Background

Ethnicity: Smedley Butler's parents were of entirely English ancestry.

Smedley Butler was born on July 30, 1881, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States. His parents were Thomas and Maud (née Darlington) Butler. Butler also had two brothers.

Smedley Butler's maternal grandfather was Smedley Darlington, a Republican congressman from 1887 to 1891.

Education

Smedley Butler attended the West Chester Friends Graded High School (now the West Chester Friends School) and later he studied at the Haverford School. He became captain of the school baseball team and quarterback of its football team. Butler left school 38 days before his seventeenth birthday to enlist in the Marine Corps during the Spanish-American War. However, he received his high school diploma on June 6, 1898. Later Butler trained in Washington, District of Columbia, at the Marine Barracks.

Career

Smedley Butler started his career in July 1898 when he was assigned to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as part of a Marine Battalion. But he did not engage in combat as the area had already been captured by the time he reached there. Later he was assigned to the armored cruiser USS New York for four months. On April 8, 1899, he accepted a commission as a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Butler took part in the Philippine-American War and got an opportunity to get involved in combat in 1899 when he led 300 marines and successfully captured the town of Noveleta from the Filipino Insurrecto rebels. In 1900, he was sent to Tientsin, China to fight against the Boxer Rebellion. He displayed considerable bravery in the battles there and was promoted to the rank of Captain for his efforts.

Butler returned to the United States in 1901 and for the next two years was involved in a succession of interventions by the US in Central America and the Caribbean. In 1903, he was sent to Honduras to protect the United States Consulate in the wake of a revolt. After the Honduran campaign, Butler returned to Philadelphia and soon was assigned to garrison duty in the Philippines. However, in 1908 he was diagnosed as having a nervous breakdown and received nine months of sick leave, which he spent at home. He successfully managed a coal mine in West Virginia but returned to active duty in the Marine Corps at the first opportunity. Butler received command of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment on the Isthmus of Panama in 1909. In 1912, he led his battalion to capture the Coyotepe Hill in Nicaragua.

In January 1914, Butler was directed to join Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher off the coast of Mexico to monitor military activities during the Mexican Revolution. To plan for future military activities, he entered Mexico City pretending to be a Railroad officer and inspected the city to gain valuable knowledge for their invasion. American forces landed at Veracruz on April 21 to intercept an arms shipment. Butler led his forces admirably, and they soon suppressed the Mexican forces with minimum losses. In 1915, Butler led a force from USS Connecticut ashore on Haiti after a revolution threw the country into chaos. He won several battles against the rebels, including the capture of Fort Riviere where he displayed exemplary leadership and bravery.

With the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917, Butler, now a lieutenant colonel, began lobbying for a command in France. Though he worked to train the unit, they did not see combat operations. In October he became commander of Camp Pontanezen in France. He vastly improved sanitary conditions in the over-crowded camp, which served as an important debarkation point for the United States. In 1919, Butler took command of Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and over the next five years worked to make what had been a wartime training camp into a permanent base. In 1924, on then-mayor of Philadelphia W. Freeland Kendrick's request, he took leave from the Marines and was appointed Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia. He held this post until 1925. On February 28, 1926, Butler became commander of the United States Marine Corps base and held this post until 1927.

In 1927, Smedley Butler became commander of the 3d Marine Brigade and led a Marine Force in China for two years, during which he worked for United States interests and cleverly dealt with various Chinese warlords and leaders. After his return to the United States in 1929, he was promoted to Major General. To increase public consciousness about the Marines, he organized long marches and re-enactments of battles like 'Gettysburg' in front of distinguished audiences. Butler retired from military service in 1931 and began lecturing full-time at events and conferences. He traveled in the western United States and gave 60 speeches in all. His lectures were based on the profit motives behind warfare and the selfish motives behind America's foreign military interventions. He also authored a book on these issues, titled War Is a Racket. He also served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism from 1935 to 1937.

Achievements

• Smedley Butler was a senior United States Marine Corps officer, known as one of the most decorated Major Generals in the United States history. He is also known for serving in the Caribbean and abroad during World War I. Butler was an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences.
  
