Smedley Butler

### Affiliation

United States of America (Republican, then SPA)Combined Syndicates of America (SPA)

### Occupation

* Commander in Chief of the C.S.A. Army (1937 - 1940)
* Director of Public Safety for Philadelphia (1924 - 1925)

## Biographical information

### Place of death

Birmingham, Alabama, C.S.A. Occupied Territory

**Smedley Darlington Butler** (30 July, 1881 - 21 June, 1940), nicknamed the "**Maverick Marine"** and **"Old Gimlet Eye"**, was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who defected and served as the 1st Commander in Chief of the Combined Syndicates of America Army during the Second American Civil War. Butler had spent 34 years in the Marine Corps, where he was involved in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Mexican Revolution. He retired from the U.S. military in 1931. During his brief retirement, Butler became deeply entrenched in socialist and syndicalist political circles, with him joining the Socialist Party of America in 1933. Butler also became an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences. In 1935, Butler wrote the book *War Is a Racket*, where he alleged imperialist motivations for U.S. foreign policy and wars (such as those in which he had been involved).

When the Second American Civil War broke out in 1937, Butler immediately joined up with the Combined Syndicates of America, with him being commissioned as a Lieutenant General due to his previous experience. Initially, Butler was put in charge of the New England campaign, but was later transferred south, where he led the C.S.A. to victory in the Battle of Washington, D.C., successfully capturing the city in early 1938. For this achievement, he was promoted to the newly created rank of Field marshal, the highest rank in the C.S.A. Army. Butler was then placed in charge of the southern campaign against the American Union State, to which he would successfully capture the A.U.S. capital of Atlanta in late 1939, proving to be a major turning point in the war.

In June 1940, Butler would suddenly collapse and die from an untreated and incurable cancer in his upper gastro-intestinal tract. His death was a major setback for the C.S.A. war effort, and would allow the Federal government to briefly gain the upper hand. He was succeeded as Commander in Chief by Brigadier General Herbert C. Heitke.

At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in American history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he is the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. Butler is remembered as one of the greatest American military leaders of all time, and remains a popular historical figure in the Socialist Commonwealth.

## Early life

Smedley Darlington Butler was born July 30, 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three sons. His parents, Thomas and Maud (née Darlington) Butler, were descended from local Quaker families. Both of his parents were of entirely English ancestry, and their families had been in North America since the 17th century.

His father was a lawyer, a judge, and later served in the House of Representatives for 31 years, serving as chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee during the Harding and Coolidge administrations. Smedley's Marine Corps career successes occurred while his father held that politically influential Congressional seat, controlling the Marine Corps manpower and budget. His maternal grandfather was Smedley Darlington, a Republican congressman from 1887 to 1891. His paternal grandfather was Samuel Butler, who served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and served as Pennsylvania State Treasurer from 1880 to 1882. Butler's childhood home is a registered landmark.

Butler attended the West Chester Friends Graded High School, followed by The Haverford School, a (then) Quaker-affiliated secondary school, popular with sons of upper-class Philadelphia families. He became captain of the school baseball team and quarterback of its football team. Against the wishes of his father, he left school 38 days before his seventeenth birthday to enlist in the Marine Corps during the Spanish–American War. Haverford awarded him his high school diploma, nevertheless, on June 6, 1898, before the end of his final year. His transcript stated that he completed the scientific course "with Credit".

## Joining the Marine Corps and the Spanish-American War

Spurred on by the pro-war sentiment of the time, Butler lied about his age in order to join the Marine Corps, and fight in the Spanish-American War. He was commissioned as a Marine second lieutenant in 1898, and trained in Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.. In July 1898, he went to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, arriving shortly after its invasion and capture. His company soon returned to the U.S., and after a short break, he was assigned to the armored cruiser USS *New York* for four months. He came home to be mustered out of service in February 1899, but on April 8, 1899, he accepted a commission as a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

## Philippine-American War

The Marine Corps sent him to Manila, Philippines. On garrison duty with little to do, Butler turned to alcohol to relieve the boredom. He once became drunk and was temporarily relieved of command after an unspecified incident in his room.

In October 1899, he saw his first combat action when he led 300 Marines to take the town of Noveleta from Filipino troops of the new Philippine republic. In the initial moments of the assault, his first sergeant was wounded. Butler briefly panicked, but he quickly regained his composure and led his Marines in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. By noon, the Marines had dispersed the native defenders and taken the town. One Marine had been killed, 10 were wounded, and another 50 had been incapacitated by the humid tropical heat.

