Chasing Shadows

By Bob Mumby

Beginning in 1933, a group of conservative businessmen in the United States became concerned that the Roosevelt Administration was a harbinger of Socialism. Allegedly, they considered launching a coup, to be spearheaded by Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in history at the time. These discussions never got further than the cocktail parties they probably took place in, but what if circumstances produced a scenario in which those businessmen had actually followed through and Butler begrudgingly agreed? What if Butler was handed near absolute power, at the head of a paramilitary army, only for those businessmen to realise too late that the retired Major General had rather different beliefs to their own?
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sea Lion Press
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223728399

Book preview

To Smith’s of Bourne where I wrote about half of this, and to Liam Baker and Marion Digena who had to put up with me messaging them with half-baked ideas every month or so

Prologue

15th February 1933

It was a good evening for a drink. A nice cold pint of beer would go down very well when the weather was this clement. But at this particular moment in time, such a thing was just not possible, Anton Cermak lamented. Herbert Hoover was still President of the United States, the 18th Amendment was still in effect and alcohol was still prohibited. This time next month though? Well, it would probably still be illegal, but the work towards ending that state of affairs would surely have begun. In little more than a few weeks, America would have a new President, one who had campaigned on a platform explicitly in favour of restoring the American liberty to drink.

He had spent the last week in Miami, negotiating with the President-elect’s campaign manager James Farley. His own plate was well full enough, being mayor of Chicago would be difficult at the best of times but compounding those problems – alongside the straitened conditions of the Depression which affected them all – was the blasted ‘tax strike’ that threatened to bring the city to its knees. But as one of the most stalwart supporters of the President-elect ever since the Democratic Convention, he hoped that he would be able to extract a reward that would keep Chicago’s teachers in work and ensure that basic municipal services would not collapse.

He had arrived in Bayfront Park about half an hour earlier and had listened to the President-elect make a speech – a repeat of the themes which had dominated his astoundingly successful campaign, the angry stand against demagoguery, the call for unity of all classes, of the necessity of good government in these dark times. The words occasionally rang hollow considering who had accompanied him on the ticket, but Anton knew only too well how fraught the Convention was and how vital it had been to draw in the support of populist Southerners.

He had spoken to the President-elect briefly after his speech, but now a man had come forward with a telegram. While its contents were explained, he stood to one side and took in the large crowd which had assembled in the park. For a speech he had heard a dozen times or more, he was surprised that it could still bring in numbers, but these were the heady days after an election and before inauguration when all things seem possible, and the inevitable travails seem far, far away. People were stood on wooden chairs, some of them a little unsteadily, just to catch a glimpse of the man who had turned crushing defeat four years earlier into overwhelming victory.

There was a gasp in the crowd, that turned into a sinister murmur and Anton felt a prickling on the back of his neck, some ancient instinct forewarning him of danger. He turned to look back at the President-elect who had also felt the change in atmosphere. There was a crack and the flash of a gun muzzle, and he flinched. Blood sprayed across the car he had been leaning against only moments before and his first thought was that he must have been struck. Then a Secret Service agent pushed past him and shoved the President-elect’s slumping form back into the car. The realisation of what he had just seen filled him with horror. The crowd had already turned on the shooter, grabbing him and dragging him down while a policeman marched forward with nightstick in hand. Hysterical screams and bellows of rage filled the air which only moments before had echoed with high-minded talk of hope and progress.

As the car roared away, bearing the prone bloodied form of Al Smith, President-elect of the United States of America, to the nearest hospital, he founded himself murmuring words under his breath.

‘It should have been me.’

1st May 1934

It just so happened that today was Otto Meiners’ day off. Or it was supposed to be. Instead, he was on the roof of Portland City Hall, struggling with a flagpole mechanism. He felt his cheeks burning with a rough combination of anger and embarrassment, as he tugged at the ropes that were supposed to raise and lower the flag, and they refused to budge. With a final gasp of exertion, he gave up, the palms of his hands red and stinging.

‘So, is it staying up?’

‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’ growled Meiners, making to set about the ropes again. He was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. It was Sergeant Philips, who had called him in that morning.

