War Is a Racket, by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC

War Is a Racket is not a new book. In fact, it’s almost 100 years old. It’s still a timely book, though; more so now than ever.

Its author, Smedley Butler – US Marine Corps Major General, two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions in combat, law-and-order Public Safety Commissioner of Philadelphia in 1924 and 1925, Republican candidate for US Senate from Pennsylvania, anti-New Dealer – was the unlikeliest pacifist ever.

That’s why War Is a Racket is still intriguing. How did this professional soldier become an anti-militarist?

Butler was considered the front-runner for Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1930 but was passed over for promotion due to his reputation for contrariness. He then retired and began to write and lecture about war profiteering by big business.

In 1931 he ran for US Senate as a progressive Republican, but was defeated by the incumbent Republican, James Davis, who ran on an anti-immigrant, pro-eugenics platform.

As a candidate, Butler spoke in favor of immediate payment of the veterans’ bonus. World War I vets had been promised a “bonus” for their service, but that benefit came in the form of US bonds that didn’t mature until 1945. In the midst of the Great Depression, with many of them out of work, veterans began demanding immediate payment of their bonuses.

In June 1932, some 43,000 “bonus marchers” descended on Washington, DC, to demand their payments, setting up encampments in Anacostia Flats.

On July 19, Butler toured the camp and spoke to the marchers, telling them they’d been good soldiers and had a right to assemble and lobby Congress “as much as any corporation.”

On July 28, DC police shot and killed two marchers. When the remaining marchers began to resist police, the Hoover administration ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to disperse the demonstration, which he did with tear gas, bayonets, and a cavalry charge.

Fifty-five veterans were wounded and 135 arrested. Butler, like many ordinary Americans, was shocked by the disproportionate use of force. He declared himself a “Hoover-for-Ex-President” Republican.

In the 1932 election, Franklin Roosevelt soundly defeated Hoover for the presidency, sweeping into office with huge Democratic majorities in the US House and Senate. Butler was not a fan. Even FDR, he thought, was too cozy with big money.

Shortly after the election, when the country was getting its first taste of the New Deal, Prescott Bush – yes, the father of George H. W. Bush – approached Butler with a proposal. Bush asked Butler to meet a bond salesman, Gerald

P. MacGuire.

According to Butler, he met MacGuire twice in secret. At the meetings, he said, MacGuire told him that a group of businessmen, backed by $3 million, a private army of 500,000 veterans, and J. P. Morgan's bank, planned to over-throw Roosevelt and establish a fascist dictatorship. Butler was asked to lead the coup. Gen. Hugh S. Johnson would then be installed as head of state.

Butler spilled the beans to the New York Times. When the story broke, the US House established a special committee to investigate. Butler testified in a private session and the committee reported that “[t]here was no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution..." and that the "committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement about the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principal, Robert Sterling Clark….”

However, there were never any follow-up investigations and never any criminal indictments as a result of Butler’s testimony.

In 1935, Butler published War Is a Racket. It’s still in print. Order it through your favorite bookstore or a library near you. While you wait for it to be delivered, enjoy this quote:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It

is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the 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 very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."