|
|
|---|
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
When I was a boy, I heard the adults make comments about General Smedley Butler. He died when I was an adolescent, and I heard nothing about him for years. It wasn't until I began to study the history of the military and political personalities that I once again heard about Smedley Butler. Indeed, he was a great marine military hero, but, as with so many of our military heroes, such as - Sherman, Custer, Grant, MacArthur, Patton, etc.- their outspoken personal and political opinions caused a good deal of controversy. I will present the accepted history of Smedley Darlington Butler along with some quotations from his writings, as well as a list of his writings that you can check out if you wish.
Smedley Darlington Butler
Early life and family
Smedley Darlington Butler was born July 30, 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the oldest of three sons.
His parents, Thomas Stalker Butler and Maud (Darlington) Butler, were both members of local Quaker families. His father was a lawyer, judge and for 31 years, and a Congressman who chaired the House Naval Affairs Committee during the President Harding and President Coolidge administrations.
Smedley Butler attended the West Chester Friends Graded High School, and then attended The Haverford School, a secondary school attractive to sons of upper-class families near Philadelphia. He was an athlete while at Haverford and became captain of its baseball team and quarterback of its football teams.
Against the wishes of his father, Smedley Butler dropped out of school 38 days before his seventeenth birthday to enlist in the Marine Corps during the time of the Spanish–American War. Regardless, Haverford School awarded him his high school diploma on June 6, 1898, before the end of his final year; his transcript stated that he had completed the Scientific Course "with Credit."
Smedley Butler married Ethel Conway Peters of Philadelphia in Bay Head, New Jersey, on June 30, 1905. Together they had three children: a daughter, Ethel Peters Butler, and two sons, Smedley Darlington, Jr. and Thomas Richard.
His best man at the wedding was his former commanding officer in China, Lieutenant Colonel Littleton W. T. Waller.
Military Career
In the anti-Spanish war fever of 1898, Smedley Butler lied about his age to receive a direct commission as a Marine second lieutenant. He went to Washington D.C. for training at the Marine Barracks on the corner of 8th and I Streets. In July 1898, after three weeks of initial entry training, he was sent as a Second Lieutenant to participate in the 1898 invasion of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The bay had already been captured and secured prior to his arrival though, so he did not see any action. His unit returned to the United States and, after a short break, he was assigned to the armored cruiser USS New York and deployed for four months. He returned home to be mustered out of service in February 1899, but in April 1899, he returned to the Marine Corps and accepted a commission as a first lieutenant.
Philippine–American War
Lieut. Butler's next assignment took him to the Philippines, more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) away; after a month at sea, he arrived in Manila. His duty in the Philippines started off slow, but bouts of drinking helped to break up the tedium of life in Manila. On one occasion, he became drunk and was temporarily demoted from command after an unspecified incident in his room. He finally saw action in October 1899, leading 300 Marines to take the town of Noveleta.
In the initial contact with the rebel force, known as Insurrectos, the top sergeant was wounded. Lieut. Butler panicked in the initial attack, but regained his composure and led the Marines in pursuit of the enemy forces. By noon, the Marines had dispersed the Philippine rebels and taken the town. The Marines suffered one dead and 60 wounded, 10 from combat and 50 from the tropical Philippine heat. After this confrontation with the enemy, garrison duty again became routine, and Lieut. Butler got a tatoo of a very large Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, starting at his throat and extending to his waist. He also met another Marine with whom he maintained a life long friendship, Littleton Waller. When Waller received command of a unit in Guam, he was allowed to select five officers to take with him; he chose Smedley Butler to be one of them. Lieut. Butler agreed, but before they could depart to Guam, their orders were changed and they were instead sent to China aboard the USS Solace.
Boxer Rebellion
After the Philippine - American War, Lieut. Butler's combat experience came during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, when he was wounded twice, once in Tientsin and again at San Tan Pating.
Imperialist Forces in Boxer Uprising China
During the Battle of Tientsin on July 13, 1900, he witnessed the wounding of another officer and climbed out of a trench to rescue him.
Smedley Butler is the soldier directly under the X on the Picture.
While doing so, Lieut. Butler was shot in the thigh himself. Another Marine saw that Butler had been shot and helped get him to safety; in doing so the Marine was also shot. Despite his injury, Lieut. Butler assisted the first officer to the rear.
Boxer Rebellion 1900, the Chinese fight back against Imperialist powers.
Four enlisted men received the Medal of Honor in the battle. His commanding officer, Major Littleton W. T. Waller, personally commended him in his report and recommended that "for such reward as you may deem proper the following officers: Lieutenant Smedley D. Butler, for the admirable control of his men in all the fights of the week, for saving a wounded man at the risk of his own life, and under a very severe fire."
Execution of some of the Boxers after the uprising in China.
Although bananas may only look like a fruit, they represent a wide variety of environmental, economic, social, and political problems. The banana trade symbolizes economic imperialism, injustices in the global trade market, and the globalization of the agricultural economy.
Bananas are number four on the list of staple crops in the world and one of the biggest profit makers in supermarkets, making them critical for economic and global food security.
Bananas were the first tropical fruits to be exported. They were a cheap way to bring “the tropics” to North America and Europe. Bananas have become such a common, inexpensive grocery item that we often forget where they come from and how they got here.
General Butler participated in a series of occupations, police actions, and interventions involving the United States in Central America and the Caribbean commonly called the Banana Wars due to their connection to the protection of American commercial interests in the region.
The most Prominent of these interests was the United Fruit Company. They had significant financial stakes in the production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the northern portions of South America.
Honduras
In 1903, Smedley Butler was stationed in the Caribbean on Culebra Island. Upon rumors of a Honduran revolt, the United States government ordered the Marines and a supporting naval detachment to sail to Honduras, 1,500 miles (2,414 km) to the west, to defend the United States Consulate in Honduras. Using a converted banana boat renamed the Panther, Smedley Butler and several hundred Marines landed at the port town of Puerto Cortes.
In a letter home, he described the action: They were "prepared to land and shoot everybody and everything that was breaking the peace," but instead found a quiet town. The Marines re-boarded the Panther and continued up the coast line looking for rebels at several towns, but found none. When they arrived at Trujillo, however, they heard gunfire, and walked into a 55-hour-long battle between the Bonillistas and the Honduran soldiers at a local fort.
