Presidential History Geeks

The history of the United States is, in large measure, a military history. This month we'll look at Presidential involvement in some of the lesser known wars that the US has been involved in throughout its history, and we'll begin with an undeclared war between the United States and its former ally France that took place during the Presidency of John Adams, known as the "Quasi-War."

Polarization in politics is not something of recent invention. It seems that George Washington's vision of a nation undivided by factions lasted about a minute before Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were gathering up sides for their positions on such polarizing issues as England vs. France vs. neutrality, a strong central government vs. states' rights, and rule by legislature vs. popular vote. When John Adams succeeded George Washington in 1797, residual resentment remained from the perceived shortcomings of the Jay Treaty. Adams also had to deal with a new issue: French reaction to the treaty and to America's unwillingness to come to France's aid in its conflict with Britain. This led to something that has come to be known as the "Quasi-War" with France.



In a letter that John Adams wrote to James Lloyd in January of 1815, the second president told his friend, "I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800." One might imagine that not starting a war was something reasonably expected, but for Adams who had to contend with significant political pressure, by not taking his nation into war, he paid a political price in order to do the right thing.

Peace with France was not the obvious choice for Adams, given the times. During Adams' term, he struggled to keep the United States out of the expanding conflicts taking place in Europe, especially the war between Britain and France. Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists favored Britain, while Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans favored France. The French wanted Jefferson to be elected president, and when he lost the election of 1796, the French displayed antagonism against the Adams administration. When Adams entered office, he realized the importance of continuing Washington's policy of staying out of the European war. This was difficult because many Americans felt short-changed by the Jay Treaty of 1795. This polarized politics within the nation.

The French saw America as too closely allied with Britain and as a result, they began seizing American merchant ships that were trading with the British. Many Americans remained pro-French, because of France's assistance during the Revolutionary War. Because of this, many Americans turned against Adams. But support for France declined with an incident that became known as the "XYZ Affair."

When an American team of diplomats were sent to France to negotiate a solution to French seizure of American ships, the French demanded huge bribes before any discussions could commence. When Americans learned of this, support for France in the United States rapidly declined. The Jeffersonians, who were friends to France, lost popularity and many Americans called for war with France. Adams and his advisers knew that America would be unable to win a war against such a strong military nation. Instead, Adams pursued a strategy in which American ships harassed French ships in an effort to stop the French assaults on American interests. This was in effect an undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France that became known as the Quasi-War, which began in 1798.

Fearing the danger of invasion from the much larger and more powerful French forces, Adams and the Federalist Congress built up the army, bringing back George Washington at its head. Washington wanted Hamilton to be his second-in-command and, given Washington's fame, Adams reluctantly agreed. Adams also built up the US Navy, adding six fast, powerful frigates, most notably the USS Constitution. To pay for the new Army and Navy, Congress imposed new taxes on property, known as the Direct Tax of 1798. This in turn angered taxpayers. In southeast Pennsylvania, the bloodless Fries's Rebellion broke out among rural German-speaking farmers.

As Hamilton asserted greater control over the War department, the rift between Adams and Hamilton's supporters grew wider. Hamilton tried to usurp presidential power by demanding that he control the army. He refused to recognize the necessity of giving prominent Democratic-Republicans positions in the army, while Adams wanted to balance power in order to gain Democratic-Republican support. Many became uncomfortable with Hamilton building a large standing army, adding to political divisions in the nation.

Adams knew victory in an all out war against imperial France would be folly. In spite of the adverse affect on his popularity, Adams sought peace with France. In February 1799, he sent diplomat William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France. Napoleon, not wishing to spread his army too thin, realized that the conflict was unwise, and expressed a willingness for friendly relations. At the Convention of 1800, a peace was achieved. Adams demobilized the emergency army.



Adams avoided war, but in the process, he split his own party. Peace hurt his popularity and probably cost him a second term in office. Nevertheless, Adams found satisfaction at having kept the nation out of what could have been a costly and potentially disastrous war.

When discussing the Great Depression, two of the most common questions asked about it are: (1) what caused it? and (2) what ended it? These are both good questions, because their answers should provide guidance on how to prevent another one. The problem with this analysis however is that economics, like politics, seems to be a very polarized discipline, and it seems to be impossible to reach any consensus on these questions. Like politics, economics has winners and losers, and while one economist might see benefit in economic consequences that allow opportunity for some to acquire great wealth, others see victory in an economy that has more egalitarian results when it comes to the distribution of wealth.



Although economists and economic historians may not agree on this subject, these are some of the most common reasons given for the economic disaster we know as the Great Depression:

1. Banking panics: After the Depression was underway, many people ran to their local banks to withdraw all their money. Banks could not keep up with the demand and did not have sufficient cash on hand to keep up with the high volume of customers wanting to make withdrawals during these bank runs. This resulted in a lack of confidence in banks. President Herbert Hoover tried to address this by declare a bank holiday, something that his successor Franklin Roosevelt also did. The bank runs led to a reduction in the money supply and deflation as banks lacked funds to lend in order to stimulate economic growth.

2. The Great Stock Market Crash of 1929: The crash of 1929 is the single incident that many people associate with the start of the Great Depression. It was followed by over a decade of economic pain. On Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), Wall Street saw the largest sell-off in shares up to that point in history. A few days later, Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929) saw another day of frenzied trading in New York City, leading the market to lose 11 percent of its value. It caused a lack of confidence in the markets and froze investment.

3. Improper Federal Reserve policies: Economists like Milton Friedman believe the banking system had the tools to combat the Depression more effectively but didn’t use them. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke agrees with this assessment. In a speech he gave on November 8, 2002 at a conference to honour Friedman on the occasion of Friedman's 90th birthday, Bernanke said: “Regarding the Great Depression, we did it. We’re very sorry. We won’t do it again.” The Federal Reserve Bank relied too heavily on the gold standard and it kept interest rates high, and refused to combat the deflation of the money supply through increased stimulus. All of these factors stifled growth in the economy and contributed to the continuation of the depression.

