he had already done. I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. Butler would write a year later. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. Butler knew firsthand the devastating effects that a fascist dictatorship could and would force upon the country because he had seen it play out before multiple times. Perhaps sensing Butler's hesitancy, McGuire decided to up the ante.

He said that his side of the conspirators, which presumably included Grace and Murphy, wanted to have Butler lead the group to be the Secretary of General Affairs. but the other camp of conspirators were against him. The Morgan interests say you cannot be trusted that you are too radical and so forth, that you are too much on the side of the little fellow, he allegedly explained, and they preferred a more authoritarian general, Douglas MacArthur. Now, about this super organization, McGuire supposedly asked the general, would you be interested in heading it?

I am interested in it, but I do not know about heading it. Butler allegedly told the bond salesman. And if we can believe, Butler, he only said that to string him along because he was already preparing to tell all of his shit to Congress. And then he told McGuire to fuck off. According to Butler, he then said, I am very greatly interested in it. Because, you know, Jerry, my interest is, my one hobby is maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling to 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. Motherfucker! Okay, he didn't drop that motherfucker part, but he said the rest of that. Before we see what Butler does with this troubling new information, time for today's second and two mid-show sponsor breaks.

Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now, who does Butler tell what he had just been told? After hearing this, after not say motherfucker, but it would have been so cool if he did, Butler quickly took the story of this plot to Paul calmly French, a Philadelphia record reporter, and importantly, Butler's former personal secretary. So this is a guy who knew Butler well and therefore knew he wasn't bullshit when it came

to this wild claim. And French decided to investigate this wild claim further. You know, September 13th, French met McGuire in his office. McGuire curiously proceeded to, for somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, slowly and steadily jerk him off. But not in a sexual way stop turning this into something it's not he did it in a i want you to understand how honest and vulnerable on being with you right now kind of way right sometimes you jerk off a guy in a converted farmhouse or some other place you know in a fucking office anywhere you know because you just like to feel of a hot hard dick in your hand but other times it's just business one eight hundred business no mcguire was allegedly weirdly open about his fascist desires and the

the plot to take over the government with this reporter. Indeed, McGuire did not seem that worried about the possible repercussions of trying to arrange a coup. He was still hell-bent on creating his organization, which he did, and he would call it the Liberty League. The Liberty League's formation was announced on August 23rd, 1934 on the front page of the New York Times. The article quoted its founders claim that it was a non-partisan group whose aim was to, quote, combat radicalism, preserve property rights, uphold, and preserve the Constitution. But what was it really about. And who were its founders? There were the multi-millionaire. E. René, DuPont. I don't know how his weird name. DuPont's not that weird. His first name, I've never seen

before. I don't know how he actually said it. I don't know if he went real French, like, Eronnier. Or if it was like, you know, like, eh, Rene. Anyway, he was the former president of the explosives and chemical manufacturing giant. Other backers included the head of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, regular name. But they're both regular names, easier to say, as well as executives of Phyllis Petroleum, Sun Oil, General Foods, and the McCann-Erickson ad agency. The former Democratic presidential candidates,

Al Smith and John W. Davis, both of them enemies, FDR and Davis being the legal counsel to J.P. Morgan and Co. were among the league's members as well. And his treasurer was none other than McGuire's boss, Grayson Murphy. The similarities among his members meant was not hard to tell, what they wanted. Observers told the times that the group wanted to oppose the new deal and the taxes and restrictions it imposed on their businesses. What they wanted was well known,

but nobody, nobody except Butler, perhaps, knew just how far they were willing to go to get it. And then Butler, who had already told French what the hell was going on, spoke with Congress, or a couple members of Congress, started on November 20th, 1934. And then the next day, on November 21st, French broke the story to the press. Readers of the New York Post were startled by a headline. General Butler accuses New York brokers of plotting dictatorship in U.S. Three million dollar bid for fascist army Baird says he was asked to lead $500,000 for capital putch U.S. probing charge. Putsch. Strange word.

