The Plot  9

typewritten pages from an inside jacket pocket.  They would leave a
speech with him to read.  MacGuire urged Butler to round up several
hundred Legionnaires, meanwhile, to take to Chicago with him.
 Holding on to his fraying temper, Butler pointed out that none of the
Legionnaires he knew could afford the trip or stay in Chicago.  MacGuire
quickly assured him that all their expenses would be paid.  But Butler,
who was constantly being approached with all kinds of wild schemes and
proposals, was not prepared to take the plotters seriously until they could
prove they had financial backing.  When he challenged MacGuire on this
point, the veteran slipped a bankbook out of his pocket.  Without letting
the name of the bank or the account be seen, he flipped over the pages
and showed Butler two recent deposits-one for $42,000 and a second for
$64,000-for “expenses.”
 That settled it.  No wounded soldiers Butler knew possessed $100,000
bank accounts.  His instincts sharpened by two years’ experience, on loan
from the Marines, as crime-busting Director of Public Safety for
Philadelphia, warned him that there was something decidedly unsavory
about the proposition.
 He decided to blend skepticism, wariness, and interest in his
responses, to suggest that he might be induced to participate in the
scheme if he could be assured that it was foolproof.  He would profess
himself interested, but unconvinced as long as he suspected that there
was more to be learned about the scheme.  So far they had told him
practically nothing except what was barely necessary for the role they
wanted him to play.  He determined to get to the bottom of the plot, while
trying not to scare them off in the process.
 After they had left, he read over the speech MacGuire had left with
him.  It urged the American Legion convention to adopt a resolution
calling for the United States to return to the gold standard, so that when
veterans were paid the bonus promised to them, the money they received
would not be worthless paper.  Butler was baffled.  What did a return to
the gold standard have to do with the Legion?  Why were MacGuire and
Doyle being paid to force this speech on the convention-and who was
paying them?