At the sight of the Marines, the fighting ceased and Smedley Butler led a detachment of Marines to the American consulate, where he found the consul, wrapped in an American flag, hiding among the floor beams. As soon as the Marines left the area with shaken consul, the battle resumed and the Bonillistas soon controlled the government.
It was during this expedition that he earned the first of his nicknames, "Old Gimlet Eye". It was attributed to his feverish, bloodshot eyes — he was suffering from some unnamed tropic fever — which enhanced his penetrating and bellicose stare.
After the Honduras campaign, he was assigned to garrison duty in the Philippines, where he once launched a resupply mission across the stormy waters of Subic Bay after his isolated outpost ran out of rations. He was diagnosed with a nervous breakdown in 1908, and received nine months sick eave,for which he returned home. He found work as a coal miner in West Virginia, but returned to active duty in the Marine Corps rather than work in the mines.
Nicaragua
From 1909 to 1912, Smedley Butler served in Nicaragua, enforcing United States policy, and once led his battalion to the relief of a rebel-besieged city, this time Granada, and again, with a 104-degree fever.
United States Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino of Nicaragua in 1932.
The United States Marines invaded Nicaragua, which, after 4 intermittent landings and naval bombardments in the previous decades, was occupied by the United States almost continuously from 1912 through 1933.
In December 1909, Smedley Butler commanded the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, on the Isthmus of Panama.
On August 11, 1912, he was temporarily detached to command an expeditionary battalion with which he participated in the bombardment, assault and capture of Coyotepec, Mexico, during October 12–31, 1912. He remained in Nicaragua until November 1912, when he rejoined the Marines of 3d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, at Camp Elliott, Panama.
Veracruz, Mexico, and His First Medal of Honor
Marine Officers at Veracruz. Front row, left to right: Wendell C. Neville, John A. Lejeune, Littleton W. T. Waller, Commanding, Smedley Butler.jpg
Smedley Butler was living in Panama in January 1914, with his family, when he and his Marines where dispatched to the shores of Veracruz, Mexico, to monitor a revolutionary movement. This was seven months before the planned August 15 opening of the Panama canal and he was ordered to report as the Marine officer of a Battleship squadron massing off the coast of Mexico.
He did not like leaving his Marines or the home he and his family had established in Panama and planned to request orders home as soon as he determined there was nothing to do in Mexico.
On March 1, 1914, Smedley Butler and Admiral Frank Fletcher went ashore in Veracruz and made their way to Jalapa, Mexico and back. The trip was planned so that Smedley Butler and Admiral Frank Fletcher could discuss the details of an expedition into Mexico that Butler had been planning. His plan required him to make his way into Mexico and develop a detailed invasion plan while inside its own borders. It was a spy mission and Smedley Butler was extremely happy about it. When Admiral Fletcher contacted the leaders in Washington, D.C. and discussed the details of this plan they greed, and Smedley Butler was sent on his way.
He entered Mexico and made his way to the United States Consulate in Mexico City, posing as a railroad official named, simply, "Mr. Johnson". He and the chief railroad inspector scoured the city looking for a lost railroad employee, or at least that is what they said. The employee was not missing, and in fact he never existed; it was simply an excuse to give Smedley Butler access to various areas of the city.
In the process of so-called search, they located weapons in use by the Mexican army, the units sizes and states of readiness. They were able to obtain updated maps and verified the railroad lines for use in the pending invasion.
On March 7, 1914, he returned to Veracruz with the information he had gathered and presented it to his commanders. The invasion plan was eventually scrapped when authorities loyal to Victoriano Huerta detained a small American naval landing party in Tampico, Mexico. The Tampico Affair caused the Americans to modify their plans.
When President Woodrow Wilson discovered that an arms shipment was about to arrive in Mexico, he sent a contingent of Marines and sailors to Veracruz to intercept it on April 21, 1914. Over the next few days, street fighting and sniper fire posed a threat to SmedleyButler's force, but a door-to-door search routed out most of the resistance. By April 26, the landing force of 5,800 Marines and sailors secured the city, which they held for the next six months. By the end of the conflict the Americans reported 17 dead and 63 wounded to the Mexican forces 126 dead and 195 wounded.
American Naval Occupation Forces at Veracruz 1914.
After the actions at Veracruz, the United States decided to minimize the bloodshed and limited their plans for a full invasion of Mexico to simply maintaining the city of Veracruz. For his actions on April 22 he was awarded his first Medal of Honor.
After the occupation of Veracruz, many military personnel received the Medal of Honor, an unusually high number that diminished somewhat the prestige of the award. The Army presented one, nine went to Marines and 46 were bestowed upon Navy personnel. During World War I, Butler, then a major, attempted to return his Medal, explaining he had done nothing to deserve it. When the medal was returned, he was given orders that he was not only to keep it, but to wear it as well.
Haiti And His Second Medal Of Honor
Capture of Fort Riviere, Haiti, 1915, by D. J. Neary; illustrations of Major Smedley Butler, Sergeant Iams, and Private Gross (USMC art collection)
From 1908 to 1915, the Haitian government changed hands seven times. Four presidents died violently and the other three others fled the country. Many men were tortured and mutilated and the women raped.
Voodoo incantations guided much of the masses.
During this period, American companies doing business in Haiti were suffering losses, When they made claims against the government they were ignored
Roger Farnham, a principal of the National Railway, tangled with the government over its refusal to pay for several sections of badly constructed track. Mr. Farnham was also vice president of the National City Bank of New York City and of the Banque Nationale in Haiti. He was also the chief adviser to the President Wilson's administration on Haiti and influenced, if not determined, State Department policy toward the country.
The resultof this was: a demonstration of gunboat diplomacy. In December 1914, the USS Machias steamed into the harbor at Port-au-Prince and landed a party of United States Marines. With their slung over their shoulders and their pistols on their hips, they removed $500,000 in Haitian government funds from the vault of the Banque Nationale and carried the cash to the Machias. The money was then transported to NYC and deposited at the National City Bank. Back in Haiti, the Banque Nationale lowered the French flag that had flown over its headquarters and raised the Stars and Stripes.
Early in 1915, the State Department sent two special commissions to Haiti in an attempt to negotiate an
American receivership, which would include United States control of customs. Such an arrangement might have brought some measure of stability, but the Haitian government, knew it would be inviting a coup d’etat if it compromised national sovereignty. By the spring of 1915, the State Department ruled the situation in Haiti hopeless, deeming the Haitians incapable of governing themselves. President Wilson agreed. His advisers began laying the groundwork for military intervention.