‘Maybe let somebody else have a go, son.’ he said in grandfatherly tones. ‘Take a moment and come back to it with fresh eyes.’ Meiners opened his mouth to argue, but saw the steely glint in the sergeant’s eyes, and nodded. He turned away and sat down on the edge of the roof, his legs swinging.

Every year the Reds organised some kind of May Day event. Commemorating some kind of anarchist bomb-thrower, as far as Meiners was aware or cared to know. And every year, the police prepared accordingly. This year, all their preparation had proved insufficient. Below him, a swirling mass of angry humanity turned and wobbled, shouting dozens of discordant slogans in several languages. Meiners could pick out a few lines of German occasionally. For one day, Portland had become Weimar-on-the-Willamette.

The mood in Portland had been tense for weeks. Meiners had friends on the Red Squad, and according to them, the longshoremen had been raring to strike since April at least. And Meiners knew what a strike would be. It was the thin end of the wedge for the mob beneath his feet. Negotiations between the Waterfront Employers’ Association and the International Longshoremen’s Association continued to appear cordial, but they were useless talk. The ILA, based on the East Coast, was far away from the demands of the Pacific dockworkers – both in terms of geography and sentiment. The longshoremen’s sentiment was with the Maritime Workers Industrial Union, which everybody knew was a front for the Communists.

If the sergeant had intended for the view to clear his head, it wasn’t working. For months, the Communists had taken control of the union, today they had seized the streets. He tore his eyes away and returned to the knot of police officers struggling with the flagpole. At some point in the night, the Communists had staked a claim to City Hall, raising their blood red banner where the Stars and Stripes should fly. As if that wasn’t insulting enough, there was some mechanical malfunction which rendered their efforts to remove it a humiliation.

‘Any luck?’ he asked, feeling he already knew the answer from the despondent faces surrounding the flagpole.

‘I don’t know what they did.’ sighed Philips. ‘But it looks like we’ll have to cut down the whole flagpole to fix it. That’d be more damaging than just leaving the flag up for now.’ Meiners looked at him as if he’d been slapped.

‘So, we’re just going to leave it?’ he said, slowly, struggling to keep his composure.

‘Only until tonight.’ shrugged Philips. ‘Look, I know it’s annoying, but-’

‘Annoying? You think I’m annoyed?’ snapped Meiners. ‘Look around you sergeant. By the time you take that flag down, it’ll be too late. The Reds will have had their moment.’

‘You forget yourself, officer.’ Philips said, cutting him off. Meiners bristled, wanting to let the sergeant know who had forgotten what. But the moment passed, as he found himself unable to find the words. Philips, satisfied by Meiners’ silence, turned away. ‘Let’s get off this rooftop, and actually do something useful.’

As they clumped down stairwells through City Hall and back out onto the street, the walls echoed not only with the shouts of the crowd, but with the electronically amplified tones of a public announcement system that the Communists had enthusiastically revealed. Their demands cut over the general hubbub and set Meiners’ teeth on edge.

‘Social Security!’

‘Free milk for children!’

‘Release of all class war prisoners!’

Class war. What did that mean? From what Meiners saw around him, it meant one thing. Anarchy. The overthrow of those who owned and invested and produced by those who grasped and knew nothing. He had left Germany many years ago, and had no intention of returning, but at least their government grasped the threat of socialism and did something about it. Most Americans were entirely naïve about what had to be done. Philips meant well, but he didn’t see the protestors as what they were. The thin end of the wedge.

The Reds were clever, he had to give them that. Some days, they screamed what they believed right into your face. Other days, they clothed themselves in reasonable language that many Americans would nod along to without realising what it was they were agreeing to. The Great Depression had stretched on for nearly five years, and with every passing day the words of class war rang a stronger note in peoples’ ears. And whose fault was that?

Huey Long was an accidental President, the man who should have occupied that office cut down by an assassin’s bullet. It was all very clear to Otto Meiners. Zangara, the killer, had never made a secret of his beliefs. He was a Bolshevist, his hands eager to spill the blood of kings, presidents and capitalists. Was it a coincidence that his actions had opened up the way for Long, who had gone on to exacerbate and mismanage the crisis?

