The Plot To Seize The White House Read Online Free PDF

he was met by MacGuire. The bond salesman somehow knew where he was headed and asked to accompany him. Butler consented, more and more intrigued by the ubiquitous MacGuire who kept turning up everywhere he went like a bad penny. He found himself even growing perversely fond of MacGuire for his stubborn refusal to take No for an answer. In the Marines Butler had always had a soft spot for incorrigible rascals who brightened up monotonous routine by their unpredictable shenanigans.
    Besides, he was still curious to learn more about what the plotters in the gold scheme were up to. MacGuire now revealed a new plan to involve the general through his impending lecture tour for the V.F.W. Wasn’t he, MacGuire probed, going to use the opportunity to speak out on public issues important to the veterans? Butler wasn’t sure whether this was simply a shrewd guess or whether MacGuire somehow had eyes and ears all over the country.
    Butler declared that he believed that democracy was in danger from growing antidemocratic forces within the country and that he planned to appeal to the nation’s veterans to unite against this threat. At the same time he wanted to alert them to the risk of being dragged into another war by the propaganda of organizations camouflaged with patriotic trappings.
    MacGuire looked thoughtful. Then he asserted that the group he represented really had the identical objectives. He urged Butler to let him go along on the tour. He would stay in the background, enlisting veterans in “a great big superorganization to maintain our democracy.”
    Butler lost no time in squelching that idea. He admitted that he couldn’t keep MacGuire off any train he rode, but made it firmly clear that he would not be associated with the plans of MacGuire and his rich friends in any way. He softened the reprimand by saying that he did not want to hurt the feelings of a wounded veteran, but MacGuire would have to understand that he could not be used to aid money schemes.
    MacGuire said peevishly that he couldn’t understand why Butler refused to be a businessman like himself. The general expressed blunt suspicions of MacGuire’s real reasons for wanting to trail in the wake of this V.F.W. tour. MacGuire protested that he had no intention of doing anything subversive.
    Then he made the general a new offer. If Butler would merely insert in each of his V.F.W. speeches a short reference to the need for returning to the gold standard, in order to benefit veterans when a bonus bill was passed, MacGuire and his backers  would pay him $750 per speech-three times what the V.F.W. was paying him. Butler replied emphatically that he would refuse to abuse the veterans’  trust in him even if the offer were for $100,000.
    Frustrated, MacGuire took his departure abruptly.
    Soon afterward Butler began his swing around the country for the V.F.W. He was no longer bothered-for the moment-by the persistent attentions of Jerry MacGuire, who left for Europe on December 1, on a mission for his backers.
    MacGuire took his departure against the background of a steadily rising chorus of hatred for "that cripple in the White House" by big-business leaders. It was reflected in the anti-Roosevelt slant of both news and editorials in the business-oriented press. In the eyes of America's industrialists and bankers, the President, if not an actual secret Communist, was dedicated to destroying the nation's capitalist economy by the New Deal, which they labeled "creeping socialism."
    Many believed that unless F.D.R. were stopped, he would soon take America down the same road that the Russians had traveled. They were horrified by his recognition of the Soviet Union on November 16, 1933, seeing it as a sinister omen. They were equally appalled by his speech six weeks later promising that the United States would send no more armed forces to Latin America to protect private investments.
    Some business leaders envied their counterparts in Italy, who had financed