Haiti was in a dangerous state of political upheaval, and at 5:50 pm on July 28, 1915 two companies of Marines and three sailors landed in Haiti. This was the beginning of a long involvement between Haiti and the United States Marines. This involvement which, off and on has continued to the present day.
Navy and Marines from the U.S.S. Washington ashore for the capture of Port-Au-Prince
As the occupation of this small Caribbean country began, so too did the events which would bring Smedley Butler his second Medal of Honor.
Marines Sail for Haiti. Marines boarding the U.S.S. Connecticut at League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, on July 31, 1915 whith 500 marines sailed for Port-au-Prince.
Late in February, Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam ascended the presidency in a coup. He suppressed other
aspirants to office, jailing and torturing hundreds of them. On July 27, he had nearly 200 political enemies executed, including former president Oreste Zamor.
As news of the executions spread, riots erupted. Sam fled to the French embassy and was given asylum. Undeterred by diplomatic niceties, a mob stormed the embassy, found Sam hiding in a bathroom, and beat him to death. His body was dragged into the street and dismembered and disemboweled. The various body parts were then paraded through the streets of Port-au-Prince while onlookers hooted and looted.
The next day, the United States Marines landed. President Wilson's administration said they were needed to protect American lives in the wake of Sam’s death and the collapse of his government. But the Marines had been dispatched long before the assassination and had been waiting on board the USS Washington in the bay at Port-au-Prince. They were there to protect American business interests whether or not Sam remained in
office.
With World War I raging in Europe, there were also worries about possible German threats to the Panama Canal should a future revolutionary Haitian government open its ports to the Kaiser’s ships and submarines.
The 300 marines and several dozen sailors had come ashore were soon reinforced by more Marines from Guantanamo Bay and later from Philadelphia, until their numbers reached 2,000.
The New York Times declared: “The force being sent to Haiti is much larger than is necessary for mere protection of foreign interests.” The United States occupation of Haiti took place from 1915-1934 and was initiated to protect American foreign interests.
The United States ordered the USS Connecticut to Haiti with Major Butler and a group of Marines on board.
On Oct. 24, 1915, Major Butler and Gunny Daly led a mounted patrol of three dozen Marines across a river in a deep ravine en route to the old French outpost Fort Dipitie, reputed to be a cacos stronghold.
Some 400 cacos opened fire, killing a dozen of the Marine horses and a mule carrying the patrol’s machine gun. Butler and Daly led their men to high ground, established a tight defensive perimeter, and kept the cacos at bay with accurate rifle fire.
During the night, Gunner Daly went back for the machine gun, which had sunk into the river along with the dead mule. He slipped by most of the cacos, but had to silently knife three. Then he repeatedly dove into the water in the darkness until he located the mule.
Unstrapping the machine gun and its ammunition, Gunner Daly hoisted the 100-pound load, even though he was only 5’6”, and 42 years old, frame and and crept back through the cacos. At dawn, they charged the much larger enemy force from three directions. The startled Haitians had fled, thinking that the Marines had a much larger force. Smedley Butler and Gunner Daly led the Marine attack on Fort Dipitie, driving several hundred cacos from the fort and killing 75 of them. Gunner Daly would be awarded his second Medal of Honor.
A month later, Smedley Butler led some 90 Marines to Fort Riviere, situated on the top of the 4,000 foot high Montagne Noire. Protected by cliffs on three sides, the one-time French fort was approachable only from the front. Along the west wall, Butler discovered a small drainage culvert just big enough for a man to get through. He decided that he and two others would go first and create a diversion, allowing his main body of troops to follow.
Crawling stealthily, Butler, a sergeant, and a private emerged from the culvert inside the fort, ran to another position, and began a withering fire that cut down confused cacos by the twos and threes. They engaged some of the guerrillas hand-to-hand, bludgeoning them with rifle butts and running them through with bayonets. With the Cacos diverted, the rest of Smedley Butler’s men were able to exit the culvert without being immediately gunned down. The battle lasted only 10 minutes and left 51 cacos dead. Butler and the two enlisted men who had accompanied him were awarded the Medal of Honor. He joined Gunner Daly as only the second Marine to receive our nation’s highest decoration twice.
A United States Marine base of operations in the wilds of Haiti.
United States Marines on the march in Haiti, where their early campaigns of 1915 - 1917
Portrait of Charlemagne Péralte
Charlemagne Peralte was the leader of the rebel army, known as the “Cacos.” He was born in 1886, in the central city of Hinche. His father was General Remi Massena Peralte. His family that had migrated from an area that is the present day Dominican Republic, (Péralte is a French version of the Spanish name Peralta). Péralte is revered on both sides of the island, in Haïti and in the Dominican Republic.
In 1917, Charlemagne Peralte was arrested for assaulting the home of an American Officer of the occupation troops, and was sentenced to five years of forced labor. Escaping his captivity, Charlemagne Péralte gathered a group of nationalist rebels and started guerrilla warfare against the United States troops.
The troops led by Charlemagne Péralte were called "Cacos", a name that harked back to rural troops that historically took part in the political turmoil of late 19th century Haïti. The guerrilla warriors of the Cacos were such strong adversaries that the United States upgraded the United States Marine contingent in Haïti and even employed airplanes for counter-guerrilla warfare
After two years of guerrilla warfare, leading Péralte to declare a provisional government in the north of Haïti,
The 2nd Marine Brigade spent several months in unsuccessful attempts to topple Charlemagne’s group. Henry Hanneken, a sergeant in the brigade, devised a bold plan to separate Charlemagne from the bulk of his troops and ambush him.
Sgt. Henry Hanneken
Sgt Hanneken sent one of his most reliable men, Jean-Baptiste Conzé, to become a member of the Caco band. In a short period of time the infiltrator had earned Charlemagne Péralte's trust. Then Sgt Hanneken had his spy feed the Cacos the location of a Marine unit that was vulnerable to attack. Sgt. Hanneken’s spy soon returned with information of a rebel plan to attack these Marines, as well as Charlemagne’s location during this attack.