4. The wrong trade policies: Legislators in Washington, DC, passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to shore up jobs for the US economy. This wound up being one of the biggest mistakes in economic history. The bill placed an emphasis on protectionism and was met with retaliatory tariffs, shutting down global trade, something the economy could have used. This also prolonged the Depression and increased international mistrust in the years leading to World War II.

5. Franklin Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act: Instead of protecting workers, the codes that resulted from this program encouraged monopolies and hurt small businesses, a major driver of the economy. Even many in Roosevelt's inner circle acknowledged that this program was a huge mistake.

6. Ecological and agricultural factors: It didn't help that while all of this was going on, a severe drought struck the midwest in what became known as "the Dust Bowl." Generally, agricultural policy, designed to increase farm prices, was difficult to justify, especially the destruction of crops and livestock at a time when so many people in the nation were near starvation.



This depression took well over a decade to conclude. What brought about a return to prosperity?

1. Learning from mistakes: Economists, politicians, and financial professionals studied their mistakes in the early years of the Depression and took a different course in the latter years. These included increased government spending to stimulate the economy by the Roosevelt administration, after the Hoover administration had doubled down on balanced budgets and increased taxes. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank during the Great Recession of 2007-10, encouraged federal government spending and adopted low interest rates and a high stimulus, determined not to repeat the mistakes made early on during the Great Depression.

2. Some New Deal programs were effective ones: President Franklin Roosevelt's administration worked with Congress to build programs like Social Security and the unemployment insurance system, as well as agencies like the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Works Progress Administration (WPA) to help get the nation back to work and provide a social safety net. His predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had built organizations like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for a similar purpose.

3. World War II: This is considered the be the major reason for the end of the depression. The Allied powers went to war with the Axis of Germany, Italy, and Japan at the end of this prolonged financial crisis. This called for an increase in domestic production to support the war effort and a corresponding increase in government spending. War meant work for everyone, whether in the service or at home working to support the war effort. World War II brought on completed the economic recovery necessary to end the Great Depression.



In his 2002 speech, Bernanke concluded with these words:

"What I take from [the work of Friedman] is the idea that monetary forces, particularly if unleashed in a destabilizing direction, can be extremely powerful. The best thing that central bankers can do for the world is to avoid such crises by providing the economy with, in Milton Friedman's words, a 'stable monetary background'--for example as reflected in low and stable inflation. Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna [Friedman's co-author Anna Schwartz]: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

Did Franklin Roosevelt's policies lessen the shock of the Great Depression, or did they make it worse? Even though FDR has been gone now for almost 80 years, debate on this subject lives on, and like much else in these polarized times, opinions often depend on one's ideology. Let's try to take an objective look at this question, and if a conclusion can't be reached, let's at least look at the competing arguments on the question.



The Great Depression wasn't just an American problem, it was a severe and world -wide economic collapse. Many equate it with the stock market crash that took place on "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929, but the causes of the Great Depression run much deeper than just one day on Wall Street. By the time that Roosevelt came into office on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed, and nearly 25% of the labor force was unemployed. Prices and productivity had both fallen to a third of their 1929 levels andthis resulted in lower incomes in wages, rents, and profits throughout the entire US economy. Factories, mills and mines closed and farms and homes were lost to foreclosure. Most tragically, many people went hungry. At the height of the Depression in 1933, 12,830,000 people ( 24.9% of the total work force) were unemployed. This did not include farmers who, though technically not considered to be unemployed, faced massive decreases in farm commodity prices, such that they could not sell crops for near the cost of growing them. As a result, many farmers lost their land and homes to foreclosure.

The depression caused many in the work force and from farming communities to migrate from their homes in search of work. These migrants would build shanty towns known as "Hoovervilles." In the midwest, the effects of the Depression were made worse by drought and dust storms, causing many to abandon their farms and look for work elsewhere. Many men rode the rails as "hobos" in search of work.

In his speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination in 1932, Roosevelt pledged to bring about "a New Deal for the American people." Following his inauguration as President on March 4, 1933, in the first hundred days of his new administration, FDR pushed through Congress a package of legislation designed to lift the nation out of the Depression. He declared a "banking holiday" to end the runs on the banks. he also created new federal programs administered by a number of "alphabet agencies" from the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) to the WPA (Works Progress Administration.) These agencies provided jobs to thousands of unemployed Americans in construction and other projects across the country. The NRA (National Recovery Administration) sought to stabilize consumer goods prices through a series of codes. FDR hoped that through employment created by the state and price stabilization, he would put the nation on the road towards recovery.



Roosevelt's New Deal recovery programs were in large measure based on experimentation, though his experiments sometimes contradicted one another. Roosevelt himself said, “It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another.” After a period of gradual recovery, another major recession hit in 1937. Following that recession, Roosevelt adopted the theory of British economist John Maynard Keynes that expanded deficit spending was needed to stimulate aggregate demand. In 1938 the Treasury Department designed programs for public housing, slum clearance, railroad construction, and other massive public works. Many of these were cancelled after more massive public spending was required when World War II broke out, and war-related export demands and expanded government spending led the economy back to full employment capacity production by 1941.

Roosevelt's critics argue that the President was wrong to try to raise prices by creating artificial shortages. They also argue that the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 provided for acreage and production controls, restrictive marketing agreements, and regulatory licensing of processors and dealers “to eliminate unfair practices and charges,” rewarding farmers who cut back production. They cite this as folly at a time when millions could hardly feed and clothe their families, and are at a loss to understand why a program designed to make food and fiber more expensive at that time made any sense.

Almost everyone agrees that Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was a mistake. It allowed the President to license businesses or control imports to achieve the objectives of the act that were vague at best. To administer the act, Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration and named General Hugh Johnson. The policy was enforced by a vast system of agents and informers. Eventually the NRA approved 557 basic and 189 supplementary codes, covering about 95 percent of all industrial employees. Big business dominated the writing and implementing of the codes which protected their interests and suppressed competition. These codes included minimum pricing, standardization of products and services, and advance notice of intent to change prices.

