![]() The first Butler ordered the killing of thousands of natives, enslaved legions of civilians to build American-controlled infrastructure projects in the conquered lands, and helped install military dictatorships across Latin America. But to many, there were two very different Smedley Butlers. Katz, author of Gangsters of Capitalism, Butler's career represents what he calls the "tension" between "the ideal of the United States as a leading champion of democracy on the one hand and a leading destroyer of democracy on the other." But perhaps these two ideals are not as opposed as Katz thinks.Ī Quaker from a respectable family on Philadelphia's Main Line, Butler "held on to principles of equality and fairness throughout his life, even as he fought to install and defend despotic regimes all over the world," Katz writes. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism." "I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business," he said toward the end of his life, "for Wall Street and for the bankers. But after retiring from the service, Butler saw it differently. The politicians who sent him to those places, most notably Woodrow Wilson, claimed that the missions were to preserve stability among restless natives and to make the world more democratic, more free, and more like America. ![]() During the depression of the 1930s, he renounced all that he had done, famously declaring that "war is a racket" for the economic interests of the ruling elite.īutler led combat units in the military occupations of the Philippines, China, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. ![]() The legend of Smedley Butler has sustained the American antiwar movement for nearly a century.Ī Marine commander who committed unspeakable atrocities in Washington's "small wars" between the Spanish-American War and the Second World War, Butler in the last decade of his life turned against the empire he had fought, killed, and enslaved countless people to build. Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire, by Jonathan M.
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