ST ch 37 Business Plot

Sat May 9 15:08:12 UTC 2026

Eisenhower’s famous taking-his-leave speech did not have the word
“Corporate” edited out, say historians, since corporate and industrial
Overlap there was a far more damning —very Pynchon-adjacent —word that did
not get used although it was discussed ( and in drafts): Congressional.

Ike and team DID want to hit hard on the military and corporate industrial
vise. Sometimes it takes  it takes a a courageous General as President.

On Sat, May 9, 2026 at 10:39 AM Robin Landseadel via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Michael Bailey : “...until he finally accesses the power of speech enough
> to blame Roosevelt.”
>
> “I knew it. The minute that damned Bolshevik Roosevelt got into office—”
>
> “Only for a minute and a half. There was a coup. Gang of millionaires
> including a couple of
> Roosevelt’s own Brain Trusters, like that Hugh Johnson. General MacArthur
> is in command
> now.”
>
> 284
>
> I guess this is as good a spot as any to remind folks that this tale is,
> after all, a novel, fictional, at
> least in part, you know, with a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta
> what-have-you's. And, uh, lotta strands to
> keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head. Luckily I'm
> adhering to a pretty strict,
> uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, limber.
>
>  Were there Swing Kids? Yup, but that movement began in 1939 and, being
> young and Aryan
> and all that, didn’t get severely hassled until the 1940s. Time is a bit
> wobbly in the book. We
> start in 1932 in Milwaukee. It’s Christmas time, remember? Those “elves”
> with the surprise gift
> for Hicks:
>
> “ . . . To a concertina rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” half a
> block away, Hicks is
> handed a parcel wrapped in festive red-and-green paper whose design
> features Xmas trees, reindeer, candy canes and so forth. Ribbon tied in a
> big bow. Something to do with Christmas. . . “
>
> 102
>
> “Wait, the name here, this isn’t me, this is for someone else, you got the
> wrong—”
>
> “Got to breeze, children all over the world to deal with, you understand.”
>
> “You have a real Merry Xmas now, Mister Schultz.”
> 103
>
> “ . . . Arthur Simon Flegenheimer (August 6, 1901 – October 24, 1935),
> known as Dutch
> Schultz, was an American mobster based in New York City
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City in the 1920s and 1930s. He
> made
> his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging
> and the numbers racket.
> Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by United
> States Attorney
> Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano.
>
> Schultz asked the Commission, the governing body of the American Mafia,
> for permission to kill
> Dewey, in an attempt to avert his conviction. They refused. When Schultz
> disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered
> his murder in 1935. Schultz was shot at a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey,
> and died the next day.
>
> Dutch Schultz - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Schultz
>
> So, from this point on, Hicks is on the run, whether he knows it or not.
> He takes a train to New
> York. Finds himself on the Stupendica in a Saturnalian party zone with
> British spies, Gyro
> pilots and aficionados of nose candy. Winds up in Transylvania in the
> sidecar of a motorcycle
> bouncing along rutted roads. All of this ambulating is going to take some
> time, and then there’s
> stretch between Chapter 28:
>
> “ . . . “Well-known condition,” nods Slide, “you might call it
> post-American, some choose it
> deliberately, some not, but whatever it is you’re headed for it, and on
> the express track too,
> allow me to point out . . . “
>
> 210
>
> To around chapter 35:
>
> “ . . . Hicks runs into Daphne down at the harbor . . . “
>
> 267
>
> . . . where we are firmly in “The Zone”, Hicks is usually out of the
> picture and an awful lot is
> going on, a vision of pure anarchy under threat from the incursion of
> fascism. The end of the
> book is also Xmas time, a full year has passed. A passage recalls a
> similar scene in Gravity’s
> Rainbow:
>
> “Gordon Bennett, you again.”
>
> “Nice tune there, Pip.”
>
> “Dives and Lazarus. Old story from the Gospel of Luke, rich bloke throwing
> a party, down and
> out leper starving outside on the pavement, technically it’s a Christmas
> carol, though
> uncomfortable for the average churchgoer given its rather keen element of
> class hostility, not
> always first choice when the youngsters go round caroling . . . “
>
> 241
>
> "Gordon Bennett" is an English-language idiomatic phrase used to express
> surprise, contempt, outrage, disgust, frustration or exasperation.
>
> Gordon Bennett (phrase) - Wikipedia
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bennett_(phrase)
>
> Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ Five Variants on “Dives and Lazarus” is a very
> close relative of
> “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” by the same composer, the kind of
> composition that
> makes you feel like you’re floating to the top of a cathedral filled with
> light:
>
> https://youtu.be/hRBuobu57fU?si=iZQQ1CteqISC_gLd
>
> “Reminding him it does happen in fact to be almost Christmas season. Snuck
> up on him as
> usual.”
>
> 242
>