Several programs created through the New Deal did have a lasting positive impact on the U.S. economy. which was flagging throughout the 1930s, among them the Social Security Act, which provided income for the elderly, disabled and children of poor families. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which effectively insured the savings of Americans in the event of a bank failure, which was all too common at the time.

Roosevelt's critics assert that FDR and Congress embraced interventionist policies that went too far.and that the New Deal created so much confusion, fear, uncertainty, and hostility among businessmen and investors that private investment never recovered enough to restore the high levels of production and employment enjoyed in the 1920s. They cite the slow rate of recovery, noting that in 1939, ten years after the start of the depression, 9.5 million persons, or 17.2 percent of the labor force, remained officially unemployed.

A Wall Street Journal opinion piece written in February of 2009 argues that the Depression should have been followed by a vigorous recovery, like every other cycle, but it wasn't. They note that productivity grew very rapidly after 1933, and real interest rates were low. They note that some New Deal policies certainly benefited the economy by establishing a basic social safety net through Social Security and unemployment benefits, and by stabilizing the financial system through deposit insurance and the Securities Exchange Commission. But others violated the most basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. Then authors assert that these policies choked off powerful recovery forces that would have plausibly returned the economy back to trend by the mid-1930s.

Between 1933 and 1939, federal expenditure tripled, and Roosevelt's critics charged that he was turning America into a socialist state. Keynesian economics became the most influential economic school in the United States during the 1970s and the 1980s.



It is impossible to determine with any level of confidence whether or not, as a whole, FDR's New Deal prolonged the Great Depression or led the country out of it. Like almost all economic policies, it had benefits and detriments, and it left winners and losers. Supporters praise the New Deal for recognizing the government's role in providing compassionate support for those suffering in times of severe economic distress and in creating the social security system. Critics argue that it has institutionalized a sense of entitlement and legitimized the practice of massive deficit spending, burdening future generations with the excesses of today. They say that it has led to a reduction of self-reliance in exchange for greater dependence on government. People's perception on this question often depends on each individual's sense of economic security.

From 1932 to 1948 (both inclusive), incumbent Presidents would run for re-election. All but one were successful. The most successful of all was the only President to win four presidential elections, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Sorry for the spoiler, but I think you already knew that.)



Roosevelt took office while the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the country's history. Americans knew that they were hurting badly from the crisis. But they trusted their President to do his best and take action. During his first 100 days in office, Roosevelt quarterbacked unprecedented federal legislation and issued many executive orders that instituted what he termed "the New Deal". This was a collection of programs designed to produce relief and recovery, as well as reform of what he perceived to be broken with the system. He created programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers and also creared economic recovery programs such as the National Recovery Administration. He also instituted major regulatory reforms in the field of finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He used radio to speak directly to the American people, giving what were called his "fireside chats" and he also became the first American president to be televised. Although the depression continued, the economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936 and Americans gave the credit for this to their President. The New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans, so popular in fact that even many Republicans supported them.

In 1936, for the Republican Party, it wasn't so much as if they were selecting a presidential candidate, it was more like they were selecting a sacrificial lamb. The Great Depression was beginning its eighth year and much of the population still blamed the Republicans, who had been in power for three terms leading into the depression. They especially blamed Herbert Hoover, the last Republican president and the man who was still hoping to wield influence in the party.

Roosevelt faced only token resistance in his own nomination fight. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, ran against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's opposition to Roosevelt's "New Deal" failed miserably. Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, and Breckinridge received only 2%. When the Democratic Party held its convention in Philadelphia between July 23 and 27, the delegates unanimously re-nominated incumbents President Roosevelt and Vice-President John Nance Garner. At Roosevelt's request, the two-thirds rule, which had given the South a veto power, was repealed.

Despite the unlikelihood of victory, a number of candidates sought the Republican Party nomination for President. Potential candidates included future Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, New York Congressman James W. Wadsworth, Jr., Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Iowa Senator Lester Dickinson, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish III, New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman, Delaware Governor C. Douglass Buck, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, Michigan Auto magnate Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, former President Hoover, Oregon Senator Frederick Steiwer, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, former Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., cousin of the current president. Ultimately however, all of these men would withdraw from consideration, either because they lacked sufficient support and means to merit serious consideration for the nomination or because they viewed the incumbent president as too formidable.

By the time the Republican convention came around, only five candidates remained. Among these, the leading contenders were Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, Senator William Borah of Idaho and Publisher Frank Knox of Illinois. Republicans held primaries in twelve states. Landon scored victories in Massachusetts and New Jersey, but lost his neighboring state of Nebraska to Borah, who also won in Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Knox won his home state of Illinois and also in New Hampshire. Two "favorite son" candidates, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota and lawyer Steven Day of Ohio, won the primaries in their home states.

Borah was 71 years of age at the time and was at odds with much of the party establishment. He had not supported Hoover in the 1932 election and would not support his party's candidate in 1936. The party establishment backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist. Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Hoover's choice was Knox. When it became apparent that Landon had the support of most of the party, a "Stop Landon" coalition was formed a coalition led by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, and which included Borah and Knox. But the movement failed and Landon was nominated overwhelmingly on the first ballot by a vote of 984 (for Landon) to 19 (for Borah). Knox had withdrawn from the race, and had agreed to run as Landon's running mate. A petulant Borah complained, "Unless the Republican party is delivered from its reactionary leadership and reorganized in accord with its one-time liberal principles, it will die like the Whig party of sheer political cowardice. The people are offered the Constitution. But the people can't eat the Constitution."



Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who spent little time on the road. Most of his attacks on FDR and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners, and not by Landon himself. Personally, he actually liked many of the aspects of the New Deal, which were beneficial to his state. In the two months after his nomination he didn't make any campaign appearances. This prompted columnist Westbrook Pegler to wryly observe, "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas. The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."

Personally. Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and bore him no personal animosity. His only complaint about much of the New Deal legislation was that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. But late in the campaign, Landon changed tactics and began to attack the President in his rhetoric. He accused Roosevelt of becoming so powerful that he was subverting the Constitution. In one campaign address, Landon told his audience:

"The President spoke truly when he boasted 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people and enslavement for the public'. These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse. 'National economic planning', the term used by this Administration to describe its policy, violates the basic ideals of the American system. The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."

