Smedley Darlington Butler - War Is a Racket : the Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

WAR IS A RACKET

Photo courtesy of the Butler family.

Smedley Butler with the USMC mascot bulldogs at an Army-Navy game.

WAR IS A RACKET

The Antiwar Classic by
Americas Most Decorated Soldier

Brigadier General
Smedley Darlington Butler

INTRODUCTION BY

JESSE VENTURA

SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

Additional material copyright 2013 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. Introduction copyright 2013 by Jesse Ventura Photographs and radio address courtesy of the Butler Family Other materials courtesy of the Marine Corps Archives % Special Collections

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62873-565-9

Printed in the United States of America

Butler with his wife, Ethel Conway Peters Butler, circa 1901.

Photos courtesy of the Butler family.

Butler with his son, Smedley Butler Jr.

Photo courtesy of the Butler family.

Butler at home with his cat.

Flier courtesy of the Butler family.

An election flier from an unsuccessful run at U.S. Senator in 1932.

M ajor General Smedley D. Butler was an American hero. His knowledge and teachings not only improved our military, but our country as a whole.

With special thanks to Molly Swanton and the Butler family, as well as Christopher Ellis at the Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections, we have been able to not only publish Major General Butlers famous expos, War Is a Racket, but several other essays, articles, and speeches.

While we have transcribed several of these works, we wanted to include some of them in their original format. Because of this, there may be marks or other comments on the documents. We at Skyhorse felt that showing the truest and most authentic form of General Butlers works would be best in remembering and respecting one of the most decorated Marines in United States history.

We hope that you enjoy his work as much as we have and that youll gain much wisdom and insight from The Old Gimlet.

I n my humble opinion, this little book should be required reading for every high school history classroom in America. War Is a Racket was written in 1935, but dont let that fool you. Its as relevant todaythree-quarters of a century lateras it was then. Maybe even more so. Theres an old saying, The more things change, the more they stay the same, and Smedley Butlers hard-hitting assessment continues to hold a vital message to be heeded in our time.

The General was a man after my own heart. Having served honorably in the militaryas I did as a Navy frogmanhe knows whereof he speaks when it comes to war. He understands the soldiers who fight for their country. And he came to realizeand be outraged bythose making another kind of killing off of their blood, sweat, and tears.

You need to know some background about Smedley Butler in order to fully appreciate what youre about to read. He was born in 1881 to a prominent Quaker family in Pennsylvania, the oldest of three sons. His grandfather and later his father were elected to U.S. Congress. A fine athlete in high school, he left against his fathers wishes shortly before his seventeenth birthday to enlist in the Marines after the Spanish-American War broke out. Lying about his age, Butler received a direct commission as a second lieutenant.

He had contempt for red tape, worked devotedly alongside his men, and rose quickly in the ranks. Butler went on to take part in just about all the U.S. military actions of his time: in Cuba and Manila, then the Boxer Rebellion in China (where he was twice wounded in action and promoted to captain at only nineteen), and then a series of interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. Those were known as the Banana Wars, because the aim was to protect the Panama Canal and U.S. commercial interests in the region such as the United Fruit Company.

At only thirty-seven, Butler became a brigadier general. In command of a camp in France during World War I,

[T]he ground under the tents was nothing but mud, [so] he had raided the wharf at Brest of the duck-boards no longer needed for the trenches, carted the first one himself up that four-mile hill to the camp, and thus provided something in the way of protection for the men to sleep on.

Thats the kind of guy Smedley Butler was.

He took some time off in the Roaring Twenties to become director of public safety in Philadelphia; running the citys police and fire departments. There his no-bullshit style got him into some trouble. The municipal government and its cops were unbelievably corrupt, and from the get-go, Butler was raiding speakeasies while cracking down on prostitution and gambling. Lets say he wasnt too popular among the rich and powerful who were used to law enforcement turning a blind eye in exchange for their payoffs.

Plus, perish the thought, the general often swore while giving his regular radio talks. When the mayor told the press, I had the guts to bring General Butler to Philadelphia and I have the guts to fire him, a crowd of four thousand Smedley supporters came together and forced a truce to keep him in Philadelphia awhile longer. Resigning after nearly two tumultuous years as director of public safety, Butler later said, Cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in.

During the late 1920s, Butler commanded a Marine Expeditionary Force in China and was named a major general upon his return. Nicknamed The Fighting Quaker, Butler had been hailed as the outstanding American soldier by Theodore Roosevelt. He is one of only nineteen people to this day who have been twice awarded the Medal of Honor. He also received the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, the highest Marine decoration at the time for officers. All told, Smedley served thirty-four years in the Marine Corps before retiring from active duty in 1931, at the age of fifty. When he became a civilian, the man had been under fire more than 120 times. He gave his men maps of how to get to his house, in case they ever needed him for anything.