Jon Lewis: The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies

I thought no more about it until the end of the week, when Clark called up and asked if he might spend Sunday with me. I said, “Yes,” and he said, “I will take the 9 o’clock train from New York.” I said, “All right; I will meet you at the station.”

Well, this was getting down to something real. I was there on time, and he stepped off the train, and I recognized him. I had not seen him for 34 years, but I could see that he was the same man, a long, gangling fellow. His hair had turned gray, but it was the same man. We got in the car and drove out home and had lunch. He did not approach the subject until after lunch. Then we went out on the porch and he began to talk about my going to the convention along with him; that he had reservations. He said something about a private car attached to the Pennsylvania Limited; that we could get on at Paoli and go right out with him, and that he had a suite of rooms for me at the Palmer House and he would see that I had a chance to speak.

He said, “You have got the speech?” I said, “Yes. These fellows, Doyle and MacGuire, gave me the speech.” I said, “They wrote a hell of a good speech, too.” He said, “Did those fellows say that they wrote that speech?” I said, “Yes; they did. They told me that that was their business, writing speeches.” He laughed and said, “That speech cost a lot of money.” Clark told me that it had cost him a lot of money. Now either from what he said then or from what MacGuire had said, I got the impression that the speech had been written by John W. Davis—one or the other of them told me that—but he thought that it was a big joke that these fellows were claiming the authorship of that speech.

I said, “The speech has nothing to do with what I am going to Chicago for. The speech urges the convention to adopt the resolution that the United States shall return to the gold standard.” MacGuire had said, “We want to see the soldiers’ bonus paid in gold. We do not want the soldier to have rubber money or paper money. We want the gold. That is the reason for this speech.”

“Yes,” I said, “but it looks as if it were a big-business speech. There is something funny about that speech, Mr. Clark.”

The conversations were almost the same with both of them.

That was the end of that and we talked pleasantly on personal matters after that. I took him to the train about 6 o’clock and he went home.

The convention came off and the gold standard was endorsed by the convention. I read about it with a great deal of interest. There was some talk about a flood of telegrams that came in and influenced them and I was so much amused, because it happened right in my room.

Then MacGuire stopped to see me on his way back from the convention. This time he came in a hired limousine. It was not a private one this time. He came out to the house and told me that they had been successful in putting over their move.

I said, “Yes, but you did not endorse the soldiers’ bonus.”

He said, “Well, we have got to get sound currency before it is worthwhile to endorse a bonus.”

He then went away and the campaign here in New York started. They were electing municipal officers, a political campaign. A marine was running for public office over here in Brooklyn and I came over to make a speech for him.

I was met at the train by MacGuire. He seemed to know just where I was going and he said he wanted to go with me, and he did.

I think there was one other visit to the house because he (MacGuire) proposed that I go to Boston to a soldiers’ dinner to be given by Governor Ely for the soldiers, and that I was to go with Al Smith. He said, “We will have a private car for you on the end of the train and have your picture taken with Governor Smith. You will make a speech at this dinner and it will be worth a thousand dollars to you.”

I said, “I never got a thousand dollars for making a speech.”

He said, “You will get it this time.”

“Who is going to pay for this dinner and this ride up in the private car?”

“Oh, we will pay for it out of our funds. You will have your picture taken with Governor Smith. ”

I said, “I do not want to have my picture taken with Governor Smith. I do not like him.”

“Well, then, he can meet you up there.”

I said, “No, there is something wrong in this. There is no connection that I have with Al Smith, that we should be riding along together to a soldiers’ dinner. He is not for the soldiers’ either. I am not going to Boston to any dinner given by Governor Ely for the soldiers. If the soldiers of Massachusetts want to give a dinner and want me to come, I will come. But there is no thousand dollars in it.”

So he said, “Well, then, we will think of something else.”

I said, “What is the idea of Al Smith in this?”

“Well,” he said, “Al Smith is getting ready to assault the Administration in his magazine. It will appear in a month or so. He is going to take a shot at the money question. He has definitely broken with the President.”

I was interested to note that about a month later he did, and the New Outlook took the shot that he told me a month before they were going to take. Let me say that this fellow has been able to tell me a month or weeks ahead of time everything that happened. That made him interesting. I wanted to see if he was going to come out right.

So I said at this time, “So I am going to be dragged in as a sort of publicity agent for Al Smith to get him to sell magazines by having our picture taken on the rear platform of a private car, is that the idea?”

“Well, you are to sit next to each other at dinner and you are both going to make speeches. You will speak for the soldiers without assaulting the Administration, because this Administration has cut their throats. Al Smith will make a speech, and they will both be very much alike.”

I said, “I am not going. You just cross that out.”

[…]

“… cannot keep this racket up much longer. He has got to do something about it. He has either got to get more money out of us or he has got to change the method of financing the Government, and we are going to see to it that he does not change that method. He will not change it.”

I said, “The idea of this great group of soldiers, then, is to sort of frighten him, is it?”

“No, no, no; not to frighten him. This is to sustain him when others assault him.”

I said, “Well, I do not know about that. How would the President explain it?”

He said: “He will not necessarily have to explain it, because we are going to help him out. Now, did it ever occur to you that the President is overworked? We might have an Assistant President somebody to take the blame; and it things do not work out, he can drop him.”

He went on to say that it did not take any constitutional change to authorize another Cabinet official, somebody to take over the details of the office—take them off the President’s shoulders. He mentioned that the position would be a secretary of general affairs—a sort of a super secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. A secretary of general affairs?

General BUTLER. That is the term used by him—or a secretary of general welfare—I cannot recall which. I came out of the interview with that name in my head. I got that idea from talking to both of them, you see. They had both talked about the same kind of relief that ought to be given the President, and he said: “You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspaper. We will start a campaign that the President’s health is failing. Everybody can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second.”