For a time, the election appeared closer than it actually turned out. The Literary Digest, a magazine, ran a poll, which was based on 10 million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers. Of these, 2.3 million were returned. The Literary Digest, which had correctly predicted the winner of the last 5 elections, announced in its October 31 issue that Landon would be the winner with 370 electoral votes. This turned out to be horribly incorrect. The poll demonstrated the problems with erroneous polling methodology. More Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats, skewing the results. Also, the Literary Digest relied on voluntary responses. In another poll taken that year, pollster George Gallup, an advertising executive, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest prediction would be wrong. His accuracy would cause the Gallup Poll to become a staple of future presidential elections.

The election was in essence a referendum on the New Deal. Voters showed a strong preference to the "hands on" approach of Roosevelt over the "let the market correct itself" approach of his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt won by a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in many additional Democratic members of Congress. He won every state except for Maine and Vermont. Some of Roosevelt's advisers even joked that America's fiscal woes might be best solved if he offered to sell Vermont and Maine to Canada.

Roosevelt's 60.8% is the second-largest percentage in U.S. history since the nearly unopposed election of James Monroe in 1820, and his 98.5% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition. Roosevelt won the largest number of electoral votes ever recorded at that time, so far only surpassed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, when 7 more electoral votes were available. Landon became the second official major-party candidate since the current system was established to win fewer than ten electoral votes. No major-party candidate has won so few electoral votes since this election.



Some political pundits predicted the Republicans, whom many voters blamed for the Great Depression, would soon become an extinct political party. However, the Republicans would make a strong comeback in the 1938 congressional elections, although they were not able to win the presidency again until 1952.

For an excellent account of this suprisingly interesting contest, David Pietrusza's recent book Roosevelt Sweeps Nation (reviewed here in this community) is highly recommended.

On March 29, 1790 (233 years ago today) John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States, was born in Charles City County, Virginia. (By coincidence, it was the same place where his running mate and the man he succeeded as President - William Henry Harrison - was born.) Though often overlooked, Tyler has much to distinguish himself. He was the first Vice-President to become President upon the death of a sitting president. He is the president who fathered the most children (15) and he is the only former president who joined the Confederacy during the Civil War.



John Tyler's father was a Judge, and his future president son became a lawyer and was admitted to the Virginia state bar at age 19. His father served as Governor of Virginia, and John Tyler had a prolific career as an elected official, serving as as a state legislator, Governor of Virginia, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator. In 1840 he was elected as Vice President on a ticket with William Henry Harrison, the former general who was known as the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe. The pair ran on the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" Tyler had been a Democrat, but he ran on the Whig ticket, because Tyler did not support incumbent President Martin Van Buren and the Whigs thought that having him on the ticket would take votes from the Democratic Party.

Tyler was not consulted on Harrison's transition into the presidency, and he was quite surprised when he learned that he had became president just 31 days into his term as Vice-President, following the death of President Harrison in April of 1841. Tyler became the first Vice President to succeed to the office of President on the death of the incumbent. Up to that time no one was sure whether the Vice-President became acting president or the full meal deal when the president died. Tyler asserted his right to the full authority of the Presidency, despite the protests of leading Whig politicians like Henry Clay. It is said that when Whigs would send correspondence addressed to "Acting President Tyler" he would return it unopened.

Tyler was a strong supporter of states' rights, which endeared him to his fellow Virginians but alienated him from many in the Whig Party as well as some Democrats in Washington. Opposition from both the Democratic and the Whig parties hindered his presidency. Eventually, the Whigs expelled him from their party. An attempt to impeach him was unsuccessful. While he was obstructed on domestic policy, he was still able to achieve several foreign-policy accomplishments, including the Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain and the Treaty of Wanghia with Qing China.

John Tyler sought to strengthen and preserve the Union through territorial expansion. In the final days of his administration, as a "lame duck" president, he was still able to orchestrate the annexation of the independent Republic of Texas. Tyler sought election to a full term in 1844, but he had alienated both Whigs and Democrats and his efforts to form a new party came to nothing.



Tyler retired from electoral politics and returned to his Virginia estate, known as "Sherwood Forest". When southern states began to secede in 1860, Tyler tried unsuccessfully to broker a peace conference. When the Civil War began in 1861, he sided with the Confederate government, and won election to the Confederate House of Representatives. But he did not live long enough to arrive for the first sitting of the house. Just after midnight, on the morning of January 18, 1862, Tyler, who had been ill for the past few weeks, took a last sip of brandy, and told his doctor, "I am going. Perhaps it is best." He then passed away. It is believed that he had suffered a stroke.

John Tyler is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1936, for the Republican Party, it wasn't so much as if they were selecting a presidential candidate, it was more like they were selecting a sacrificial lamb. The Great Depression entered its eighth year and much of the population still blamed the Republicans, who had been in power for three terms leading into the depression. They especially blamed Herbert Hoover, the last Republican president and the man who was still seeking to wield influence in the party. Hoover still harbored the belief that he might win back the White House, but Americans hadn't forgotten that the Great Depression had began on Hoover's watch. Incumbent President and Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt was still working to implement the provisions of his New Deal economic policy through Congress and the courts. The New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans, so popular in fact that even many Republicans supported them.



Roosevelt faced only token resistance in his own nomination fight. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, ran against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's opposition to Roosevelt's "New Deal" failed miserably. Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, and Breckinridge received only 2%. When the Democratic Party held its convention in Philadelphia between July 23 and 27, the delegates unanimously re-nominated incumbents President Roosevelt and Vice-President John Nance Garner. At Roosevelt's request, the two-thirds rule, which had given the South a veto power, was repealed.