I've read it a bunch. Never tried to say it that many times. It's a violent attempt to overthrow government. Smedley Butler had revealed the business plot before a two-man panel of the special house committee on un-American activities. The executive session was held in the supper room of the New York City Bar Association on West 44 Street. Present were the committee chairman John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and vice chairman Samuel Dixstein. Oh, fuck yeah. Mr. Dixon of New York.

For 30 minutes, Butler told a story, starting with the first visit of the bond salesman, Gerald C. McGuire, Jerry, in his house in Newtown Square, 1933. Finally, Butler told the congressman about his last meeting with McGuire at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel. At that meeting, Butler testified. McGuire had told him to expect to see a powerful organization forming to back the putch from behind the scenes. He says, you watch. In two or three weeks, you'll see it come out in the paper. There will be big fellows in it. This is to be the background of it.

These are to be the villagers in the opera. The bond salesman told the Marine this group would advertise itself as a society to maintain the Constitution. and in about two weeks Butler told the congressman the American Liberty League appeared which was just about what he had described it to be sitting beside Butler in the hearing room was Paul Comley French or calmly. French told the congressman what McGuire had told him we need a fascist government in this country he insisted to save the nation from the

communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built America the only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader he could organize a million men over night. McGuire, Paul French added, had, quote, continually discussed the need of a man on a white horse, as he called it, a dictator who would come galloping in on his white horse. He said that was the only way to save the capitalistic system. But though this looked like a plot, walk like a plot, talk like a plot, many things were still unclear. What if McGuire had made up this whole thing? Was there any proof that the Titans of Industry knew and participated in this, or was that just some kind of

cover store it. Well, I bet you can guess what the Titans of Industry would say. Grace and MP Murphy called the whole thing, quote, a fantasy. Perfect moonshine, too unutterably ridiculous to comment upon, exclaimed Thomas W. Lamont, the senior partner at J.P. Morgan & Co. He'd better be damn careful, said the ex-Army General and ex-FDR administration official, Hugh S. Johnson, whom Butler said was advanced as another potential Secretary of General Affairs candidates, aka dictator. Nobody said, said a word to me about anything of the kind, and if they did, I'd throw them out the window. Even Douglas MacArthur called it, quote, the best laugh story of the year.

And the jokes kept coming. Time magazine lampoed in the allegations and a satire headlined plot without plotters. The writer imagined Butler on horseback, spurs clinking, as he led a column of half a million men in bankers up Pennsylvania Avenue. And in an unsigned editorial Adolf Ocks New York Times likened Butler to an early 20th century Prussian con man. still the committee would call another witness McGuire himself McGuire would spend three days testifying before McCormack and Dickstein

Dickstein I think it is actually Dickstein contradicting then likely perjuring himself he admitted having met with the Quadafou in Paris though he claimed it was in passing at a mass at Notre Dame I'll stop

fucking parody in the French language the bond salesman also admitted having met many times with Butler but insisted him plausibly that it was Butler who had told him that he was involved with some vigilante committee somewhere and that the bond salesman had tried to talk him out of it. So now we've got a classic, he said, he said. And like many he said he said, there was no way to prove who was telling the truth. Or that was an easy excuse, and this matter wasn't properly investigated

because some people, very powerful people, did not want it to be investigated because they did not want the truth out there. So there was no further inquiry, and the committee disbanded the end of 1934. Committee chairman, John W. McCormack had argued for some reason that it was not necessary to subpoena Grayson, Grayson Murphy, because the committee already had, quote, cold evidence linking him with this movement. But then curiously, despite this cold evidence, they just didn't investigate him, like, at all, ever. They had vaguely complimented Butler in their report and said there was, quote, no question that the plot had been real. The full quote here, in the last few weeks of the committees official life, it had received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist, fascist organization in this country. There is no question, but that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution, when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient. Right. Okay, so a coup was planned then, and it did have

financial backers. So it sounds like this was real, very real, and that some people should have been held accountable. But that final report submitted to the House of Representatives on February 15th, 1935, named exactly no one directly in connection with the alleged coup. Huh. Powerful people getting away with pretty much whatever the fuck they want? That happens here in America, too? Huh? Then just over a month later, on March 25th, the bond salesman McGuire curiously dropped dead.

