Joshua Holland | The Plot to Overthrow FDR: How the New Deal Sent Conservatives Into a Rage

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/23224-the-plot-to-overthrow-fdr-how-the-new-deal-sent-conservatives-into-a-rage

Holland: What was the Bankers Putsch?

Denton: The Bankers Putsch was an ill-fated plot, sometimes called the Business Plot or the Wall Street Putsch. There was a famous, heroic marine general named Smedley Butler, who was kind of the soldier’s soldier, the veteran’s veteran. He had great influence with the veterans, and this was at a moment when there were a half million veterans who were trying to get their bonuses from World War I. The bonuses weren’t supposed to be released until 1945, but because so many of the veterans were starving, there was a great movement afoot in 1932 to get those bonuses released early.

And Smedley Butler claimed that he was approached by a couple of veterans who had connections to Wall Street financiers who were planning a nonviolent coup, a takeover of the Roosevelt Administration. They claimed to have $3 million that they were willing to spend toward this end, and they said that they had some armaments ready. And their theory was that Roosevelt was in over his head — again, we see a lot of the same rhetoric that we hear with Obama. And they thought FDR would welcome somebody coming in and taking charge because he didn’t know what to do. That was the theory, that they would go in and, because these men who were supplying the money were of Roosevelt’s class, Roosevelt would agree to their demands and become kind of a ceremonial figurehead. He would let these stronger, more military types control the White House.

Butler blew the whistle on it, so it never got very far at all. There were congressional investigations and there was an FBI investigation, and the media reported various aspects of it. But both the plot and the investigation were stopped before they got very far. So it’s unclear how much of it was a form of insanity on the part of the plotters and how much they really had any legitimate financial and military support. But it’s a fascinating story of that year.

[freshwest]

1. BBC archived all of this, and of course it's in the Congressional Record. They're still around, too.

[eridani]

2. It would be great if it were taught in American history classes

Not holding my breath, though

[freshwest]

3. It would have been transformative!

[nikto]

5. I am resentful that is ISN'T taught in HS History

Underscores the shallowness of our current education system.

[FreakinDJ]

9. Just like Pinkertons shooting Unionist isn't taught in History either

[RainDog]

4. Link to Butler's testimony before the McCormack-Dickstein committee

here - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee

[billhicks76]

6. War Is A Racket

Great book by Smedley

[truedelphi]

7. Thanks for this. Meanwhile, Third Way Democrats wish we

Would all forget all about FDR, as he was trying to tell us something. and the quote is more appropriate now than ever before: :

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/86216-the-liberty-of-a-democracy-is-not-safe-if-the

[MisterP]

10. worse, they try to say "they hated FDR, too" and try to say HeritageCare's bigger than

Medicare, or that a president who says Reagan didn't go far enough is somehow the culmination and capstone of the Dems' 1932-94 reformist period

[santamargarita]

8. Smedley Butler has always been my hero.

[WinstonSmith4740]

11. Seven Days in May, anyone?

If you haven't seen it, do so.