Despite the unlikelihood of victory, a number of candidates sought the Republican Party nomination for President. Potential candidates included future Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, New York Congressman James W. Wadsworth, Jr., Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Iowa Senator Lester Dickinson, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish III, New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman, Delaware Governor C. Douglass Buck, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, Michigan Auto magnate Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, former President Herbert Hoover, Oregon Senator Frederick Steiwer, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, former Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., cousin of Democratic incumbent Franklin D Roosevelt. Ultimately however, these men would withdraw from consideration, either because they lacked sufficient support and means to merit serious consideration for the nomination or because they viewed the incumbent president as too formidable.

By the time the Republican convention came around, only five candidates remained. Among these, the leading contenders were Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, Senator William Borah of Idaho and Publisher Frank Knox of Illinois. Republicans held primaries in twelve states. Landon scored victories in Massachusetts and New Jersey, but lost his neighboring state of Nebraska to Borah, who also won in Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Knox won his home state of Illinois and also in New Hampshire. Two "favorite son" candidates, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota and lawyer Steven Day of Ohio, won the primaries in their home states.

Borah was 71 years of age at the time and was at odds with much of the party establishment. He had not supported Hoover in the 1932 election and would not support his party's candidate in 1936. The party establishment backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist. Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Hoover's choice was Knox. When it became apparent that Landon had the support of most of the party, a "Stop Landon" coalition was formed a coalition led by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, and which included Borah and Knox. But the movement failed and Landon was nominated overwhelmingly on the first ballot by a vote of 984 (for Landon) to 19 (for Borah). Knox had withdrawn from the race, and had agreed to run as Landon's running mate. A petulant Borah complained, "Unless the Republican party is delivered from its reactionary leadership and reorganized in accord with its one-time liberal principles, it will die like the Whig party of sheer political cowardice. The people are offered the Constitution. But the people can't eat the Constitution."

Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who spent little time on the road. Most of his attacks on FDR and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners, and not by Landon himself. Personally, he actually liked many of the aspects of the New Deal, which were beneficial to his state. In the two months after his nomination he didn't make any campaign appearances. This prompted columnist Westbrook Pegler to wryly observe, "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas. The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."

Personally Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and bore him no personal animosity. His only complaint about much of the New Deal legislation was that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. But late in the campaign, Landon changed tactics and began to attack the President in his rhetoric. He accused Roosevelt of becoming so powerful that he was subverting the Constitution. In one campaign address, Landon told his audience:

"The President spoke truly when he boasted 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people and enslavement for the public'. These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse. 'National economic planning', the term used by this Administration to describe its policy, violates the basic ideals of the American system. The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."

For a time, the election appeared closer than it actually turned out. The Literary Digest, a magazine, ran a poll, which was based on 10 million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers. Of these, 2.3 million were returned. The Literary Digest, which had correctly predicted the winner of the last 5 elections, announced in its October 31 issue that Landon would be the winner with 370 electoral votes. This turned out to be horribly incorrect. The poll demonstrated the problems with erroneous polling methodology. More Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats, skewing the results. Also, the Literary Digest relied on voluntary responses. In another poll taken that year, pollster George Gallup, an advertising executive, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest prediction would be wrong. His accuracy would cause the Gallup Poll to become a staple of future presidential elections.



On election day Gallup was right and the Literary Digest was wrong, very wrong in fact. Roosevelt won by a landslide. He won 46 of the 48 states and increased the number of Democratic members of Congress. Roosevelt's 60.8% of the popular vote is the second-largest percentage in U.S. history since the nearly unopposed election of James Monroe in 1820 (second only to Lyndon Johnson in 1964), and his 98.5% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition. Roosevelt won the largest number of electoral votes ever recorded at that time, so far only surpassed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, when 7 more electoral votes were available.

Following his defeat, Landon finished out his term as governor of Kansas and returned to the oil industry. Landon did not seek elected office again. He lived to the ripe old age of 100, passing away 33 days after his centennial birthday.

On March 28, 1969 (54 years ago today) Dwight David Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. from congestive heart failure. He was 78 years of age.



Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas, the third of seven boys. His mother originally named him David Dwight but reversed the two names after his birth to avoid the confusion of having two Davids in the family. In 1892, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas, which Eisenhower considered as his home town. He attended West Point Military Academy and graduated in the middle of the Class of 1915. While at West Point he excelled as an athlete, playing running back and linebacker on the varsity football team.

Although he never personally saw combat, Eisenhower rose through the ranks of the army, slowly at first, but later becoming a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II. He served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO. He was the last U.S. President to have been born in the 19th century.

In 1952 he won the presidential election by a landslide, defeating Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson for the first of two consecutive times. In the first year of his presidency, Eisenhower deposed the leader of Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and used nuclear threats to conclude the Korean War with China. His policy of nuclear deterrence gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing the funding for conventional military forces. His goal was to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits.

In 1954, Eisenhower first articulated the domino theory in his description of the threat presented to United States' global economic and military hegemony by the spread of communism and anti-colonial movements in the wake of Communist victory in the First Indochina War. The Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, which obliged the U.S. to militarily support the pro-Western Republic of China in Taiwan and take a hostile position against the People's Republic of China on the Chinese mainland.

After the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA which led to a "space race". Eisenhower forced Israel, the UK, and France to end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956, while simultaneously condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In 1958, he sent 15,000 U.S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the pro-Western government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident.

Eisenhower was the first outgoing President to come under the protection of the Former Presidents Act which entitled him to receive a lifetime pension, state-provided staff and a Secret Service detail. In the 1960 election to choose his successor, Eisenhower endorsed his Vice-President, Republican Richard Nixon against Democrat John F. Kennedy. He told friends, "I will do almost anything to avoid turning my chair and country over to Kennedy." He actively campaigned for Nixon, but in the prior to the election he probably did Nixon more harm than good when he was asked by a reporter at the end of a televised press conference to list one of Nixon's policy ideas he had adopted. Eisenhower replied "If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember." Kennedy's campaign used the quote in one of its campaign commercials. Nixon narrowly lost to Kennedy. Eisenhower, who was the oldest president in history at that time (then 70), was succeeded by the 43 year old Kennedy, the youngest president ever elected.