A Haitian Gendarme unit is inspected by its United States Marine officer,
Charlemagne Péralte was betrayed by one of his officers, Jean-Baptiste Conzé, who led disguised United States Marines Sergeant Herman H. Hanneken (later meritoriously promoted to Second Lieutenant for his exploits) and Corporal William Button into the rebels camp, near Grand-Rivière Du Nord.
Sgt. Henry Hanneken led 22 local militiamen in an attack on Charlemagne.
Sgt Herman Henry Hanneken
Disguised as rebels, Sgt.Hanneken and his unit moved through several guard posts and boldly walked into the unsuspecting rebel camp. When he was within fifteen yards of Charlemagne Péralte, Sgt Hanneken drew his pistol, and shot him in the heart and immediately killed the rebel leader.
In the fire-fight that followed, the small raiding party captured the rebel position and defended it from a series of counterattacks while Sgt.Hanneken and some of his men fled with Péralte's body during the skirmish.
The Marines who were the target of the rebel attack had been warned by Sgt Hanneken of the impending strike and were well prepared for the rebel attack. The rebel group was thoroughly defeated.
Body of Charlemagne Péralte.
In order to demoralize the Haïtian population, the United States troops took a picture of Charlemagne Péralte's body tied to a door, and distributed it in the country. This had just the opposite effect. Betrayed and killed at the age of 33, Charlemagne Péralte took the dimension of a martyr for the Haïtian nation.
Charlemagne Péralte remains were unearthed after the end of the United States occupation in 1935. A national funeral, attended by the then-President of Haïti, Sténio Vincent, was held in Cap Haitien, where his grave can still be seen today.
A portrait of Charlemagne Péralte can now be seen on the Haïtian coins issued by the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide after his 1994 return under the protection of US troops.
With his daring exploits, Sgt. Hanneken’s actions enabled the routing of more than a thousand rebels. He also killed their leader, and virtually shattered the entire resistance movement in northern Haiti. For his actions, Sgt Henry Hanneken was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Brigadier General Herman Henry Hanneken.
He later served in World War II, notably at Guadalcanal and ended his career as a Brigadier General. In his late days, he constantly declined to comment on his exploits in Haïti, notably to Haïtian journalist asking for interviews on the 100th anniversary of Péralte's birth, in 1986.
Marines with some captured Cascos prisoners.
Two Marines with a captured Cacos rebel.
Hunting down Cascos rebels.
The Haitian government had been receiving large loans from both American and French banks over the past few decades and was growing increasingly incapable in fulfilling their debt repayment. If an anti-American government prevailed under the leadership of Rosalvo Bobo, there would be no promise of any debt repayment, and the refusal of American investments would have been assured. Within six weeks of the occupation, representatives from the United States controlled Haitian customs houses and administrative institutions such as banks and the national treasury. Through American manipulation, 40% of the national income was used to alleviate the debt repayment to both American and French Banks.
Despite the large sums due to overseas banks, this economic decision ignored the interests of the majority of the Haitian population and froze the economic growth the country needed. For the next nineteen years, advisers of the United States governed the country, enforced by the United States Marine Corps.
Representatives from the United States wielded veto power over all governmental decisions in Haiti, and Marine Corps commanders served as administrators in the provinces.
Marines on patrol in Haiti.
Local institutions, however, continued to be run by Haitians, as was required under policies put in place during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
The United States administration dismantled the constitutional system, reinstituted labor conscription for building roads, and established the National Guards that ran the country by violence after the Marines left. It also made massive improvements to infrastructure: 1700?km of roads were made usable; 189 bridges were built; many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities.
Opposition to the Occupation began immediately after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels (called "cacos" by the U.S. Marines) vehemently tried to resist American control of Haiti. In response, the Haitian and American governments began a vigorous campaign to disband the rebel armies. Perhaps the best-known account of this skirmishing came from Marine Major Smedley Butler, awarded a Medal of Honor for his exploits, and went on to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. (He later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention in his book War Is a Racket.)
United States Interventions/invasions of Haiti
Haiti 1891 - Troops Black workers revolt on Unite States - claimed Navassa Island defeated
Haiti 1914-34 - Troops, bombing , 19-year occupation after revolts
Haiti 1994-95 - Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup
Haiti 2004 - Troops, Removal of democratically elected President Aristide; troops occupy country
World War I
Smedley Butler (far right) with three other legendary Marines. From left to right_Sergeant Major John Henry Quick, Major General Wendell Cushing Neville, Lieutenant General John Archer Lejeune.
During World War I, much to his disappointment, Captain Butler was not assigned to a combat command on the Western Front. He made several requests for a posting in France, writing letters to his personal friend Major General Wendell Cushing Neville, who was at the time assistant to the then Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune. While his superiors considered him brave and brilliant, they described him as "unreliable."
Brig. Gen Smedley Darlington Butler.
In October 1918, Captain Smedley Butler was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General at the age of 37 and placed in command of Camp Pontanezen at Brest, France, a debarkation depot that funneled troops of the American Expeditionary Force to the battlefields.
A company of marines on parade.
The camp had been plagued by horribly unsanitary, overcrowded and disorganized conditions. United States Secretary of War Newton Baker sent novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart to report on the camp. She later described how Butler tackled the sanitation issues. He began by solving the mud problem: "The ground under the tents was nothing but mud, [so] he had raided the wharf at Brest of the duckboards no longer needed for the trenches, carted the first one himself up that four-mile hill to the camp, and thus provided something in the way of protection for the men to sleep on."
Duckboard shoulder patch.
General John J. Pershing authorized a duckboard shoulder patch for the units. This earned him another nickname, "Old Duckboard." For his exemplary service Butler was awarded not only the Distinguished Service Medal of both the United States Army and Navy, but also the French Order of the Black Star.
Following the war he became Commanding General of the Marine Barracks at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. At Quantico, he transformed the wartime training camp into a permanent Marine post. During a training exercise in western Virginia in 1921, Brig. General Butler was told by a local farmer that Stonewall Jackson's arm was buried nearby, to which he replied, "Bosh! I will take a squad of Marines and dig up that spot to prove you wrong!"; he did so, and found the arm in a box. He later replaced the wooden box with a metal one, and reburied the arm. He left a plaque, which is no longer there.
