Recall the American coup of 1933

The US economy is on the verge of a bubble-induced crash. The last time that happened, the wealthy elites plotted to overthrow a government elected to rescue the people

by Donald Kropp

In the not-so-great depression of the 1930s, the American people lost their savings in failed banks. Tens of thousands of farmers lost their farms because of plunging prices for agricultural produce. Millions of Americans lost their jobs when factories closed everywhere. The privately owned economy completely failed after the stock market crash in 1929, itself the result of the Federal Reserve artificially inflating the markets with economic bubbles.

Political movements on the right and left formed to meet the resulting social crisis. One hundred and fifty families formed one such movement in August 1934 called the “American Liberty League.” These families were the richest, most powerful people in the United States–they owned the major corporations and held massive fortunes. One of the main backers of the League was the DuPont family.

These economic elites feared that the workers and farmers, once they learned who caused the depression, would rise up in revolution as they had in France and Russia. In a keynote speech for a fundraising dinner for the League in January of 1935, former New York governor and former Democratic nominee for president Alfred E Smith put the American Liberty League position on the issue succinctly: “There can be only one Capitol, Washington or Moscow! There can be only one atmosphere of government, clear, pure, fresh air of free America, or the foul breath of Communistic Russia. There can be only one flag, the Stars and Stripes, or the Red Flag of the Godless Union of the Soviet. There can be only one National Anthem. The Star Spangled Banner or the Internationale.”

This elite had attended private schools, colleges and universities. They accepted the free enterprise system without question. They relied on government to protect their property interests. They favored a government that played a limited role in society and pursued laissez-faire capitalism—that is, a completely unregulated corporate environment.

But their private property system is based on conquest. The original thirteen American colonies had expanded into a mighty nation only after killing natives and stealing their land. Peace treaties were broken by perfidious white settlers and by Congress. Wars were fought against France, England, Spain and Mexico to add more land to the nation. Manifest destiny was acquiring territory by violence.

The Native Americans were deprived of civil rights in an imperialistic system. African slaves were brought over and a semi-feudal agrarian society was installed in the South. The plantations system created a landed aristocracy.

There was no revolution in America after the economic panics of the 1870s. The American people suffered as much again during the depression of the 1930s but still did not seek to overthrow the government. It was the panicky elite who plotted and tried to overthrow the Republic in 1933. The military did not support the plot and fascism failed to replace democracy in America at that time.

Instead, the government of President Roosevelt intervened in the economy in a massive way with new welfare and unemployment programs, government work projects, social security programs, and new regulations for the stock market traders and the banking system which had so miserably and dangerously failed the people.

Roosevelt saved capitalism from its own worst abuses. The American people returned Roosevelt to the White House four times. But he was hated by the privileged elites who resented the new graduated income tax, inheritance tax and corporate tax. The American League of Liberty rallied behind Eugene Talmadge in an effort to gain control of the Democratic Party. In a speech during the 1936 Democratic primaries, with Democratic Roosevelt the incumbent and very popular president, Democrat Talmadge had this to say: “It won't do to give the present administration four more years in Washington. Are you going to do it? If you do, they'll take it as an endorsement of all their communistic policies.” He went on, the Democrats “are stealing a name, to defile it, and it's a duty of the men that love and respect the memory of Jefferson, Jackson, and that stalwart soldier, George Washington, that stated in times of emergency in this country, usurpers will try to change our form of government. And he gave us this admonition: Whenever this is done, rise up and smite them!” The New Deal was the so-called change in the form of US government that needed to be overthrown.

Roosevelt died before completing his fourth four-year term and the nation grieved the loss of a liberal leader. But during his tenure, the press and radio never ceased attacking him, his family and even his little dog Fala. But of course: the media was owned by the rich elites.

And they tried to overthrow him in 1933. News of the 1933 plot to overthrow the government quickly disappeared, however. The American people did not confiscate the vast holdings of the American Liberty League traitors nor kill them or try them for treason. Congress sealed the records arising from hearings that followed the foiled plot, and contributed to a cover up of the crime so effective, few people know of any such coup attempt today.

During the Second World War, the elite of corporate America resumed their criminal activities. Many of the families became Nazi supporters. Henry Ford funded the American Nazi Party. An estimated 22,000 members of The American Bund, a pro-Nazi American movement, held a public rally in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. Charles Higham reveals in his Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi-American money plot 1933-1949 (Delacorte Press, 1983 ), that household name corporations, like Chase National Bank, IG Chemicals, and Du Pont committed espionage, spying , and treason and even financed the Nazi party in Germany. IBM supplied computer cards so that millions of victims of Auschwitz and other gas chambers could more easily be kept track of.

The corporations controlled by the dynastic power elite believed in social Darwinism. Some gave material aid to the enemy during the war. These elites were deathly afraid of communism which gained a foothold in Russia when the peasants and workers seized factories and set up a state that dictated production, distribution and exchange. The very idea that workers would steal their private property assets appalled the elites.

The American people did not revolt against these continual violations of the laws by their own corporate elites. They did not demand trials, executions or confiscations. They did not try for a revolution. In fact, most Americans never knew of this egregious and outrageous betrayal. American people instead died by the tens of thousands defeating fascism in North Africa and Europe.

American families worked hard, paid their taxes and gave their sons for a series of wars to protect the profits and holdings of our most avaricious minority. Since the 1790s, our military has conducted two hundred and seventy three conflicts and interventions in foreign lands. Our military has overthrown democratically elected governments to protect the business investments of our elites.

The progeny of our richest have today accomplished with evolution what their grandparents failed to carry out in their 1933 plot to replace democracy with a neo-conservative state. The present regime fears the American people and it is dangerous. It wants continued war profits and it threatens world peace in pursuing its objectives. This regime lives off your fear of it. These social Darwinists are ideologically bound to diminish the power of the state.

Two unfinished wars and a shaky economy face the American people. The neo-con regime seeks expanded wars and polarization, and is a threat to this nation's social peace. The Patriot Act attacks the civil liberties of the people and will eventually be resisted either in the legislative bodies or in the streets.

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