On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower gave his final televised Address to the Nation from the Oval Office. In his farewell speech, Eisenhower warned the country to be on guard for an over-zealous military. He said: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex." He continued, "we recognize the imperative need for this development ... the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist ... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower had resigned his permanent commission as General of the Army before becoming President of the United States. Upon completion of his Presidential term, his commission was reactivated and Eisenhower again was commissioned a five-star general in the United States Army.

After leaving office, Eisenhower retired to his farm adjacent to the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1967, two years before Ike's death, the Eisenhowers donated the farm to the National Park Service. Never the most political of Presidents, in retirement he reluctantly performed some political duties. He spoke at the 1964 Republican National Convention and appeared with Barry Goldwater in a Republican campaign commercial from Gettysburg. However, his endorsement was given begrudgingly because Goldwater had once called Eisenhower "a dime-store New Dealer".

On March 28, 1969, Eisenhower died of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.. The following day his body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel. On March 30, his body was taken to the United States Capitol, where he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. On March 31, Eisenhower's body was returned to the National Cathedral, where he was given an Episcopal Church funeral service. That evening, Eisenhower's body was placed onto a train en route to Abilene, Kansas. His body arrived on April 2, and was interred later that day in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Eisenhower is buried alongside his son Doud, who died at age 3 in 1921. His wife Mamie was buried next to him after her death in 1979.



At Eisenhower's funeral, President Richard Nixon said of his former boss:

"Some men are considered great because they lead great armies or they lead powerful nations. For eight years now, Dwight Eisenhower has neither commanded an army nor led a nation; and yet he remained through his final days the world's most admired and respected man, truly the first citizen of the world."



A wonderful tribute to Eisenhower's presidency is contained in the 2012 biography written by Jean Edward Smith entitled Eisenhower in War and Peace in the preface at pages xiv-xv:

Eisenhower had a textbook view of presidential power. As more than one scholar has observed, he may have been the last President to actually believe in the Constitution. For Ike, Congress made policy and the President carried it out. He took his constitutional responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" at face value. In 1957, when a United States District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, ordered the desegregation of Central High, Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to enforce the court's order. If he had not acted, and if he had not used overwhelming force to ensure compliance with the district court's order, desegregation in the South would have been set back at least a generation. "Sending in the troops was the hardest decision I had had to make since D-Day," Eisenhower said afterward. "But Goddamn it, it was the only thing I could do."

Eisenhower was a progressive conservative. He believed traditional American values encompassed change and progress. He looked to the future, not the past, and his presidency provided a buffered transition from FDR's New Deal or the Fair Deal of Harry Truman into the modern era. "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would never hear of that party again," Ike wrote his brother Edgar. "There is a tiny splinter group that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt and a few other Texas millionaires. But their number is negligible and they are stupid."

When the economy turned down after the Korean War, Eisenhower initiated the interstate highway program and constructed the St. Lawrence Seaway, not only revolutionizing the American transportation system, but opening the Great Lakes to ocean traffic. Neither program affected the federal budget. The interstate system - the cost of which eventually exceeded the total expenditures of the New Deal from 1933 to 1941 - was funded entirely by increased gasoline taxes, and the seaway through the sale of interest-bearing bonds issued by the U.S.-Canadian Seaway Development Corporation. The National Defense Education Act, which Eisenhower signed into law in 1958, broke the long-standing taboo against direct federal aid to education and has done more to change the face of American universities than any measure since the enactment of the GI Bill during World War II.



As president, Eisenhower restored stability to the nation. His levelheaded leadership ensured that the United States would move forward in measured steps under the rule of law at home and collective security abroad. His sensible admonition upon leaving office to be wary of the military-industrial complex was the heartfelt sentiment of a president who recognized the perils of world leadership. Eisenhower gave the country eight years of peace and prosperity. No other president in the twentieth century can make that claim.

[This article was recently posted on January 2nd of this year as part of another series. It is reposted because of its relevance to our current series on the Great Depression.]

In 2022, the movie Amsterdam was loosely based on an alleged plot that is said to have occurred in 1933, which became known as the Business Plot. The hero of the story of the real life plot was also a military hero and an interesting historical figure with the unusual name of General Smedley Darlington Butler. (Robert DiNiro's character in Amsterdam is based on Butler, and in the movie's closing credits, a video of a speech given by Butler to a Congressional committee is played simultaneously with one of DiNiro as the movie's character giving the same speech.)



Butler was born on July 30, 1881 and he was nicknamed the "Maverick Marine." He first met Roosevelt when the future President was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and he and Butler were in Honduras during what was known as the Banana Wars. Butler was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who fought in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution and World War I. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean and in France in World War I. Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor. He is the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. But by the end of his military career Butler had seen enough of war, and he was of the view that rich men sent poor men to die in wars for their benefit, and in 1935 he wrote a book entitled War is a Racket in which he set out those views quite bluntly and quite clearly.

In 1933, Butler became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, details of which he went public on in November 1934. Butler claimed that a political conspiracy existed among a group of American business leaders to overthrow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He made these allegations to a special committee of the House of Representatives headed by Representatives John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and Samuel Dickstein of New York. It was later alleged that Dickstein was a paid agent of the NKVD (the Russian Secret Police, later known as the KGB). The committee heard Butler's testimony in secret.

Two years earlier, on July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due to them according to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924. Under that bill, the bonuses were due no earlier than 1925 and all no later than 1945. Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, led this "Bonus Army" and Butler supported their cause and spoke to the group. Butler was retired at the time, but was still a popular military figure who was highly respected by officers and enlisted men alike. A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed and U.S. Army cavalry troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur destroyed their camps. The move backfired on Hoover, as it gained support for his opponent in the upcoming election, Franklin Roosevelt.

Butler had self-described as a Republican up until then, but he responded to the treatment of the Bonus Army by throwing his support behind Roosevelt in the 1932 US presidential election. By 1933, Butler started publicly denouncing capitalism and bankers. He said that he had once been a "high-class muscle man" for Wall Street, the bankers and big business, labeling himself as a "racketeer for Capitalism" and that he now wished to make amends for his past actions.