Director Of Public Safety
At the urging of his father, the newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, W. Freeland Kendrick, asked him to leave the Marines to become the official in charge of running the police and fire departments, the Director of Public Safety. Philadelphia's municipal government was notoriously corrupt and Maj. Gen. Butler refused the position at first, but Kendrick asked President Calvin Coolidge to intervene, and Coolidge contacted him authorizing him to take the necessary leave from the Corps.
At the request of the President, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler agreed and served in the post from January 1924 until December 1925. He started his new job by assembling all 4,000 of the city police into the Metropolitan Opera House in shifts to tell them how things would be while he was in charge. He had corrupt police replaced and in some cases switched entire units from one area to another.
Within 48 hours of taking over, Smedley Butler ordered raids on more than 900 speakeasies, ordering them padlocked and in many cases destroyed. In addition to the speakeasies he ordered the raids on brothels, bootleggers, prostitutes, gamblers and corrupt police officers.
Being more zealous than political he ordered crack downs on gangsters and working-class drinking dives, seeing no reason to spare the social elite's favorite hangouts such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Union League. Although he was effective in reducing crime and cutting down on the corrupt police activity in Philadelphia, he was a controversial leader.
The officer with Smedley Butler is Capt J.W. Baldwin who commanded the SVC Company 1927-28.
In one instance he made a statement that he would promote the first cop to kill a bandit and stated "I don't believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman's guns[sic] in this city, go out and get some." Although many of the local citizens and police felt that the raids were just a show, they continued for the next several weeks.
In his next move Butler started new programs, changed policies and changed the police uniforms. These changes included military style checkpoints into the city, bandit chasing squads armed with sawed off shotguns and armored cars and changing the uniforms so they were similar in appearance to the Marine Corps. The press began reporting on the good, and the bad aspects of his new war on crime. The reports mentioned the new uniforms, programs and the reductions in crime but they also reflected the publics opinions on their new Public Safety director.
New speedboat that was purchased by Director Smedley Butler to catch bootleggers in Philadelphia waters. 1925.
Many of the citizens of the city felt that he was being too aggressive in his tactics and resented his reductions in their civil and property rights. He frequently swore in his radio addresses causing many citizens to feel his behavior was inappopriate for someone of his rank and stature. Some felt he acted like a military dictator, even claiming that he inappropriately used active duty Marines in some of his raids. Major R. A. Haynes, the federal prohibition commissioner visited the city in 1924, six months after Butler had been appointed. He announced that "great progress" had been made in the city and attributed that success to Butler.
Eventually his leadership style and actions caused him to lose support within the community and it looked as though his departure was imminent. At one point Mayor Kendrick reported to the press, "I had the guts to bring General Butler to Philadelphia and I have the guts to fire him."[36] Feeling that the end to his duties in Philadelphia was coming to an end, he contacted General Lejeune to prepare for his return to the Marine Corps. Not all of the city felt he was doing a bad job though and when the news started to break that he would be leaving a gathering occurred at the Academy of Music. A group of 4,000 supporters assembled and negotiated a truce between him and the mayor to keep him in place for a while longer, and the President authorized him a one year extension.
Smedley Butler as head of the Philadelphia Police.
At first his second year was less dramatic than the first, bringing about arrests, cracking down on crooked police and enforcing prohibition. On January 1, 1926 his leave from the Marine Corps ended and an additional extension to remain as director was declined by the President. He was given orders to report to San Diego and prepared his family and his belongings for the new assignment.
He again began defying the Mayor and other key officials in the city and on the eve of his departure had an article printed in the paper stating his intention to stay and "finish the job". The mayor was surprised and furious when he read the press release the next morning and demanded his resignation.
After almost two years in office, Butler resigned under pressure stating later that "Cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in."
Total Arrests in Philadelphia 1910-1925
1910 82,017
1911 87,557
1912 96,084
1913 103,673
1914 100,629
1915 91,237
1916 95,783
1917 96,041
1918 94,037
1919 75,618
1920 73,015
1921 83,136
1922 99,601
1923 115,399
1924 130,759
1925 137,263
Service In China and Stateside Service
Smedley Butler returned to China as a Brigadier General to Command the Marine Expeditionary Force in China 1927-1929.
In March 1927, the 3rd Marine Brigade was again activated at MCB Quantico under the command of Brigadier General Smedley Butler. The Brigade subsequently deployed to Shanghai, China with artillery and aviation assets. Once they arrived in China, the brigade took control of the 4th Marine Regiment and the 6th Marine Regiment upon their arrival in May. During this period, the Brigade was responsible for aiding the foreign powers present in keeping the Chinese out of the international settlement, which was becoming a target of Chinese anti-foreign sentiment.
The Fourth Regiment was limited to an internal security role and did not come into direct contact with Chinese troops. When Brigadier General Smedley Butler arrived in Shanghai in late March and took command of all Marine forces ashore. The Fourth Regiment was then attached to the Third Marine Brigade and General Butler amplified its instructions, giving it more leeway to help in perimeter defense if necessary.
Brig. General Smedley Butler also injected some common sense and gained the favor of the men by replacing tiresome foot patrols with motor patrols. He parleyed his influence among various generals and warlords to the protection of United States interests. He won the acclaim of the contending Chinese leaders.
Brig. General Butler redeployed his force from Shanghai and brought them to Tientsin because he feared the fighting between the Nationalist forces and the warlord armies might cut off Peking from the outside world.
10th Artillery park outside Tientsin
Pvt Black summed up Butler’s mission in much simpler and cruder terms: “I think I will have to go to Peking again soon as there is quite some fighting there and I am one of many that is here to see that when these Chinks fight that they don’t mix with anybody that is white.” Black never had to fight his way to Peking.
In response to the situation in China, more Marines were sent there as part of a Provisional Regiment, including the Second Battalion of the Fourth Regiment, which had originally remained behind in San Diego. However, by the time this new Regiment arrived, the situation had eased. This led to a scaling down of the Fourth Regiment; on October 4, 1927,
General Butler and American Minister to China, John Van Antwerp MacMurray (with top hat) and local Chinese officials .
In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became president of China and the Brigade was subsequently withdrawn and deactivated in January.
By January 1929 Butler’s Marines returned stateside leaving on rather good terms with the Chinese.
Truck with Marines leaving China.
When Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler returned to the United States in 1929, he was promoted to Major General, becoming, at age 48, the youngest major general of the Marine Corps.
He directed the Quantico camp's growth until it became the "showplace" of the Corps.