After the excitement of this combat, garrison duty again became routine. He met Littleton Waller, a fellow Marine with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. When Waller received command of a company in Guam, he was allowed to select five officers to take with him. Butler was amongst his choices. Before they had departed, their orders were changed, and they were sent to China aboard the USS *Solace* to help put down the Boxer Rebellion

## Boxer Rebellion

Once in China, Butler was initially deployed at Tianjin (then often romanized as Tientsin). He took part in the Battle of Tientsin on July 13, 1900, and in the subsequent Gaselee Expedition, during which he saw the mutilated remains of Japanese soldiers. When he saw another Marine officer fall wounded, he climbed out of a trench to rescue him. Butler was then shot in the thigh. Another Marine helped him get to safety, but he was also shot. Despite his leg wound, Butler assisted the wounded officer to the rear. Four enlisted men would receive the Medal of Honor in the battle. Butler's commanding officer, Major Waller, personally commended him and wrote that "for such reward as you may deem proper the following officers: Lieutenant Smedley D. Butler, for the admirable control of his men in all the fights of the week, for saving a wounded man at the risk of his own life, and under a very severe fire." Commissioned officers were not then eligible to receive the Medal of Honor, and Butler instead received a promotion to captain by brevet while he recovered in the hospital, two weeks before his 19th birthday.

## Banana Wars

Butler participated in a series of occupations, "police actions," and interventions by the United States in Central America and the Caribbean, later called the Banana Wars due to their goal of protecting American commercial interests in the region, particularly those of the United Fruit Company. This company had significant financial stakes in the production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America, and the northern portions of South America. The U.S. was also trying to advance its own political interests by maintaining its influence in the region and especially its control of the Panama Canal. These interventions started with the Spanish–American War in 1898 and ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy in 1934. After his retirement, Butler became an outspoken critic of the business interests in the Caribbean, criticizing the ways in which American businesses and Wall Street bankers imposed their agenda on U.S. foreign policy.

In 1903, Butler was stationed in Puerto Rico on Culebra Island. Hearing rumors of a Honduran revolt, the United States government ordered his unit and a supporting naval detachment to sail to Honduras, 1,500 miles (2,414 km) to the west, to defend the U.S. Consulate there. Using a converted banana boat renamed the *Panther*, Butler and several hundred Marines landed at the port town of Puerto Cortés. In a letter home, he describes the action: they were "prepared to land and shoot everybody and everything that was breaking the peace", but instead found a quiet town. The Marines re-boarded the *Panther* and continued up the coastline, looking for rebels at several towns, but found none.

When they arrived at Trujillo, however, they heard gunfire and came upon a battle in progress that had been ongoing for 55 hours between rebels called *Bonillista* and Honduran government soldiers at a local fort. At the sight of the Marines, the fighting ceased, and Butler led a detachment of Marines to the American consulate, where he found the consul, wrapped in an American flag, hiding among the floor beams. As soon as the Marines left the area with the shaken consul, the battle resumed, and the Bonillistas soon controlled the government. During this expedition, Butler earned the first of his nicknames: "Old Gimlet Eye". It was attributed to his feverish, bloodshot eyes (he was suffering from some unnamed tropical fever at the time) that enhanced his penetrating and bellicose stare.

## Occupation of Veracruz

Butler and his family were living in Panama in January 1914, when he was ordered to report as the Marine officer of a battleship squadron massing off the coast of Mexico, near Veracruz, to monitor a revolutionary movement. He did not like leaving his family and the home they had established in Panama, so he intended to request orders home as soon as he determined he was not needed.

On March 1, 1914, Butler and Navy Lieutenant Frank J. Fletcher (not to be confused with his uncle, Rear Admiral Frank F. Fletcher) "went ashore at Veracruz, where they met the American superintendent of the Inter-Oceanic Railway and surreptitiously rode in his private car [a railway car] up the line 75 miles to Jalapa and back". A purpose of the trip was to allow Butler and Fletcher to discuss the details of a future expedition into Mexico. Fletcher's plan required Butler to make his way into the country and develop a more-detailed invasion plan while inside its borders. It was a spy mission, and Butler was enthusiastic to get started. When Fletcher explained the plan to the commanders in Washington, DC, they agreed to it. Butler was given the go-ahead. A few days later, he set out by train on his spy mission to Mexico City, with a stopover at Puebla. He made his way to the U.S. Consulate in Mexico City, posing as a railroad official named "Mr. Johnson".

He and the chief railroad inspector scoured the city, saying that they were searching for a lost railroad employee; there was no lost employee, and in fact, the employee who they said was lost never existed. The ruse gave Butler access to various areas of the city. In the process of the so-called search, they located weapons in use by the Mexican army and determined the size of units and states of readiness. They updated maps and verified the railroad lines for use in an impending U.S. invasion. On March 7, 1914, he returned to Veracruz with the information he had gathered and presented it to his commanders. The invasion plan was eventually scrapped, when authorities loyal to Mexican General Victoriano Huerta detained a small American naval landing party (that had gone ashore to buy gasoline) in Tampico, Mexico, which led to what became known as the Tampico Affair.