Roosevelt's election was unpopular with many conservative businessmen of the time. His campaign promise that the government would provide jobs for all the unemployed was seen as his being what one author has referred to as "a traitor to his class." Businessmen became frightened by fears of socialism and reckless government spending. There were also concerns over the gold standard and the possibility that it would come to an end (ironically something that did eventually happen under Republican Richard Nixon many years later). They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was thought of as a socialist or Communist and an enemy of private enterprise by abandoning their interests in order to subsidize the poor.

The McCormack–Dickstein Committee began examining evidence on an alleged plot on November 20, 1934. On November 24 the committee released a statement detailing the testimony it had heard and its preliminary findings and on February 15, 1935, the committee submitted its final report to the House of Representatives.



During the committee hearings Butler testified that Gerald C. MacGuire, a bond salesman with Grayson M–P Murphy & Co., attempted to recruit him to lead a coup against Roosevelt. He said that MacGuire promised him an army of 500,000 men for a march on Washington, D.C., and would provide financial backing for the coup. Butler testified that the pretext for the coup would be that the president's health was failing. Despite Butler's support for Roosevelt in the election and his reputation as a strong critic of capitalism, Butler testified that the plotters wished to use his good reputation and popularity to attract support amongst the general public and gain credibility. He said that they falsely believed that he would be easy to manipulate. He said that once the coup was successful, the plan was for him to have held near-absolute power in the newly created position of "Secretary of General Affairs" in a new government with Roosevelt remaining only as a figurehead.

Those implicated in the plot by Butler all denied any involvement. MacGuire was the only figure identified by Butler who testified before the committee. Others whom Butler accused were not called to testify, mainly because the committee adopted an attitude of deference to these corporate giants. Their report said "The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into testimony which constitute mere hearsay." Other implicated by Butler included Alfred P. Sloan, Irinee DuPont, and financier J.P. Morgan Jr.

On January 29, 1935, John L. Spivak published the first of two articles in the communist magazine New Masses, revealing portions of testimony to the committee that had been redacted as hearsay. Spivak argued that the plot was part of a plan by J.P. Morgan and other financiers who were coordinating with fascist groups to overthrow Roosevelt.

On March 25, 1935, MacGuire died in a hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 36. His attending doctor at the hospital attributed the death to pneumonia and its complications. Conspiracy theorists have speculated that his death may not have been due to natural causes.

The New York Times reported that Butler had told friends that General Hugh S. Johnson, former head of the National Recovery Administration, was to be installed as dictator, and that the J.P. Morgan banking firm was behind the plot. Butler told Congress that MacGuire had told him the attempted coup was backed by three million dollars, and that the 500,000 men were probably to be assembled in Washington, D.C. the following year. All the parties alleged to be involved publicly said there was no truth in the story, calling it a joke and a fantasy.

Butler testified that on July 1, 1933, he met with MacGuire and Doyle for the first time. MacGuire was a $100-a-week bond salesman for Wall Street banking firm Grayson Murphy & Company and was also a member of the Connecticut American Legion. Butler stated that he was asked to run for National Commander of the American Legion. Two or three days later, Butler said that he has a second meeting with MacGuire and Bill Doyle, the Commander of the Massachusetts American Legion. He stated that they offered to get hundreds of supporters at the American Legion convention to ask for a speech. MacGuire left a typewritten speech with Butler that they proposed he read at the convention. Butler said in his testimony that the speech "urged the American Legion convention to adopt a resolution calling for the United States to return to the gold standard, so that when veterans were paid the bonus promised to them, the money they received would not be worthless paper."

Around August 1, MacGuire had a private meeting with Butler in which Butler alleged that MacGuire told him Grayson Murphy underwrote the formation of the American Legion in New York and Butler told MacGuire that the American Legion was "nothing but a strikebreaking outfit."
On September 24, MacGuire visited Butler's hotel room in Newark, but the two men did not meet. In late September, Butler said that he met with Robert Sterling Clark, an art collector and an heir to the Singer Corporation fortune. MacGuire had known Clark when Clark was a second lieutenant in China during the Boxer Rebellion, where he had been nicknamed "the millionaire lieutenant".

During the first half of 1934, MacGuire traveled to Europe and mailed postcards to Butler. On August 22, Butler met MacGuire at a hotel, the last time Butler met him. According to Butler, it was on this occasion that MacGuire asked Butler to run a new veterans' organization and lead a coup attempt against the President. On September 13, Paul Comly French, a reporter who had once been Butler's personal secretary, met MacGuire in his office. In late September, Butler told Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) commander James E. Van Zandt that co-conspirators would be meeting him at an upcoming Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.

On November 20 the Committee began examining evidence. French broke the story in the Philadelphia Record and New York Post on November 21. On November 22, The New York Times wrote its first article on the story. Their story was not complimentary to Butler and described his claim of a coup as a "gigantic hoax".

The Congressional committee preliminary report read in part: "This committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men as John W. Davis, Gen. Hugh Johnson, General Harbord, Thomas W. Lamont, Admiral Sims, or Hanford MacNider. The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into the testimony which constitute mere hearsay."

The congressional committee final report on February 15, 1935, said:

"In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. No evidence was presented and this committee had none to show a connection between this effort and any fascist activity of any European country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient. This committee received evidence from Maj. Gen Smedley D. Butler (retired), twice decorated by the Congress of the United States. He testified before the committee as to conversations with one Gerald C. MacGuire in which the latter is alleged to have suggested the formation of a fascist army under the leadership of General Butler. MacGuire denied these allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principal, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various forms of veterans organizations of Fascist character."

A November 22, 1934, New York Times editorial published just two days into Committee testimony dismissed Butler's story as "a gigantic hoax" and a "bald and unconvincing narrative." Time magazine reported on December 3, 1934, that the committee "alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated." Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been alleged to be the back-up leader if Butler declined. When asked about this, MacArthur called it "the best laugh story of the year."

Following is a newsreel containing remarks made by Butler about the plot.




No prosecutions or further investigations followed. The news media dismissed the plot. Butler moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his wife until his death from an incurable condition of the upper gastro-intestinal tract (believed to be cancer) on June 21, 1940. Butler died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia.