At the ripe old age of 37. Healthy one day? Dead the next, according to some sources. His attending doctor at the hospital attributed the death to pneumonia and its complications, also saying that the accusations against McGuire had led to his weakened condition and collapse, which in turn led to the pneumonia. So, Butler killed him. Fucking what? I'm going to go out in a limb and say he was murdered. Poisoned. So what really happened? It's possible that the committee was right. Some people were involved, but probably not everyone that McGuire claimed,

also possible that all the conspirators were fully on board, and the fatal error was contacting Butler. They gambled thinking that he would be on board and he wasn't. Indeed, several alleged in connection with the plot were avid fans of fascism. Lamont described himself as something like a missionary for Mussolini, so that's cool, as he made J.P. Morgan, one of fascist Italy's main overseas banking partners. Awesome history. The American Legion, an alleged source of manpower for the Pucci, featured yearly convention greetings from a wounded soldier in the great war, His Excellency, Benito Mussolini. Spaghetti Pan Rajana,

I'm going to randomly ad-lib some... My Italian, you know what? I haven't practiced my Italian in a while. God, it's getting fucking sloppy. I used to have perfect Italian. I was fluent, and now, clearly, conversationally, it's just not up to snuff anymore. The Capald Dill Governor himself was invited to speak

at the 1930 American Legion Convention until the invitation was rescinded amidst protest from organized labor. Hugh S. Johnson, the potential dictator, had lavishly praised the shiny name of Mussolini, and we later helped launch the Nazi sympathizing America First Committee, though he soon took plans to distance himself from the hardcore anti-Semites in the group. And then there's the resume of the plot's allegedly most ardent supporter and backer, Grayson MP Murphy.

Murphy had a long history with secret negotiations. Born in Philadelphia, he transferred to West Point during the war against Spain. Murphy then joined the military intelligence division, running spy missions in the Philippines in 1902, Moore in Panama, in 1903. Then he entered the private sector, helping J.P. Morgan conduct dollar diplomacy in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. 1920, Murphy toured a war-ravaged Europe to make intelligence estimates and establish a private intelligence network with William J. Wild Bill Donovan, the guy who would later lead the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the seat. CIA. That's the resume of somebody who at the very least knows his way around the planning of a coup. But all of that is circumstantial evidence. From what we know, there were no documents, no signed letters. I mean, of course not. No date set for the takeover. Yeah,

these guys are too smart to put that shit in writing. Or nobody investigated enough to find out if that stuff existed. Meanwhile, all of this would cause Butler to deeply reevaluate what he'd spent his life doing. In 1935, Butler published a short book about the collusion between business and the armed forces called War is a racket. This is predating Eisenhower, later talking about the military industrial complex and warnings about that. Late in 1935, Butler would go further declaring in a series of articles for a radical magazine, quote, only the United Kingdom has beaten our record for square miles of territory acquired by military conquest. Our exploits against the American Indian against the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on par with the campaigns

of Genghis Khan, the Japanese and Manchuria, and the African attack of Mussolini. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba, a decent place for the National Citibank Boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purified Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that standard oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. Looking back on it, I feel I might have. have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. Damn. Pretty scathing assessment of one of the most decorated Marines of all times military endeavors.

But is he wrong? There's a lot of evidence out there that he's not. For Butler, democracy, and pure, unadulterated capitalism no longer went hand in hand. When a reporter for the Marxist magazine, New Masses asked Butler, just where he stood politically in the wake of the business plot, He named checks several of the most left-leaning members of Congress and said the only group he would give his blanket approval to was the American Federation of Labor, an organization that advocated for the rights of skilled craft workers, such as better wages, shorter work days, and improve working conditions. Their approach was known as bread and butter unionism, focusing on practical immediate improvements for workers like higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions, rather than challenging the capitalist system itself. Despite what some of his critics said, Butler did not want capitalism to die. He just wanted it to benefit those who worked the hardest for it.