Maj. Gen. Butler won national attention by taking thousands of his men on long field marches, many of which he led from the front, to Gettysburg and other Civil War battle sites, where they conducted large-scale re-enactments before crowds of often distinguished spectators.
Public Speaking Causes Trouble
In 1931, Maj. Gen. Butler publicly recounted gossip about Benito Mussolini in which the dictator allegedly struck a child with his automobile in a hit-and-run accident. The Italian government protested and President Herbert Hoover, who strongly disliked Maj. Gen. Butler, forced Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams III to court-martial him. Maj. Gen. Butler became the first general officer to be placed under arrest since the Civil War. He apologized to Secretary Adams and the court martial was canceled with only a reprimand.
Military Retirement And Later Years
Major General Butler At His Retirement Ceremony
When Major General Butler was in the Marines, it was customary for the senior Marine Corps general to assume the position of Commandant, when it was necessary to choose a new one. As the senior major general in the Corps at that time when the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General Wendell C. Neville died July 8, 1930 the job should have gone to Major General Butler, but it did not. Although he had significant support from many in and external to the Corps including John Lejeune and Josephus Daniels, two other Marine Corps generals were seriously considered for the post, Ben H. Fuller and John H. Russell. General Lejeune and others petitioned President Hoover, garnered support in the Senate and flooded then Secretary of the Navy Charles Adams with more than 2,500 letters of support. With the recent death of his influential father however, he had lost much of his protection from his civilian superiors. Furthermore, Butler had been outspoken not only about Benito Mussolini, he had criticized too many things too often. Going against Marine Corps tradition, the position of Commandant went to Major General Ben H. Fuller and, at his own request, Major General Butler retired from active duty on October 1, 1931.
Speaking And Writing Career And Anti-war Activity
Even before retiring from the Corps Major General Butler began developing his post retirement career. In May 1931, just prior to his retirement, he took part in a commission established by Oregon Governor Julius L. Meier which helped form the Oregon State Police. He began lecturing at various events and conferences, but after his retirement from the Marines in 1931, he took it up full time. His new career on the lecture circuit proved to be very lucrative, although he donated much of his earnings to the Philadelphia unemployment relief.
He toured the western United States making 60 speeches before returning for his daughters wedding. She married a Marine aviator named Lieutenant John Wehle and it was the only time after he left the Marines that he wore his dress blue uniform.
Smedley Butler at one of his many speaking engagements after his retirement.
Smedley Butler announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in the Republican primary in Pennsylvania in March 1932 as a proponent of the prohibition, known as a "dry". He allied with Gifford Pinchot, but the canpaign was short and they were defeated by Senator James J. Davis.
During the campaign one of the items that Smedley Butler spoke strongly about was the veterans bonus. Veterans of World War I, many of whom had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression, sought immediate cash payment of Service Certificates granted to them eight years earlier via the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. Each Service Certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment, plus compound interest. The problem was that the certificates (like bonds), matured 20 years from the date of original issuance, thus, under extant law, the Service Certificates could not be redeemed until 1945.
In June 1932, approximately 43,000 marchers—17,000 of which were World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups, who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932. The Bonus Expeditionary Force, also known as the "Bonus Army", marched on Washington to advocate the passage of the "soldier's bonus" for service during World War I.
After Congress adjourned, bonus marchers remained in the city and became unruly. On July 28, 1932, two bonus marchers were shot by police, causing the entire mob to become hostile and riotous. The FBI, then known as the United States Bureau of Investigation, checked its fingerprint records to obtain the police records of individuals who had been arrested during the riots or who had participated in the bonus march. The veterans made camp in the Anacostia flats while they awaited congressional decision on whether or not to pay the bonus. The motion, known as the Patnum bill was decisively defeated, but the veterans stayed.
Smedley Butler arrived with his young son Thomas, in mid July the day before the official eviction by the Hoover administration.
Smedley Butler addresses Bonus Marchers in Washington, D.C., urging them to remain in camp until they receive their adjusted compensation certificates.
He walked through the camp and spoke to the veterans, he told them that they were fine soldiers and they had a right to lobby Congress just as much as any corporation. He and his son spent the night and ate with the men and in the morning Butler gave a speech to the camping veterans. He instructed them to keep their sense of humor and cautioned them not to do anything that would cost public sympathy.
Attorney General Mitchell ordered the evacuation of the veterans from all government property, Entrusted with the job, the Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two marchers were killed. Learning of the shooting at lunch, President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans.
On July 28, army cavalry units led by General Douglas MacArthur dispersed the Bonus Army by riding through it and using gas. Against the advice of his assistant, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Macarthur had taken personal command of the operation. President Hoover had ordered Macarthur to clear Pennsylvania Avenue only, but Macarthur immediately began to clear all of downtown Washington, herding the Marchers out and torching their huts and tents. Tear gas was used liberally and many bricks were thrown, but no shots were fired during the entire operation. By 8:00 p.m. the downtown area had been cleared and the bridge across the Anacostia River, leading to the Hooverville where most of the Marchers lived, was blocked by several tanks.
One battalion from the 12th Infantry Regiment and two squadrons of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment (under the command of Major George S. Patton, who had taken over as second in command of the Regiment less than three weeks earlier) concentrated at the Ellipse just west of the White House. At 4:00 p.m. the infantrymen donned gas masks and fixed bayonets, the cavalry drew sabres, and the whole force (followed by several light tanks) moved down Pennsylvania Avenue to clear it of people.
The last of the Bonus Army Marchers left Washington by the end of the following day. Hoover could not publicly disagree with his Chief of Staff and Secretary of War, and ended up paying the political cost of this incident. The possibility of widespread civil unrest growing into a popular revolution had been averted, but the forceful eviction of the Bonus Army Marchers, even though not one shot had been fired and only four people killed (the two demonstrators who had been shot by the police and two infants asphyxiated by tear gas) Smedley Butler declared himself a "Hoover for ex president republican". All of this helped to tilt public opinion against Pres. Herbert Hoover and certainly contributed to his defeat in the 1932 election.
Smedley Butler continued lecturing and became known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States. During the 1930s, he gave many such speeches to pacifist groups.
From 1935–1937, Smedley Butler served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism (which some considered to be dominated by communists).