The story of the Business Plot is told more fully in Sally Denton's 2012 book The Plots Against the President, reviewed here in this community.

On October 28, 1919, the Volstead Act came into effect. The long title of the Act was "An Act to prohibit intoxicating beverages, and to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for other than beverage purposes, and to ensure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries" and it brought about prohibition into the United States.



The bill was passed above the objections of President Woodrow Wilson, who used his veto to try to prevent prohibition from being enacted. But on October 27, 1919, Wilson's veto was overridden in the House of Representatives, the same day as the veto, and it was overridden in the Senate on October 28th.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the production, sale, and transport of "intoxicating liquors", but it did not define what "intoxicating liquors" were, and it did not provide penalties for offenders. The Volstead Act gave both the federal government and the states the power to enforce the ban. Wilson's veto was based largely on technical grounds. Wilson was opposed to the bill because it also included prohibition during wartime.

As we now know, prohibition didn't work out as planned. The production, importation, and distribution of alcoholic beverages, once performed by legitimate businesses, were taken over by criminal gangs, which fought each other for market control in violent turf wars. Many gangsters became rich and were admired for flouting an unpopular law. Enforcement was difficult because the gangs became so rich they were often able to bribe underpaid and understaffed law-enforcement personnel and pay for expensive lawyers. They also were able to garner the support of many politicians by financing their campaigns. Many in higher socio-economic groups were inclined to flout the law. In large cities that served as major points of liquor importation (such as Chicago and Detroit) gangs wielded significant political power.

Prohibition came into force at midnight on January 17, 1920. In anticipation of its passage, some gang leaders were stashing liquor months before the Volstead Act was enforced. Enforcement of the Volstead Act was problem. There were only 134 agents designated by the Prohibition Unit to cover all of Illinois, Iowa, and parts of Wisconsin. According to Charles C. Fitzmorris, Chicago's Chief of Police during the beginning of the Prohibition period, 60% of his police force were in the bootleg business.



Prohibition lost advocates as alcohol gained increasing social acceptance and as prohibition led to disrespect for the law and the growth of organized crime. A black market for liquor was soon created, providing lucrative business opportunities for gangsters like Al Capone. Thousands of “bootleggers” across the country flouted the law and their products were no longer monitored for quality. Further lack of support for the law was apparent from the proliferation of “speakeasies.” These were establishments that offered secret places for people to drink, out of the sight of official law enforcement, and largely unregulated for other illegal activities.

Presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt had a talent for reading the mood of the electorate, and he applied that talent to this issue. He made the repeal of prohibition part of his campaign platform in his first campaign for President. In August 1932, in Seagirt, New Jersey, Roosevelt declared that alcohol abuse was “bound up with crime, with insanity and, only too often, with poverty. It is increasingly apparent that the intemperate use of intoxicants has no place in this new mechanized civilization of ours. In our industry, in our recreation, on our highways, a drunken man is more than an objectionable companion, he is a peril to the rest of us." He added that prohibition "has been accompanied in most parts of the country by complete and tragic failure. A general encouragement of lawlessness has resulted; corruption, hypocrisy, crime and disorder have emerged; and instead of restricting, we have extended the spread of intemperance. This failure has come for this very good reason: we have depended too largely upon the power of governmental action instead of recognizing that the authority of the home and that of the churches in these matters is the fundamental force on which we must build."

Following his election, Roosevelt wasted no time in attacking Prohibition. In the first month of his Presidency he signed the Cullen-Harrison Act on March 22, 1933. This law amended the Volstead Act of 1919 by raising the permitted percentage of alcohol to 3.2 percent. It also taxed it. According to an anecdote, after Roosevelt signed the act he said to his aide, Louis Howe, "I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

The anti-Prohibition movement was a strong one and it resulted in the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which repealed the 18th Amendment. In his proclamation declaring the repeal, Roosevelt urged Americans to drink responsibly. He cautioned them "not bring upon themselves the curse of excessive use of intoxicating liquors, to the detriment of health, morals and social integrity.”



The move was not only based in social engineering, but in economics as well. The federal government collected more than $258 million in alcohol taxes in the first year after repeal. This accounted for over 8% of the government’s tax revenue. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, weeks before President-elect Roosevelt took the oath of office. On December 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, rendered the Volstead Act unconstitutional, and restored control of alcohol to the states.

potus_geeks becomes a teenager today. It was 13 years ago, on March 26, 2010, that this dorky little community began. In the beginning it was a bunch of silly posts gleaned from a handful of books in what was laughingly called the potus_geeks library.



Today, a baker's dozen years later, the library has expanded to over 1300 books, including biographies of every President from George Washington to Joe Biden, most of the "almost presidents," some Vice-Presidents and prominent senators and cabinet members, and tomes about many of the presidential elections. In 2021 the library relocated to our new home in Linn Creek, Missouri.





Abby, the original potus_geeks editor/furry best friend, went to puppy heaven in August of 2015 after a long 18 year life of making everyone love her. She is still missed.



Recently the family has been joined by Dobby, an Australian cattle dog, and so far he's more interested in chewing books than in readng them, but he's still a puppy, so there's still hope.



In past years I've used this day as an opportunity to look back on the subjects covered, and the presidential sites visited. There wasn't much touring during the pandemic era, but I was able to make a detour to see Mount Rushmore last summer, and plans are in place this summer for more presidential sight-seeing, likely to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in neighbouring Iowa, and maybe one or two more interesting places.

We live in polarized times unfortunately, and diversity seems to be a buzzword that is often forgotten when it comes to diversity of thought. potus_geeks has always strove to be a place where history takes a front seat over politics, and where an effort is made to make all feel welcome, whether Republican, Democrat or genuine independent, whether liberal, centrist or conservative. This will continue to be our goal, and civility will be our guide. The words of Abraham Lincoln, cited below, will never be forgotten in this community.



History is not the propery of an elite class of academic historian, it is something that belongs to all of us and it is something that will always be treasured as we strive to learn its important lesson and become wrapped up in its fascinating stories.

Happy birthday to us!