Meiners did not believe in coincidences. Something had to be done.

18th August 1934

‘Haven’t we wasted enough time with Butler?’ rumbled J.P. Morgan Jr. from somewhere near the drinks cabinet. ‘You’ve spent over a year trying to win him over. It’s clear by now that the man is either enjoying his retirement or,’ he paused, glowering over a well-filled glass of brandy, ‘more likely he actively opposes our cause.’ Jerry MacGuire smiled, unconvincingly, and his bright blue eyes glittered with annoyance.

‘It is true he has never accepted any of my entreaties for him to speak on our behalf – on the veteran’s behalf – at any rally of the American Legion.’ He agreed. ‘But that is because at that time our complaints centred around the gold standard. The man has a soldier’s education, he has no appreciation for financial science and believes the President’s guff about the banks.’

‘I fail to see how his agreement with Long’s dubious economics makes him an ally to us.’ Murmured J. Howard Pew, the oilman turned magazine publisher. ‘Indeed, I expect it would make him an implacable enemy to us.’

‘The General likes his talk about banks, but he’s no friend to the Kingfish.’ Interrupted John W. Davis, Morgan’s legal counsel and ex-Presidential candidate. ‘The allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation that are coming out of Louisiana haven’t turned up anything of substance but Long’s obvious concern for maintaining his machine does nothing to make them go away.’

‘That’s the least of it!’ barked Raymond Pitcairn, that curious mixture of industrialist and medievalist. ‘His Public Works Administration mixes Bolshevik-style central planning with a typical Southern political machine. Roads, bridges and dams get built in places which voted for Smith and Long in ’32. They don’t in places which didn’t.’ MacGuire licked his lips and turned back towards Morgan.

‘Butler will agree because when he weighs in his head which is the greater threat to democracy, himself with us at his back, or Long on his own, the answer is clear to see.’ His usual overly jovial tone had become cool and calculating. ‘I know you would prefer MacArthur, lord knows he is more obviously aligned with our beliefs, but Butler is the only man with the universal respect among the veterans to pull off what we ask of him.’

Morgan considered for a moment, looking into his slightly emptier glass. Prohibition had never stopped him from indulging, but it was satisfying to know that what he was doing was entirely legal and not some shady criminal past time. The removal of that overweening amendment to the Constitution had been the one bright spot of Huey Long’s ignominious Presidency.

‘Very well.’ He grunted. ‘Butler it is.’

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5th May 1935

The early summer sun beat down upon the lumber camp, bathing everything in a buttery glow. Normally, the camp would echo with the screech of saws carving through wood, the bellows of men trying to make themselves heard, the rhythmic thump of axes accompanied by the muffled song of a labour gang. Today, however, it was quiet. That’s not to say it was silent. Raised voices could be heard from a half empty barn, their cries echoing against the tin roof and around the empty yard.

Within, the entire workforce of the camp had gathered. They were all men, most in their early twenties but a few were younger still, boys really. And some were older, veterans of the Great War. They wore stained and faded overalls which had grown threadbare through constant use in all weathers. They may once have been a bold green but had become a dirty grey joined by a dozen other colours as patches had been stitched over worn spots. The men varied in colour nearly as much as their uniforms, which was even more unusual than the fact they weren’t working. The Relief Corps kept the races separate, and the whole time the camp had been open whites and blacks had been allocated different living quarters, had been given tasks on different areas of the site, had been preventing from mixing with one another as far as possible. But they could do nothing to stop them talking to each other, and when the decision was reached to down tools, the men had done it together irrespective of where they came from. It hadn’t been easy and still wasn’t, old habits died hard.

Robert Mitchum stood in the crowd of men, craning his neck to see the speakers who stood on a makeshift stage of piled logs. They had elected a so-called ‘Central Committee’ in the winter when they had brought their complaints about pay and conditions to the administration. They had been reminded that the National Relief Corps was an extension of the Army, and that refusal to work could see them face a court martial. That had dampened their fervour for a time, along with a murmur of a commission to investigate the problems. But the commission had not been forthcoming, and word had filtered through from other camps that court martial or no court martial, they would strike.