In 1935 he wrote a book, "War Is a Racket", Smedley Butler presented an exposé and condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. His views on the subject are summarized in the following passage -
From a 1935 issue of "Common Sense":
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. 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 City Bank 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 purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
Claims Of The Business Plot
In early 1934, Smedley Butler alleged the existence of a political conspiracy of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt, a series of allegations that came to be known as the Business Plot.
In March 1934, the House of Representatives authorized investigations into "un-American" activities by a special committee headed by John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and Samuel Dickstein of New York. The McCormack-Dickstein committee, known as the Committee on Un-American Activities,investigated Smedley Butler's allegations and a number of other high-profile topics of the era.
In November 1934, Smedley Butler told the committee that a group of businessmen, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, intended to establish a fascist dictatorship. Smedley Butler had been asked to lead it, he said, by Gerald P. MacGuire, a bond salesman with Grayson M–P Murphy & Co.
The New York Times reported that Butler had told friends that General Hugh S. Johnson, a former official with the National Recovery Administration, was to be installed as dictator. Butler said MacGuire had told him the attempted coup was backed by three million dollars, and that the 500,000 men were probably to be assembled in Washington, D.C. the following year. All the parties alleged to be involved, including General Johnson, said there was no truth in the story, calling it a joke and a fantasy.
In its report, the committee stated that it was unable to confirm Smedley Butler's statements other than the proposal from Gerald P. MacGuire, which it considered more or less confirmed by MacGuire's European reports.
No prosecutions or further investigations followed, and historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, although most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.
The news media initially dismissed the plot, with a The New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax".
When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "... also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee, which was a precursor to the House Un-American Activities Committee, confirmed some of Butler's accusations in its final report. "In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country...There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.
Smedley Butler at one of his many speaking engagements after his retirement in the 1930s..jpg
Smedley Butler wrote and spoke that the purpose of US wars is millions and billions in profits for America’s leading “bankers, industrialists, and speculators.” War is a “racket:” a deception whereby its purpose of blood money from American taxpayers to “insiders” is always disguised as noble and necessary ventures to keep Americans propagandized into paying again and again.
All told Butler gave over 1,200 speeches in over 700 cities during his speaking tour of the United States.
In 1935 Butler published "War is a Racket", which got high praise at the time, as well as strong criticism. The forward by Lowell Thomas spoke of Butler’s “moral as well as physical courage” and noted that “Even his opponents concede that in his stand on public questions, General Butler has been motivated by the same fiery integrity and loyal patriotism which has distinguished his service in countless Marine campaigns.”
What Smedley Butler fought so hard to do was to take the focus off of moral and ideological arguments for war and concentrate on the geopolitical factors that actually motivated war. He tried to raise awareness of what the real motivating factors of war were as well as the consequences of war. He was one of the first Americans to really bring the economic implications of war to the forefront of the public conscience.
In "War is a Racket" General Butler “names names” and lays out in wonderfully blunt detail how the American “military machine” was used to the benefit of wealthy American industrialists. He noted how proponents of war typically call on God as a supporter of the cause and how they embellish the mission as one of liberation and the spreading of freedom, but that these same people tend to shy away from discussing the economic details of military ventures.
Smedley Butler didn’t choose sides when it came to expressing his views on war.
The following is an excerpt from a speech he gave in 1933:
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. 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. In China I helped to 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. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
*****
General Butler in his summative book, "War is a Racket", on the costs of war to ordinary Americans:
“This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations….
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill. If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face"! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.”
…Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.”
*****
General Butler on war propaganda:
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
…At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.”
*****
Retired Marine general Smedley D. Butler addressing a crowd of 6,000 at an anti-war demonstration on Reyburn Plaza, Philadelphia, PA., November 9, 1935.
Smedley Butler's recommendation to end war is to remove its profit motive:
“Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers – yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.”
In 1940, Smedley Butler continued his speaking engagements and went on an extended tour speaking about his antiwar beliefs. He set out on a grueling six-week western speaking tour during which Germany launched its Blitzkrieg in northern and western Europe. Returning home, Smedley Butler wrote the head of an Independent Republican Women's group that he was tired and in poor health, and so would have to defer a speech: "I hope you realize that I am about run to death making speeches professionally and I feel that I must take a rest this summer as my engagements run clear up into June. Also I feel sure there is no use talking any more about this war business. The people of America are fools. If they want to have their children shot in order to keep Franklin Roosevelt on a pedestal, they will just have to do it."
What proved to be his few remaining appearances were talks to Quaker Meetings in West Chester and at Swarthmore, which were close to his home and the antiwar taproot of his family beliefs.
(CLICK ON GRAPHIC FOR LARGER)
On May 22 Smedley Butler gave a last speech in his usual style to a Temple University Alumni dinner at the Penn Athletic Club. He warned that the United States should not get "panicky" over British and French military collapse. England was not finished until its navy was sunk; by then Hitler would be too weak to attack the United States. Americans should defend their own country only, "everything else is a damned commercial racket of some kind." The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that he showed the strain of a long illness that had caused him to lose twenty-five pounds.
Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The next day he entered Philadelphia Navy Yard hospital for what was thought to be a rest. The Newspapers were filled with war news, and a cartoon, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, entitled "Break that tranglehold" showed a snake labeled "Fifth Column Activists" wrapped around a gun marked "US. Defense Program."
Smedley Butler died four weeks later on June 21, the day before the French surrender at Compiegne. His doctor described the illness as an incurable condition of the upper abdominal tract, presumably cancer.
He was conscious until the end and attended by his family, which brought his new 1940 Oldsmobile, which he never drove, and parked it so he could see it from his hospital window.
Later Mrs. Butler wrote Lejeune, "He was working so hard for his country, and came home always so tired.We were afraid of a breakdown but never dreamed there was anything serious." Smedley Butler left an estate of $2,000.85
He was survived by his widow, the former Ethel C. Peters, whom he married June 30th, 1905; a daughter, Mrs. John Wehle, wife of Lieutenant Wehle, United States Marine Corps; and two sons, Thomas Richard and Smedley Darlington Butler, Jr.
He was eulogized extensively in the press and the Congressional Record. The New York Times ran a three- column obituary that made no mention whatsoever of his apostasy or antiwar activities. The Philadelphia Inquirer, without naming specifics, commended his "innate honesty and reckless courage," his fearlessness in speaking and acting "with complete disregard of the consequences to himself," and his heroic career as a soldier.
