FASCIST COUP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 277, 22 November 1934, Page 7

FASCIST COUP.

U.S. SENSATION.

ABDICATE ROOSEVELT.

Gen. Smedley Butler Causes Another Sensation.

WALL STREET PLOT ALLEGED. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, November 21. General Smedley Butler, retired, in giving evidence before the Committee of Congress which is investigating "un-American activities," yesterday created a sensation comparable to that caused by Professor Wirt's "Brain Trust" charges last April. This time, however, it was a threatened Fascist coup instead of a Communist movement.

General Butler, whose somewhat flamboyant manner of speech got him into many scrapes during his military career, told the committee that a representative of a powerful group of Wall Street brokers offered to finance him to the extent of 3,000,000 dollars to recruit 500,000 men from the American Legion and other veterans' organisations to march to Washington and force President Roosevelt to abdicate.

After that a dictatorship was to be established as the only possible means of saving capitalism from the radical tendencies of the Administration. General Butler said he considered the offer treasonable, but he listened to the plan in order to trap the plotters.

All the persons named 1 by General Butler flatly denied his accusations, most of them saying they were too laughable to comment upon.

On the other hand, Mr. Samuel Dickstein, chairman of the committee, said the charges had been partially checked and would be further investigated.