Do people know about the "Business Plot" of 1933?

[mwb970]

Business Plot (Wikipedia)

The Business Plot (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was a reported political conspiracy in 1933 which involved wealthy businessmen plotting a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934 retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional committee that a group of men had approached him as part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a coup. In the opinion of the committee these allegations were credible. One of the purported plotters, Gerald MacGuire, vehemently denied any such plot. In their report, the Congressional committee stated that it was able to confirm Butler's statements other than the proposal from MacGuire which it considered more or less confirmed by MacGuire's European reports. However, no prosecutions or further investigations followed.

While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed. Contemporaneous media initially dismissed the plot, with a 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 "It 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".

This was new to me, though some of its elements seem strangely familiar.

[Captain Hilts]

1. A friend, who is a major biographer and a liberal told me that this 'plot' is insanely

exaggerated. And, believe you me, they would LOVE to have tied the Bush family to something significant like this.

[atreides1]

3. Do you mean biographer?

And I'm sure that other opinions about this plot are out there as well, have you read any of them?

[Captain Hilts]

4. Yes, and yes. nt

[redqueen]

8. Any details?

Did they comment on Butler's statements?

Just saying "it's exaggerated" is nice, but thin.

[annabanana]

2. A lot of us HERE do. Oddly, the story never quite made it into

the history books in the US.

The continued influence of certain parties may have something to do with that.

[KansDem]

5. This event was the plot for a 3-part episode of "City of Angels" (1976)

The show based on the movie "Chinatown" with Wayne Rogers (formerly "Trapper John" of TV's "M*A*S*H").

I liked the series but it only lasted one season...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073974/

The episode was called "The November Plan." Lloyd Nolan played the role of "General Butler."
htthttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073974/episodes

edited to correct link

[optimator]

6. they won

.

[Toucano]

7. I do, and I have been thinking about this a bit lately.

The oligarchy that is so plainly visible now has likely always been.

What were the founders, but a small group of white, privileged men protecting their businesses and resources?

Maybe this feudalism is a natural state and liberty is, at best, an illusion.

[Xithras]

9. I've heard of it, and there probably wasn't a "real" plot.

Though it did spawn a congressional investigation, the mainstream thinking among modern historians and politicos at the time was that the "coup" was little more than a conversation gone awry. There is little doubt that the plotters wanted another major march on Washington as a follow up to the Bonus Army march a couple of years earlier, but the idea of turning into a "coup" (technically, it would have been an insurrection and not a coup, because they weren't talking about involving the military) only came up once.

The debate over the years has always circled around a basic legal question: At what point does a conversation become a conspiracy? The general feeling is that conversation doesn't become conspiracy until some action is taken to support it, and there is no evidence that the plot against FDR went beyond a single conversation.

There was also a lot of fear, at the time, that a second Bonus Army-type march would occur in Washington. The first, only two years before, had been a PR disaster, and nobody in Washington wanted to see it happen again. Because the primary goal of the "plotters" was to organize another major march on the Capitol (of a more fascist variety), the public investigation had the effect of discrediting them and undermining their real motivations without directly attacking the idea of another citizens march. Most historians who have commented on the "plot" agree that it probably wouldn't even have been investigated if not for their very real attempts at organizing the march. The tactic was successful, and the march didn't happen.