The Plot To Seize The White House (24 page)

But that would not do. I looked into the Russian business. I found that the use of the soldiers over there would never appeal to our men. Then I went to France, and I found just exactly the organization we are going to have. It is an organization of supersoldiers." He gave me the French name for it, but I do not recall what it is. I never could have pronounced it, anyhow. But I do know that it is a superorganization of members of all the other soldiers' organizations of France, composed of noncommissioned officers and officers. He told me that they had about 500,000 and that each one was a leader of ten others, so that it gave them 5,000,000 votes. And he said, "Now, that is our idea here in America-to get up an organization of that kind."

Investigators for the McCormack-Dickstein Committee were able to uncover a report on this French "superorganization," the Croix de Feu, that MacGuire had written about to Robert S. 
Clark and Clark's attorney, Albert Grant Christmas, from France on March 6, 1934:

I had a very interesting talk last evening with a man who is quite well up on affairs here and he seems to be of the opinion that the Croix de Feu will be very patriotic during this crisis and will take the [wage] 
cuts or be the moving spirit in the veterans to accept the cuts. Therefore they will, in all probability, be in opposition to the Socialists and functionaries. The general spirit among the functionaries seems to be that the correct way to regain recovery is to spend more money and increase wages, rather than to put more people out of work and cut salaries.

The Croix de Feu is getting a great number of new recruits, and I recently attended a meeting of this organization and was quite impressed with the type of men belonging. These fellows are interested only in the salvation of France, and I feel sure that the country could not be in better hands because they are not politicians, they are a cross-section of the best people of the country from all walks of life, people who gave their "all" between 1914 and 1918 that France might be saved, and I feel sure that if a crucial test ever comes to the Republic that these men will be the bulwark upon which France will be saved.

During their meeting in Philadelphia, Butler testified, MacGuire had revealed the plans of his group to develop an American Croix de Feu.

BUTLER: I said, "What do you want to do with it when you get it up?"

"Well," he said, "we want to support the President." I said, "The President does not need the support of that kind of an organization.

Since when did you become a supporter of the President? The last time I talked to you you were against him."

He said, "Well, he is going to go along with us now."

"Is he?"

"Yes."

"Well, what are you going to do with these men, suppose you get these 500,000 men in America? . . ."
 

"Well," he said, "they will be the support of the President."

I said, "The President has got the whole American people. Why does he want them?"

He said, "Don't you understand the set-up has got to be changed a bit? . . . He has got to have more money. There is not any more money to give him. Eighty percent of the money now is in Government bonds, and he cannot keep this racket up much longer. . . . He has either got to get more money out of us or he has got to change the method of financing the Government, and we are going to see to it that he does not change that method. He will not change it."

I said, "The idea of this great group of soldiers, then, is to sort of frighten him, is it?"

"No, no, no; not to frighten him. This is to sustain him when others assault him."

I said, "Well, I do not know about that. How would the President explain it?"

He said: "He will not necessarily have to explain it, be cause we are going to help him out. Now, did it ever occur to you that the President is overworked? We might have an Assistant President, somebody to take the blame; and if things do not work out, he can drop him."

He went on to say that it did not take any constitutional change to authorize another Cabinet official, somebody to take over the details of the office-take them off the President's shoulders. He mentioned that the position would be a secretary of general affairs-a sort of a supersecretary.

CHAIRMAN: A secretary of general affairs?

BUTLER: That is the term used by him-or a secretary of general welfare-I cannot recall which. I came out of the interview with that name in my head. I got that idea from talking to both of them, you see [MacGuire and Clark]. They had both talked about the same kind of relief that ought to be given the President, and he [MacGuire] said:

"You know, the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everybody can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second."

And I could see it. They had that sympathy racket, that 
they were going to have somebody take the patronage off of his shoulders and take all the worries and details off of his shoulders, and then he will be like the President of France. . . .

Now, I cannot recall which one of these fellows told me about the rule of succession, about the Secretary of State becoming President when the Vice President is eliminated. There was something said in one of the conversations that I had, that the President's health was bad, and he might resign, and that [Vice President] Garner did not want it, anyhow, and then this supersecretary would take the place of the Secretary of State and in the order of succession would become President. That was the idea.

In corroborative testimony Paul Comly French described what MacGuire had told him about the conspirators' plans.

FRENCH: During the course of the conversation he 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; either through the threat of armed force or the delegation of power, and the use of a group of organized veterans, to save the capitalistic system.

He warmed up considerably after we got under way and he said,

"We might go along with Roosevelt and then do with him what Mussolini did with the King of Italy."

It fits in with what he told the general, that we would have a Secretary of General Affairs, and if Roosevelt played ball, swell; and if he did not, they would push him out.

He expressed the belief that at least half of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars would follow the general if he would announce such a plan.

In censored testimony Butler revealed that MacGuire had implicated General Hugh Johnson, head of the N.R.A., as Roosevelt's own choice to become an assistant President.

† BUTLER: He said, "That is what he [Roosevelt] was building up Hugh Johnson for. Hugh Johnson talked too damn 
much and got him into a hole, and he is going to fire him in the next three or four weeks."

I said, "How do you know all this?"

"Oh," he said, "we are in with him all the time. We know what is going to happen."

After having revealed the plans of the plotters, Butler testified, MacGuire had then bluntly asked the general to be the Man on a White Horse they were looking for.