His military career was accentuated by a testimonial from Theodore Roosevelt that he was "the finest fighting man in the armed forces." Ex-Mayor Kendrick said he was "a man of strong character and absolutely a straight shooter... we remained close friends to the end."
Senator Lundeen, after an oblique reference to "a wild and fantastic [US.] defense plan contemplating the rescue of the British Empire" that was the sole veiled allusion to anti-imperialism in all the eulogies, said his "courage and patriotism cannot be questioned . . . if there ever was a patriot, and a noble, courageous warrior, it was General Smedley D. Butler, a man who was unafraid in the presence of kings and presidents, and who dared to speak his mind .at all times."
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent a personal message to Mrs. Butler, "I shall always remember the old days in Haiti," brushing aside the awkward recent years. -
Funeral services took place beneath the Chinese Thousand Blessings Umbrellas in the Butler home. A dozen uniformed marine officers, including Colonels Vandegrift and Ellis B. Miller, attended along with friends, members of the family, several congressmen, and nearly forty Philadelphia police officers. In the absence of an official military guard of honor, the policemen lined up outside the house as the casket was carried away.
He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Butler, who did not drive, kept the 1940 Oldsmobile until 1956. She could not bear, and refused, over the years, to listen to recordings of Smedley's radio broadcasts. The Butler home was kept by her and their children more or less intact the way Smedley Butler had left it, complete with Chinese Blessings Umbrellas, regimental banners, and other memorabilia.
*****
Smedley Butler's Honors and Awards
--- Military Awards ---
Smedley Butler was the recipient of the following awards:
1st Bronze star
2nd Bronze star
3rd Bronze star
1st Medal of Honor
2nd Medal of Honor
Marine Corps Brevet Medal
Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Army Distinguished Service Medal
Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal
Spanish Campaign Medal
West Indies Naval Campaign Medal
China Relief Expedition Medal
Philippine Campaign Medal
Nicaraguan Campaign Medal (1912)
Haitian Campaign Medal (1917)
Dominican Campaign Medal
Mexican Service Medal
World War I Victory Medal w/ Maltese cross
Yangtze Service Medal
National Order of Merit (France), Officer grade.
First Medal of Honor citation
Citation:
For distinguished conduct in battle, engagement of Vera Cruz, 22 April 1914. Major Butler was eminent and conspicuous in command of his battalion. He exhibited courage and skill in leading his men through the action of the 22d and in the final occupation of the city.
Second Medal of Honor citation
Citation:
For extraordinary heroism in action as Commanding Officer of detachments from the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and the Marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Major Butler led the attack on Fort Riviere, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of Marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort in an effort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Caco bandits. Reaching the fort on the southern side where there was a small opening in the wall, Major Butler gave the signal to attack and Marines from the 15th Company poured through the breach, engaged the Cacos in hand-to-hand combat, took the bastion and crushed the Caco resistance. Throughout this perilous action, Major Butler was conspicuous for his bravery and forceful leadership.
Marine Corps Brevet Medal citation
Secretary of the Navy citation:
The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in transmitting to First Lieutenant Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps, the Brevet Medal which is awarded in accordance with Marine Corps Order No. 26 (1921), for distinguished conduct and public service in the presence of the enemy while serving with the Second Battalion of Marines, near Tientsin, China, on 13 July 1900. On 28 March 1901, First Lieutenant Butler is appointed Captain by brevet, to take rank from 13 July 1900.
Army Distinguished Service Medal
Citation:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. Brigadier General Butler commanded with ability and energy Pontanezen Camp at Brest during the time in which it has developed into the largest embarkation camp in the world. Confronted with problems of extraordinary magnitude in supervising the reception, entertainment and departure of the large numbers of officers and soldiers passing through this camp, he has solved all with conspicuous success, performing services of the highest character for the American Expeditionary Forces.
Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Citation:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Distinguished Service Medal to Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services in France, during World War I. Brigadier General Butler organized, trained and commanded the 13th Regiment Marines; also the 5th Brigade of Marines. He commanded with ability and energy Camp Pontanezen at Brest during the time in which it has developed into the largest embarkation camp in the world. Confronted with problems of extraordinary magnitude in supervising the reception, entertainment and departure of large numbers of officers and soldiers passing through the camp, he has solved all with conspicuous success, performing services of the highest character for the American Expeditionary Forces.
Other Awards
In addition to the Medal of Honor and his other military awards Butler received several awards from other countries and had several things named in his honor.
The USS Butler (DD-636), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was named in his honor in 1942. This vessel participated in the European and Pacific theaters of operations during the Second World War. It was later converted to a high speed minesweeper.
The Boston, Massachusetts, chapter of Veterans for Peace is called the Smedley D. Butler Brigade in his honor. Smedley Butler was featured in the documentary film "The Corporation". In his book "My First Days
In The White House", Senator Huey Long of Louisiana stated that, if elected to the presidency, he would name Smedley Butler as his Secretary of War.
Published works
* ; First Lieutenant Burks, Arthur J. (1927). Walter Garvin in Mexico. Dorrance, Philadelphia. OCLC3595275
* ; de Ronde, Philip (1935). Paraguay : A Gallant Little Nation : The Story of Paraguay's War with Bolivia. OCLC 480786605
* (1934). Speech. Smedley Butler Talks on Black Shirts in America, Philadelphia. Hearst Vault Material, HVMc71r2, 1447.
* Venzon, Anne Cipriano. The Papers of General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC, 1915–1918. OCLC 10958085
* ; Murphy, William R.. Letter to William R. Murphy, 1925 April 25.. OCLC 53437731
* ; Venzon, Anne Cipriano (1992). General Smedley Darlington Butler: The Letters of a Leatherneck, 1898–1931
. Praeger. ISBN 0275941418.
* (July 1929). "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science". American Marines in China. OCLC 479642987
* (1933). Old Gimlet Eye. New York : Farrar & Rinehart. ISBN 0940328011. OCLC 219896546
* ; Lejeune, John Archer; Miller, J Michael (2002). My Dear Smedley : Personal Correspondence of John A. LeJeune and Smedley D. Butler 1927–1928. Marine Corps Research Center.
* (1935; reprint, 2003). War Is a Racket. Los Angeles: Feral House. ISBN 0-922915-86-5.
0 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