He hadn’t been there for the first strike, but from what he could tell, things had only worsened since then. Their uniforms hadn’t been replaced, the grim shacks they slept in hadn’t been renovated, they were still served the same thin gruel twice a day, and they were still paid a pittance that forced them to buy from the administration shop.

‘President Long talks a big talk about Sharing The Wealth but I don’t see a lot of sharing going on! He wastes time telling stories while our bellies stay empty!’ shouted one of the speakers. ‘Every man a king, he says, but the Kingfish plays court like any other crowned head, surrounded by barons in his palace and no man voted for him!’ A great cheer went up, the crumpled yellowed pages of the union newsletter were waved in the air, and Robert found himself doing the same.

‘Maybe it’s a case of bad advice?’ came a voice from within the crowd. There was a murmur, and everyone turned to look at who it was who spoke. The speaker was an older man, probably one of the veterans, his hair was greying, and his face was weathered and lined. ‘He’s the youngest President we’ve ever had, and he clearly never expected to be President.’

‘You could say the same about Teddy Roosevelt, and we never had these problems with him!’ someone else answered.

‘Teddy Roosevelt was an exceptional man, with the advantage of wealth and education, and was hardly inexperienced when it came to politics. Long doesn’t have any of those advantages, it’s easy for the feckless establishment who got us into this mess to put their hooks into him.’

The uneasy grumblings since the interruption took on a more conciliatory tone as the idea percolated around the barn. It was true that some of Long’s ideas seemed to show his heart was in the right place, even if they had come up short. And the idea of him being ensnared by bad advisors who distracted him from real solutions made more sense than him being corrupt from the beginning.

‘What’s our solution then?’ Robert found himself shouting. ‘How do we make him listen to us, instead of them?’

The old veteran smiled slightly, he clearly already had answer and had been waiting for someone to ask the question, and the crowd seemed to lean in to listen.

‘The President is distracted from the work that needs to be done, he needs a helping hand, an... Assistant President, who can keep him on the right course and help him carry out the business of government,’ he replied, his voice growing louder. ‘and I know just the man who can do it!’

Excitement was building in the crowd and as they shouted ‘Who?’, the veteran was pushed forward toward the stage. He scrambled up, joining the nonplussed speakers who had commanded the relief workers’ attention only moments before. He waved his hands for quiet, and everyone stood in rapt attention.

‘Three years ago I marched with the Bonus Army, and while we may have failed, no-one can deny we put a scare up Washington. That was where I heard General Smedley Butler speak. He said we had to hang together, or we weren’t worth a damn. He said we were called bums and tramps even though we had fought and bled in 1917. He said he’d fight our corner for as long as he had breath. And every word he spoke was true.’ He took a deep breath, finally getting to his point. ‘Now General Butler is leading a new march on Washington, and I say we join him! Everything he said three years ago is true again today, and Butler is the best advisor the President could have to help him make things right!’

A bellow of agreement went up and in moments, a vote was held, with only a few registering dissent with joining the March on Washington. Billfolds seemed to appear from nowhere, stamped with a streaky photograph of the General’s face, and describing his foundation of a ‘Victory Legion’ to demand reform from the President. Robert found it a little disquieting, as he folded the literature and pushed it into a pocket, and he wondered where the old veteran had come from.

8th September 1935

Washington was not a pleasant city to march in. The air was thick and muggy, the sun’s heat was ever present, but its light was notable for its absence, and an occasional downpour offered some relief but inevitably dampened the mood if it lasted too long. But today nothing that the weather could throw at them could lower the spirits of the men and women who marched with the Victory Legion.

They had gathered from across the country, mostly veterans but also their families and then men from the camps of the National Relief Corps and other labour unionists who had grown frustrated with the inaction from the White House. The banners and placards of the Legion were joined by the blue flags flown by the International Longshoremen’s Association and the golden honeybees of End Poverty In California. It hadn’t been an easy journey for many of them, they had ridden the rails in draughty box cars, hitchhiked and even walked to make their way to the nation’s capital. They were all colours, shapes and sizes and were dressed in a mixture of work clothes and old military fatigues. Some wore the Legion’s new uniform, freshly stitched at no little expense, an imitation of the Marines’ blue dress. They stood out dramatically against the greater numbers dressed in drab khaki, which was somewhat the point.