BUTLER: He said, ". . . Now, about this superorganization -

would you be interested in heading it?"

I said, "I am interested in it, but I do not know about heading it. 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 500,00o soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick bell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home. You know that."

"Oh, no. We do not want that. We want to ease up on the President." . . .

"Yes; and then you will put somebody in there you can run; is that the idea? The President will go around and christen babies and dedicate bridges, and kiss children. Mr. Roosevelt will never agree to that himself."

"Oh, yes; he will. He will agree to that."

I said, "I do not believe he will." I said, "Don't you know that this will cost money, what you are talking about? He says, "Yes; we have got $3,000,000 to start with, on the line, and we can get $300,000,000, if we need it." "Who is going to put all this money up?"

"Well," he said, "you heard Clark tell you he was willing to put up $15,000,000 to save the other $15,000,000."

Butler had then probed for particulars of the cabal's plans for organizing their projected military superorganization.

BUTLER: "How are you going to care for all these men?" He said, "Well, the Government will not give them pensions, or anything of that kind, but we will give it to them.
 

We will give privates $10 a month and destitute captains $35.

We will get them, all right."

"It will cost you a lot of money to do that."

He said, "We will only have to do that for a year, and then everything will be all right again."

. . . He said that they had this money to spend on it, and he wanted to know again if I would head it, and I said, "No, I am interested in it, but will not head it."

Seeking to persuade him to change his mind, Butler testified, MacGuire had sought to impress him with the importance of the interests who were involved in the plot.

BUTLER: He said, "When I was in Paris, my headquarters were Morgan & Hodges. We had a meeting over there. I might as well tell you that our group is for you, for the head of this organization.

Morgan & Hodges are against you. The Morgan interests say that you cannot be trusted, that you will he too radical, and so forth, that you are too much on the side of the little fellow; you cannot be trusted.

They do not want you. But our group tells them that you are the only fellow in America who can get the soldiers together. They say, `Yes, but he will get them together and go in the wrong way.' That is what they say if you take charge of them."

According to MacGuire, Butler testified, the Morgan interests preferred other noted military figures as head of the projected veterans'

army. Discussion of these choices was also eliminated from the published version of the hearings.

† BUTLER: [MacGuire said,] "They are for Douglas MacArthur as the head of it. Douglas MacArthur's term expires in November, and if he is not reappointed it is to be presumed that he will be disappointed and sore and they are for getting him to head it."

I said, "I do not think that you will get the soldiers to follow him, Jerry. . . . He is in bad odor, because he put on a uniform with medals to march down the street in Washington, I know the soldiers."

"Well, then, we will get Hanford MacNider. They want either MacArthur or MacNider. . . ."

I said, "MacNider won't do either. He will not get the soldiers to follow him, because he has been opposed to the bonus."

"Yes, but we will have him in change [charge?]."

And it is interesting to note that three weeks later after this conversation 'MacNider changed and turned around for the bonus. It is interesting to note that.

He [MacGuire] said, "There is going to be a big quarrel over the reappointment of MacArthur . . . you watch the President reappoint him. He is going to go right and if he does not reappoint him, he is going to go left."

I have been watching with a great deal of interest this quarrel over his reappointment to see how it comes out. He [MacGuire] said,

"You know as well as I do that MacArthur is Stotesbury's son in law in Philadelphia-[Stotesbury being] Morgan's representative in Philadelphia. You just see how it goes and if I am not telling the truth."

I noticed that MacNider turned around for the bonus, and that there is a row over the reappointment of MacArthur.

Convinced by now of the seriousness of the plot, and its magnitude, Butler had endeavored to learn how far along the conspirators were in the creation of the new superorganization that would control the proposed veterans' army. MacGuire gave him some tips on recognizing its appearance.

BUTLER: Now, there is one point . . . which I think is the most important of all. I said, "What are you going to call this organization?"

He said, "Well, I do not know."

I said, "Is there anything stirring about it yet?"

"Yes," he says; "you watch; in two or three weeks you will 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 papers will come out with it-" He did not give me the name of it, but he said that it would all be made public; a society to maintain the Constitution, and so forth. They had a lot of talk this time about maintaining the Constitution. I said, "I do not see that the Constitution is in any danger."

Butler's next observation, possibly the most significant in all his testimony, was missing from the published version of his testimony. It was the link between the conspiracy and the powerful interests Butler had good reason to believe were the "big fellows" in the background.

† BUTLER: . . . and in about two weeks the American Liberty League appeared, which was just about what he described it to be.

The American Liberty League, which had brokerage head Grayson M.-P. Murphy as its treasurer and Robert S. Clark as one of its financiers, also had John W. Davis, alleged writer of the gold-standard speech for Clark, as a member of the National Executive Committee. Its contributors included representatives of the Morgan, Du Pont, Rockefeller, Pew, and Mellon interests. Directors of the League included A1 Smith and John J. 
Raskob. League later formed affiliations with pro-Fascist, antilabor, and anti-Semitic organizations.

It astonished Butler that former New York Governor A1 Smith, who had lost the 1928 presidential race to Hoover as the Democratic candidate, could be involved in a Fascist plot backed by wealthy men. But the "happy warrior" who had grown up on New York's East Side had traded his brown derby for a black one. He was now a business associate of the powerful Du Pont family, who had cultivated him through Du Pont official John J. Raskob, former chairman of the Democratic party. Under their influence Smith had grown more and more politically conservative following his defeat.