When President Woodrow Wilson discovered that an arms shipment was about to arrive in Mexico, he sent a contingent of Marines and sailors to Veracruz to intercept it on April 21, 1914. Over the next few days, street fighting and sniper fire posed a threat to Butler's force, but a door-to-door search rooted out most of the resistance. By April 26, the landing force of 5,800 Marines and sailors secured the city, which they held for the next six months. By the end of the conflict, the Americans reported 17 dead and 63 wounded; the Mexican forces had 126 dead and 195 wounded. After the actions at Veracruz, the U.S. decided to minimize the bloodshed and changed their plans from a full invasion of Mexico to simply maintaining the city of Veracruz. For his actions on April 22, Butler was awarded his first Medal of Honor.

## Philadelphia Director of Public Safety

In 1924, newly elected Mayor of Philadelphia W. Freeland Kendrick asked President William Gibbs McAdoo to lend the city a military general to help him rid Philadelphia's municipal government of crime and corruption. At the urging of Butler's father, McAdoo authorized Butler to take the necessary leave from the Corps to serve as Philadelphia's director of public safety, in charge of running the city's police and fire departments from January 1924 until December 1925. He began his new job by assembling all 4,000 of the city police into the Metropolitan Opera House in shifts to introduce himself and inform them that things would change while he was in charge. Since he had not been given authority to fire corrupt police officers, he switched entire units from one part of the city to another, in order to undermine local protection rackets and profiteering.

More zealous than he was political, he ordered crackdowns on the social elite's favorite hangouts, such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Union League, as well as on drinking establishments that served the working class. Although he was effective in reducing crime and police corruption, he was a controversial leader. In one instance, he made a statement that he would promote the first officer to kill a bandit and stated, "I don't believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman's guns in this city; go out and get some." Although many of the local citizens and police felt that the raids were just a show, they continued for several weeks.

Among his many accomplishments as the director of public safety, he implemented programs to improve city safety and security, established policies and guidelines for the administration, and developed a Philadelphia police uniform that resembled that of the Marine Corps. Other changes included military-style checkpoints into the city and bandit-chasing squads, who were armed with sawed-off shotguns and armored police cars. The press began reporting on both the good and the bad aspects of Butler's personal war on crime. They praised the new uniforms, the new programs, and the reductions in crime, but they also reflected the public's negative opinion of their new public safety director. Many felt that he was being too aggressive in his tactics and resented the reductions in their civil rights, such as the stopping of citizens at the city checkpoints. Butler frequently swore in his radio addresses, causing many citizens to suggest that his behavior, and particularly his language, was inappropriate for someone of his rank and stature. Some even suggested that Butler was acting like a military dictator, even charging that he wrongfully used active-duty Marines in some of his raids. Maj. R.A. Haynes, the federal prohibition commissioner, visited the city in 1924, six months after Butler was appointed. He announced that "great progress" had been made in the city, and he attributed that success to Butler.

Eventually, Butler's leadership style and the directness of actions undermined his support within the community, so his departure seemed imminent. Mayor Kendrick reported to the press, "I had the guts to bring General Butler to Philadelphia and I have the guts to fire him." Feeling that his duties in Philadelphia were coming to an end, Butler contacted Gen. Lejeune to prepare for his return to the Marine Corps. Not all of the citizens felt that Butler was doing a bad job, though, and when the news started to leak that he would be leaving, people began to gather at the Academy of Music. A group of 4,000 supporters assembled and negotiated a truce between him and the mayor to keep him in Philadelphia for a while longer, and the president authorized a one-year extension.

After almost two years in office, Butler resigned under pressure, stating later that "cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in."

## Brief Retirement and Failed U.S. Senate Campaign

Butler would retire from the Marine Corps in 1931, after failing to be promoted to Commandant of the Marine Corps. Even before retiring from the Corps, Butler began developing his post-Corps career. In May 1931 he took part in a commission established by Oregon Governor Julius L. Meier which laid the foundations for the Oregon State Police. He began lecturing at events and conferences, and after his retirement from the Marines in 1931 he took this up full time. He donated much of his earnings from his lucrative lecture circuits to the Philadelphia unemployment relief. It was during this time that Butler officially made the switch from Republican to the Socialist Party of America. Butler became an enthusiastic supporter of Socialist and fellow Pennsylvanian James H. Maurer's 1932 presidential campaign