Seems like a pretty ethical common sense, you know, work and man take. In that magazine interview, Butler added that he would not only die to preserve democracy, but also crucially fight to broaden it. Over the following years, Butler became widely known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering, U.S. military adventurism, and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the U.S. In addition to his speeches to pacifist groups, he served from 1935 to 1937 as a spokesman for the American League Against War, excuse me, for the American League Against War and Fascism, and like we said, wrote the book, War as a racket, published in 1935. When he wasn't touring,

he lived in Newton Township, Pennsylvania with his wife. And in June of 1940, he checked himself into the hospital after becoming sick a few weeks earlier. His doctor described his illness as an incurable condition of the upper gastrointestinal tract, what people now assumed to mean cancer. The illness had progressed severely. He had bought a new car early that summer, sadly, would never even have the chance to drive it, though his family had some children, grown now, parked it outside his window so he at least look and admire it, or look at it and admire it.

June 21, 1940, Smedley Butler died at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia at the age of just 58. His modest gravestone would be located and still is located. Section B, 1 of the Oakland Cemetery in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania. So what the fuck happened? Did Major General Smedley Butler tell the truth? Did a group of corporate fascists try to take over the U.S. government? For many years, the answer to this question was pretty much only debated by historians, because the story had quickly faded from the news and was largely forgotten.

Some concluded that there was probably a small plot with a loose organizational structure. others said there was barely a plot at all just musings not really planning others thought it was mostly all made up by butler an accusation stemming from his deep guilt at what he had done abroad and subliminal fears that those actions were going to come haunt him at home could it all have been nothing more than a couple outsized lies on mcguire's part a couple of god i wish i could get him out of power conversations on the part of a prominent businessman or a nagging conscience on butler's part or does something really not add up with that does the decision by the committee not to investigate the way the media ridiculed the allegations

the convenient death of maguire make it seem like something was going on like we could be living at this moment in a nearly 100-year-old fascist dictatorship if smedley butler had not told his stalker to go fuck himself i'm going to say that butler was telling the truth because why would he lie about that what purpose would that serve he'd lived a very honorable life would continue to do so he fought with honor he questioned why he fought with honor as well who would you trust one of the most decorated marines ever someone who for very very little money compared to massive titans of industry risked his life for his country fought incredibly bravely and endured long stretches away from his wife and later his three children over a humble and honorable career that span decades or would you trust

big business tycoons who made vast fortunes partially by working with the u.s. government this is documented to overthrow foreign democracies and install pro-America puppet regimes that brutally oppressed locals. Call me crazy. I'm going to trust the Marine a hundred out of a hundred times in this situation. And you know what?

And I might be wrong. I might be wrong. Not all business leaders are cartoonishly evil. Not all Marines are selfless and noble. I know this is real life. I know it's not a movie. But if I had to pick one side, based on what we know,

it's an easy choice for me. And it does not shock me that America's corporate oligarchs have tried something like this. It shocks me a lot more that they haven't already pulled it off. Or takes out, puts on tinfoil hat. Maybe it's already happened in secret, and we just don't know it. Finally, if this story sounds a bit familiar to you and you don't know why, maybe it's because you saw the 2022 mystery comedy film Amsterdam,

starring Christian Bale and Margot Robbie, with appearances from Robert De Niro, Timothy Oliphant, Michael Shannon, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, and so, so many others. It was a major box office flop, but it was also based on the business plot. And that's it for this edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. If you enjoyed this little story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Catalog. Much beefier episodes at Time Suck, Mondays at Noom Pacific Time. New episodes of the now long-running paranormal podcast, scared to death, every Tuesday at midnight.

if you like some campfire ghost story vibes with two episodes of nightmare fuel fictional horror thrown into the mix each month. Thank you to Sophie Evans for finding this topic for the initial research. And thank you to Logan Keith, polishing up the sound of today's episode and making that cool

episode thumbnail artwork. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend. Mad Magic Productions