  Butler was awarded the Medal of Honour in 1914 for successfully leading the forces against Mexican rebels with minimum losses. In 1915, he was awarded his second Medal of Honour for his part in the capture of Fort Riviere in Haiti. He also received such awards as the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Order of the Black Star, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Mexican Service Medal and the World War I Victory Medal.
  
  The USS Butler (DD-636), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was named in his honor in 1942. Butler was featured in the 2003 Canadian documentary film The Corporation. In 1980, Butler's childhood home in West Chester, The Butler House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Works

More photos

• book

  • War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

    (General Smedley Butler's frank book shows how American wa...)

    1935

Religion

Smedley Butler was descended from the Quaker family.

Politics

Smedley Butler announced that he would run for the US Senate from Pennsylvania in March 1932. During his campaign, he supported the so-called Bonus Army, a large group of veterans and veteran supporters who lobbied Congress for payments of bonds issued to veterans prior to the war. Butler allied with Gifford Pinchot but was defeated on April 26, 1932, primary election with only 37.5% of the vote to incumbent Senator James J. Davis' 60%.

Later Butler spoke out against war profiteering, United States military adventurism, and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States. In his speeches, he denounced the Economy Act of 1933, called on veterans to organize politically to win their benefits, and condemned the FDR administration for its ties to big business. In November 1934, Butler claimed the existence of a political conspiracy by business leaders to overthrow President Roosevelt.

Butler voted for Norman Thomas of the Socialist Party for president in 1936.

Views

Smedley Butler was the leading national advocate for paramilitary police reform. However, upon his retirement, he renounced war and imperialism and became an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences.

Quotations: "War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses."

"I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."

"My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home."

Personality

Those who knew Smedley Butler said that he was a brave man and a good leader. He spoke frankly and honestly about his experiences and opinions and was very popular with the American public.

Physical Characteristics: Suffering from a tropical fever during the campaign, Butler received the nickname "Old Gimlet Eye" due to his constantly bloodshot eyes.

Connections

Smedley Butler married Ethel Conway Peters of Philadelphia in Bay Head, New Jersey, on June 30, 1905. The marriage produced three children.

Father:

Thomas Stalker Butler

Thomas Stalker Butler (November 4, 1855 – May 26, 1928) was a Member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Mother:

Maud Mary Butler

(July 3, 1855 – June 20, 1936)

Wife:

Ethel Conway Peters

(November 19, 1879 – June 15, 1962)

Daughter:

Ethel Peters Butler

(November 1906 – June 18, 1976)

Son:

Thomas Richard Butler

(died 1998)

Son:

Smedley Darlington Butler

(1909 – 1983)

Brother:

Samuel Butler

(April 20, 1884 – October 15, 1947)

Brother:

Horace Butler

(April 4, 1893 – January 13, 1930)

References

• Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History Smedley Butler's life and career epitomize the contradictory nature of American military policy through the first part of the twentieth century.
  1987
• American Renegade: The Life and Times of Smedley Butler, USMC American Renegade paints a vivid portrait of this little-remembered warrior, set against the backdrop of the extraordinary times he lived through. Appointed by President Coolidge to serve as Philadelphia police chief in 1923, Butler immediately ran afoul of big city Prohibition politics. Accusing Benito Mussolini of vehicular manslaughter in 1931, Old Gimlet Eye caused an international incident and nearly got himself court-martialed.
  2018
• Smedley D. Butler, USMC: A Biography This text is an exploration of the political issues of the first half of the twentieth century and an examination of a complicated, valiant man who shifted from Republican ideals to anti-corporate, left-wing populism.
  2011
• Old Gimlet Eye: The Adventures of Smedley D. Butler Old Gimlet Eye, first published in 1933, is the biography of United States Marine Corps legend Smedley Butler (1881-1940). The book ends with Butler's retirement in 1931, but he would go on to become a leading critic against the unbridled power of monied interests in the United States, and their use of the military to achieve their own selfish ends.
  1933
• Smedley Major General Smedley Butler is one of the most decorated Marines of all time and is a legend among the Corps. Coming from a background of privilege, he became a Marine to prove his worth. Through conflicts like the Philippine-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Banana Wars, and the War to End All Wars, he helped define what the Marine Corps is today.
  2019