> So, it’s Xmas time,1933. Hitler is already Chancellor of Germany.  There
> was an attempted millionaire's coup in 1933. It’s interesting that Hugh
> Johnson’s name comes up, considering his history:
>
> “ . . . but in spring 1933 Roosevelt charged Hugh S. Johnson—an Army
> veteran turned
> businessman and progressive—with administering the new Act. On June 16,
> 1933, the (National
> Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) took effect. Title II of the Act created
> the Public Works
> Administration to fund construction projects, while Title I established
> the National Recovery
> Administration (NRA) to oversee industry codes for “fair competition . . .
> ”
>
> “ . . . The NRA involved ending the Great Depression by organizing
> thousands of businesses
> under codes drawn up by trade associations and industries. According to
> biographer John Ohl
> (as summarized by reviewer Lester V. Chandler):
>
> Johnson's priorities became evident almost immediately. In the
> prescription, "Self regulation of
> industry under government supervision" the emphasis was to be on maximum
> freedom for
> business to formulate its own rules with a minimum of government
> supervision. Consumer
> protection and the interests of labor were of decidedly lesser importance.
> To induce business to
> formulate and abide by codes of fair competition Johnson was willing to
> condone almost any
> type of price fixing, restriction of production, limitation of productive
> capacity, and other types of
> anti-competitive practices . . . “
>
> “ . . . Johnson came under attack by Labor Secretary Frances Perkins for
> having "un-American
> policies". He distributed copies of a fascist tract called "The Corporate
> State" by one of Benito
> Mussolini’s favorite economists, Bruno Biagi, including giving one to
> Perkins and asking her to
> give copies to Roosevelt's cabinet . . . “
>
> Hugh S. Johnson - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_S._Johnson
>
> The “Business Plot:
>
> “The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch and the White House
> Putsch, was a
> political conspiracy in 1933 in the United States to overthrow the
> government of President
> Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedly Butler as dictator.  Butler, a
> retired Marine Corps major
> general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to
> create a fascist
> veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'État
> to overthrow Roosevelt.
> In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of
> Representatives Special
> Committee on Un-American Activities (the “McCormack-Dickstein” Committee")
> on these
> revelations.  Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee
> final report said,
> "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned,
> and might have been
> placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."
>
> Early in the committee's gathering of testimony most major news media
> dismissed the plot, with
> a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax". When
> the committee's final
> report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report
> that a two-month
> investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist
> march on Washington was
> alarmingly true" and "... also alleged that definite proof had been found
> that the much publicized
> Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major Gen.
> Smedley D. Butler,
> retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".
> The individuals
> involved all denied the existence of a plot.
>
> While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to
> execution, most agree
> that some sort of subversive plan was contemplated and discussed. . . “
>
> Business Plot - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
>
> The “Gang of millionaires” coup was a real thing but did not turn out
> exactly as the
> insurrectionists had hoped, thanks to them thinking that General Smedly
> Butler would go along
> with the conspiracy. Not only did Smedly (gotta love that name) throw the
> deal, he is/was
> famous for “War is a Racket”, a pamphlet which he wrote in 1937:
>
> “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily
> the most profitable, surely
> the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the
> only one in which the profits
> are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best
> described, I believe, as
> something that is not what it seems to the majority of the 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 very
> many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a
> mere handful
> garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and
> billionaires were made
> in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge
> blood gains in their
> income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax
> returns no one knows . . .
> “
>
> warisaracket https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf
>
> Worth reading, he is talking about the Military-Industrial-Corporate
> Complex (the original
> wording of Ike’s, before “they” edited the phrase) and the real costs of
> the Second World War,
> then in progress.
>
> I would like to note that coup or no, the results were as General Smedly
> Butler feared, which
> might be the point.
>
> “There must be a pony in here somewhere.”
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>