The Plot 11


be candid and disclose the sources of the funds that were behind it.
 After some hesitation MacGuire revealed that they had been provided
by nine backers, the biggest contributor putting up nine thousand dollars.
Pressed to explain their motives, MacGuire insisted that they were simply
concerned about helping veterans get their bonus and a square deal.
 People who could afford such contributions, Butler reflected
ironically, were hardly the type who favored a two-billion-dollar bonus for
veterans.
 When he prodded MacGuire further, the fat veteran revealed that one
of his chief backers was a wealthy Legionnaire he worked for, Colonel
Grayson M.-P. Murphy, who operated a brokerage firm at 52 Broadway in
New York City.  Butler pointed out the contradiction between MacGuire’s
claim that his group was concerned with the problems of the poor rank-andfile
veteran and the fact that his backers
were all obviously
wealthy men.

MacGuire
simply
shrugged and frankly admitted
that as far as he personally
was
concerned, he was primarily involved
in the transaction as a
businessman
and was being well taken care of
for his efforts.
 It
would
be
equally
profitable for Butler, he hinted,
if the general were disposed to
cooperate.



Butler pumped him about Colonel Murphy’s connection with the plan.
Murphy, MacGuire revealed, was one of the founders of the Legion and had
actually underwritten it with $125,000 in 1919 to pay for the organizational
field work.  He had been motivated by a desire to see the soldiers “cared
for.”
 When Butler questioned Murphy’s motive in wanting the goldstandard
speech made
at the convention,
MacGuire explained
that he and the
other backers simply wanted to be sure that the veterans would be paid their
bonus in sound gold-backed currency, not in “rubber money.”
 He showed Butler several checks for large amounts signed by Murphy
and two other men-Robert S. Clark and John