Smedley Butler looked on, from atop a white horse. He had protested when MacGuire had suggested it, saying it was a stereotype and risked revealing the reality of their intentions, but the man with the silver plate in his head had only smiled and explained it would look good in photos. And that had been that. He watched the glistening faux-Marines, billy clubs swinging in their hands and suppressed a grimace. If the Bonus Army had had men like these, then maybe MacArthur would have thought twice about gunning them down. But it was precisely because they were not the Bonus Army, that they had been able to afford to outfit and equip a few battalions of stormtroopers. As he had so many times over the last year, he wondered if he had made the right decision in agreeing to MacGuire’s offer, then as he always did, he crushed those doubts. There was little point wallowing in conjecture. He had considered MacGuire’s arguments in that Pennsylvania hotel, he had come to a conclusion, and he had made a decision. Now that he was in the capital, with half a million marching at his back, it was a little late to decide it was a mistake.

A man in a pin striped suit and a straw boater was trying to get his attention, and he urged his horse to trot over. The man was young, in his early twenties probably and looked flustered, not entirely thanks to the weather.

‘Uh, hello, Mr, uh, General Butler.’ He stammered. ‘The President wants to see you.’ Smedley smiled to try and set the young man at ease.

‘I expect he does.’ He replied, leaping down from the horse.

His guide led him inside the White House, muttering to himself as much as he did to Smedley. This wasn’t his first visit to the so-called presidential palace, he had after all been awarded the Medal of Honor twice. However, in those cases he had been invited, and had been receiving a decoration from the President, rather than taking something from him. The place took on a different atmosphere, as if everyone was just holding back a sneeze. The glow of pride mixed with guilt he had felt on those occasions was replaced with something much more bitter, but not something he could name. He didn’t feel guilty for his actions, though perhaps a little disappointed that they were necessary.

Finally, they arrived at the doors to the Oval Office. His guide knocked gingerly, but Smedley didn’t wait for the request to enter. He nudged the young man out of the way and pushed his way through the door. Huey Pierce Long sat behind the Resolute Desk and glowered at the upstart General who had so thoroughly ruined his day. While Smedley wore his Marine uniform, for the first time in nearly half a decade, Long wore his customary flamboyant dress of white silk suit and pink silk tie. The last three years did not appear to have been kind to the young President, his hair was grey at the temples and lines etched themselves like cobwebs across his face and hands. As Smedley closed the door behind him, Long spoke.

‘I know who you work for.’ He intoned darkly. Smedley didn’t answer immediately, crossing the room to sit in a chair opposite Long facing him.

‘I have no doubt you do.’ He replied, keeping his voice even. The President was clearly unsatisfied by this response and sneered.

‘I have to say, I am disappointed that you would throw in your lot with Morgan and his acolytes.’ He leaned back and folded his arms. ‘I had thought you were the kind of man I could work with, the kind of man who understood my programme, I see now that you’re a Republican through and through.’

‘We still can work together.’ Smedley said sternly. Long’s eyes flashed and he leaned forward suddenly.

‘You know I can summon the Army. Have MacArthur disperse your rabble the way he did with the Bonus Army.’ He hissed. His face was cold, but Smedley could sense the other man’s unease.

‘I have 500 thousand men, I can lick MacArthur’s boys any day of the week, and you know for goddamn sure even if you could drive me out of Washington, I would be back in a month with ten times that.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘I’m staying here, one way or the other. It’s up to you how.’

Long stared back at Smedley, his eyes regarding him coolly. Then he seemed to crumple, the last energy sapped from his limbs.

‘What is it that you want?’ he croaked.

‘You will appoint me to your Cabinet,’ Growled Smedley, ‘as Secretary of General Affairs, a new position that will grant me the bulk of powers normally reserved for the Presidency. You, in effect, will be reduced to a ceremonial figurehead.’ The words came out of his mouth mechanically, as if MacGuire himself was in the room, though not nearly as enthusiastically as he would be saying it.

