Smedley Butler: Semper Fi!

History Spotlight by Doug Humes

Photos courtesy of Newtown Square Historical Society

General Smedley Butler was a man of contradictions. He was born in 1881 in West Chester, to a family with deep Quaker pacifist roots. Yet at the time of his death in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

Smedley Butler, age 17

After Smedley Butler was educated in local Quaker schools, he enlisted at age 16. He was shipped out to Guantanamo, to fight in the Spanish American War. His military service continued, and he saw action in the Philippines, China, Central America, Mexico and Haiti in the “Banana Wars” – U.S. military interventions to protect American commercial interests in those countries.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor for two separate actions, and the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals for his actions during World War I during which he reorganized a large embarkation camp, to relieve the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions in a war where more Americans died of disease than combat.

After the war, General Butler brought his skills to the Marine Barracks at Quantico, Virginia, and garnered attention by taking his men on long marches to Civil War battlefields, where they engaged in battle reenactments to the delight of local crowds.

In 1924, he took leave to serve as Director of Public Safety in corrupt and content Philadelphia. Within 48 hours, Smedley Butler began executing raids on 900+ speakeasies, including the Union League, which had flourished under the previous administration. He made no friends during his two-year stint, rooting out corruption and racketeering and enforcing the prohibition laws. Looking back, he said “Cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in.”

General Butler in retirement (1936)

After being passed over for a promotion in 1931, he retired, and bought a house on Goshen Road in Newtown Square. Freed of military constraints, he spoke out publicly on war profiteering and military adventurism. His views were distilled in a book titled War Is a Racket, in which he wrote: “I spent 33 years… in active military service,… most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers… I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.”

Butler home on Goshen Road today

Butler died in 1940, and is buried in his hometown of West Chester. His wife lived on into the 1960’s at their Newtown Square home, and then his son and later a granddaughter lived there until 2014. The current owners have beautifully restored the house. On November 10, 2016, they invited the Smedley Butler Detachment of the Marine Corps League, and Butler’s last surviving granddaughter, to the General’s home, to celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps.

For more history on Newtown Square, Delaware County, and membership information, please visit our website at www.HistoricNewtownSquare.org.