GANGSTERS OF CAPITALISM

Character study of the Marine hero who became a radical critic of the system he’d fought to uphold.

Smedley Butler (1881-1940), whose father was a member of Congress, came from a prosperous, influential family. He was determined to excel, and nowhere else did he do so more than as an officer in the Marines, patrolling places such as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico—islands that formed the basis of an American empire. In his nearly 35 years in uniform, Butler later said, “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers….In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.” Foreign correspondent Katz bookends Butler’s service with a “Business Plot” that, filtered through the American Legion in the 1930s, was intended to mirror the rise of Mussolini in Italy. Butler was asked to head a column of World War I veterans in a march on Washington as Mussolini had marched on Rome, installing the president as a powerless figurehead fronting a fascist government. Butler replied to his interlocutor, “my interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy,” promising that he would raise an army to fight these homegrown fascists. He then took evidence of the plot to Congress, which did precisely nothing. Katz, naturally, links this plot to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Though Butler won two Medals of Honor and is exalted among Marines, Katz makes clear that it’s his heroism and not his politics that are remembered—and then dimly—even as he raised questions about American society and foreign policy that go unanswered today. The author is also not reticent about pointing out that Butler’s dedication to American democracy did not hinder him from crushing democratic movements in Cuba and Haiti, where he helped install regimes that were friendly to the autocracy he despised.

A relevant, readable effort to link past American colonialism to the present impulse to install homegrown leaders for life.