‘And what is first on your agenda? From what I hear from your friends, the restoration of the gold standard?’ Long asked, a little light reappearing in his eyes. ‘How long do you think your army will last before they realise that you’re nothing more than a useful idiot for Wall Street?’ Smedley frowned at the President for a moment and Long smirked, believing his words had got to the General.

‘Fuck that.’ He chuckled, his face breaking into a grin. ‘I think you’ll find, Mr President, that I’m very much my own man.’

Chapter 1

8th September 1935

‘...the public announcement of General Butler’s appointment to Cabinet, with the new position of Secretary of General Affairs was met with a mixed reception in Washington. The leadership of both parties have remained moodily quiet, but the massed ranks that Butler has marched across the country with have begun a seemingly spontaneous party which has been compared to the notorious events following the inauguration of Andrew Jackson-’

Huey Long savagely twisted the knob on the wireless and the Oval Office became silent for what seemed like the first time that day. The quiet wasn’t total, he could still hear the creak and faint murmuring of people carrying out the White House’s inevitable late-night business, and in the distance the muffled laughter and rumble of the Victory Legion’s celebrations. But there was no General burning a hole in his head with his eyes, or the train of civil servants and Congressmen who had followed him, asking just what the hell had happened.

He found himself asking much the same question. For two years he had struggled, with Congress, with his own party, with the country itself. He had faced strikes across the country and the heavy-handed reaction of the business community, and paralysis in the Capitol as every paragraph of his programme was frowned at and poured over. The mid-terms in 1934 had been disappointing, as his party fell back in the North and West. But the gains had been for the spectrum of left-leaning parties which had emerged from the woodwork, rather than for the Republicans, and he had hoped such men could help him pass his programme over the heads of the reactionaries of both major parties who had held him back. He had been confident in turning the tide, in his own ability to forge a new consensus.

And now, he was nothing but a figurehead. A rubberstamp that ensured the legitimacy of this thinly veiled coup. He had been tempted all day by the idea of calling up MacArthur and having him disperse the mob, but Butler’s words rang true. If he did that, he would be the second president in a handful of years to turn Washington into a battlefield and thousands more would rally to Butler’s standard. It was not a risk he was willing to take.

There was a sharp crack in the distance, the sound of a firework being let off, one of many that had been launched over the last few hours. He stood and looked out of the window, watching the colourful sparks light up the sky and fizzle out into nothing almost immediately. He scratched his chin and considered. During their negotiation – more of an instruction really – Butler had said they could work together. And perhaps he was right. Long turned back to his desk and began scribbling notes onto a sheet of paper.

‘To a job well done!’ exclaimed Jerry MacGuire, and the assembled leaders of the American Liberty League raised their filled glasses in salute. The man of the hour had not graced them with his presence J.P. Morgan Jr. couldn’t help but note, but he put that to the back of his mind. A year ago, this day had seemed like a fairy tale and yet here they stood, having accomplished everything that MacGuire had promised them. Well, almost everything.

‘What next then?’ he asked, after finishing his mouthful. The heads in the room turned from him toward John J. Raskob, the former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He had resigned the position when Long was inaugurated and had become the architect of their political strategy.

‘There are already the numbers in Congress for an agenda of our choosing, thanks to Long’s weakness. A coalition of conservatives in both the Republican and Democratic parties will ensure the passage of our agenda.’ Raskob replied. Morgan smiled thinly.

‘I meant,’ he said, trying not to sound annoyed, ‘what is first on that agenda?’

‘We will have to act slowly at first.’ Murmured Raskob. ‘The General made little mention of our policies in his campaign, sticking to his usual rabble rousing. Immediately restoring the gold standard is bound to raise hackles in the Victory Legion, at least until we can secure the organisation firmly under our control.’ There was a murmur of agreement, and Morgan looked around at the bobbing heads in growing frustration.

‘But what will we actually do?’ he asked.

‘Don’t worry, Mr Morgan.’ Raskob smiled, pulling out a thick folded sheaf of paper out