Military career, marriage and time as a coal miner Butler lived with his mother, father, grandmother, and siblings at the Borough of West Chester, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, Haverford awarded him his high school diploma on June 6, 1898, before the end of his final year his transcript stated he completed the Scientific Course "with Credit".įrom the 1900 federal census, Smedley D. Against the wishes of his father, he left school 38 days before his seventeenth birthday to enlist in the Marine Corps during the Spanish–American War. A Haverford athlete, he became captain of its baseball team and quarterback of its football team. His maternal grandfather was Smedley Darlington, a Republican Congressman from 1887-1891.īutler attended the West Chester Friends Graded High School, followed by The Haverford School, a secondary school popular with sons of upper-class Philadelphia families. His father was a lawyer, a judge and, for 31 years, a Congressman and chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee during the Harding and Coolidge administrations. His parents Thomas Stalker Butler and Maud (Darlington) Butler were descended from local Quaker families. Smedley Butler was born July 30, 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three sons. He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania his home has been maintained as a memorial and contains memorabilia collected during his various careers. The opinion of most historians is that while planning for a coup was not very advanced, wild schemes were discussed.īutler continued his speaking engagements in an extended tour but in June 1940 checked himself into a naval hospital, dying a few weeks later from what was believed to be cancer. The final report of the committee stated that there was evidence that such a plot existed, but no charges were ever filed. The individuals that were involved denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations. In 1934 he was involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists had approached him to lead a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. In his 1935 book War is a Racket, he described the workings of the military-industrial complex and, after retiring from service, became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s. In addition to his military achievements, he served as the Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia for two years and was an outspoken critic of U.S. He is one of 19 people to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. By the end of his career he had received 16 medals, five of which were for heroism. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Marine Corps, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. A cabinet officer told Hoover he could “see no profit in putting the Admirals up against a dashing Marine with a unique flair for publicity.Smedley Darlington Butler (J– June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye", was a Major General in the U.S. President Hoover ordered a court martial for Butler, however, public opinion was on Butler’s side. (Creative Commons)īutler’s relating of the story caused a political uproar in both Rome and Washington with the secretary of state apologizing to Mussolini, who denied the story, and Butler getting arrested. Mussolini kept driving and said, “What is one life in the affairs of a state?” Italian dictator Benito Musolini. The car was driving at high speed when it hit and killed a child. In 1931 Smedley Butler, who was then a major general, was giving a speech to the Philadelphia Contemporary Club and shared an anecdote told to him by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV who, when he was in Italy, rode with Mussolini in his car and interviewed him. Related: Operation Underworld: Did the mafia help the Navy during WWII or was there something sinister at play? The first general officer to be arrested since the Civil War He was later quoted as saying, “cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in.” At the end of the second year, he resigned after being pressured by the city’s major.
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