[1931–1939, Archive of Smedley D. Butler, United States Marine Corps Major General].

War Is a Racket

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Of Quaker birthright, Smedley Darlington Butler (1881–1940), United States Marine Corps major general, was known as “Old Gimlet Eye” for his piercing glare and for being a marine’s marine. In over thirty years of service, Butler won two Congressional Medals of Honor. During the First World War, Butler was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of both the army and the navy. Butler was the most decorated marine in United States history upon resigning his commission in 1931. Thereafter, Butler’s life took a different turn:

“In his remaining years, Butler became a popular lecturer who, protesting the possibility that he was fighting for American oil interests in China and the fruit industry and bankers in Central America, damned capitalist profiteers and warmongers while advocating American isolationism and prohibition. He caused a stir by claiming that a businessman had tried to get him to lead a Fascist group, an offer he stoutly refused. In 1935 Butler published what he hoped would be an embarrassing memoir, War Is a Racket. His activities did not endear him to his many former colleagues, but none ever questioned his sincerity or his patriotism.” (ANB)

The present archive contains the following:

• Two TLsS (1p. and 2pp. each, respectively) dated June and July, 1931, just months before SDB resigned his commission. The first letter has a reference to SDB’s retirement: (“Thee know that I retire on the 1st of October and start West on the 2nd, one extra week having been added to my contract, giving me $16,000 instead of $15,000.”). This first letter also goeson to discuss speaking engagements, one being “...to make the Bunker Hill address in Boson…” Both letters are on USMC letterhead from the Marine Barracks in Quantico, Virginia and written to his aunt, Isabel Darlington.. 

• Undated, ten mimeograph sheets of anonymous, often political humor, joke vignettes, some specific to gangsters and rackets. Some of the humor explicitly racist. One single page mimeographed vernacular poem is over 50 lines in length entitled “—:REJECTED:—” credited to “Author Unknown but honored.” The poem is humorous and critical of FDR and decries how he has ruined America. These sheets would appear to date to the 1930s and we suggest they were used as prompts by SDB when he needed to interject humor into one of his numerous post-military career as a whistle-blower and activist.

• Small file of newspaper clippings, 1932, 1938–1939, 1966, and 1993. The bulk are from 1938–1939 and concern various military and geo-political issues. The latter two are a retrospective of the controversial career of SDB and a New York Times editorial concerning FDR and Haiti, mentioning SDB.

• “Address by Josephus Daniels at the Dedication of the Cantigny Monument, Somme, France, August 9, 1937.” Four-page mimeograph on tall folio sheets.

• Full 1-page 1938 TLs from a Daniel J. Downing who writes of SDB’s “...patriotic efforts to prevent international racketeers from using American man power beyond our shores….” Attached are 6 typed pages, excerpts from the NYT supporting the evidence of international racketeering.

• Three TLsS addressed to General SDB by Jim Meade, June 10, September 13, and October 5, 1939, all three concerning “my case,” an apparent reference to a Naval personnel issue. Meade writes: “...my fate will [be] determined shortly… One point was made that Marine generals be placed on marine boards.” Later Meade writes that his case is “deadlocked” adding “I note from the press that you are to make a speech against neutrality repeal. Will listen to you with great interest. I am on the other side.”

• In Ooctober, 1939, SDB’s working copy, 12 pages, with numerous corrects, strike-outs, and emphases, for a nationally-broadcasted speech he gave on NBC opposing America’s involvement with Europe’s war with Hitler and evoking his expression and book War Is a Racket. Two fair copies of the same are also present, 9 pages each. Accompanied by two retained copies of TLs about the speech sent to U.S. Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas and Pennsylvania Congressman James E. Van Zandt, plus a TLS by Van Zandt asking for a copy of the speech for insertion into the Congressional Record. SDB opens boldly: “We didn’t have one single, solitary thing to do with any of the crooked, back-alley maneuvering that brought this war into existence. ... Oh, but the boogey boo is that somebody will come over here.” SDB appeals directly and at length to mothers and fathers of young American boys and men: “There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is the defense of our homes. The other is the defense of the bill of rights… Every other reason advanced for the murder of our young men is a racket pure and simple.”

• A TLs dated 1939 from Edith Burleigh of The Iconoclast and typed upon her “Studio of Truth” letterhead. A laudatory letter, praising SDB for his outspoken activist writing published in The Philadelphia Record. Burleigh encloses two single-page anti-War poems: “Toys” and “The War Lord”.  Both are autographed by Burleigh at their conclusion.

• “Fifty Years of Crime in America.” An 8-page mimeographed speech by J. Edgar Hoover on his FBI letterhead delivered before a Nashville, Tennessee audience in 1939. Hoover expresses concerns over all three branches of government and focuses on corruption: “Great progress has been made in crime detection and apprehension, but little has been done to strike at the sources of crime. ... Lawlessness at times has corrupted legislative halls; it has polluted segments of the judiciary; it has contaminated public office; it has even demoralized certain of our law enforcing agencies. ... The greatest threat confronting the people of this Nation today is not hunger, communism or the fear of foreign invasion.”

• 1-page TLs dated 1944 written by a Russell Sheets to his cousin Emma on USMC letterhead, Great Lakes, Illinois. Relationship to SDB unknown.

• One 2½ x 3¾ inches snapshot photo of a WWII-era military tank in the field.

• One 9 x 7½ inches newsreel portrait photo of SDB as an older man.

• A copy of Smedley Darlington Butler, Incorruptible Patriot West Chester, Pennsylvania: West Chester Area School District, c.1981. [1], [2 (blank)], iv, 70pp. Booklet. 11 x 8½ inches. Illustrated stiff paper wrappers; perfect bound. Biographical reports on Butler prepared by a variety of writers for the Henderson High School (West Chester, PA) American History Seminar. Major General Butler was a native of West Chester, Pennsylvania, where his father, Thomas S. Butler (1855–1928), was a lawyer and judge. Thomas Butler served in the U.S. Congress from 1897 to 1928 and was long-time chair of the House Committee on Naval Affairs.

• A copy of Lowell Thomas’ biography of SDB, Old Gimlet Eye. The Adventures of Smedley D Butler. New York: Farrar & Rinehart (1933). [8], 310pp. + frontispiece. Blue cloth; no dust jacket. Illustrations by Paul Brown. SDB earned the nickname “Old Gimlet Eye” when serving with the Marines during the Honduras expedition in 1903. Prolific author and radio personality Lowell Thomas (1892–1981) was also the biographer for Lawrence of Arabia and World War II hero (and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient) JImmy Doolittle (1896–1993).

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