John William Davis (1873-1955)

During the 1930s, J.P. Morgan's chief counsel, John W. Davis was one of the central organizers of the Democratic Party and American Liberty League. The following quotations demonstrate that he had close political and business connections to many of the individuals linked to the fascist plot to oust President Roosevelt.

[John W. Davis was] "a member of the National Executive Committee [of the American Liberty League]"
Source: Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973 p. 31 and Gerard Colby, DuPont Dynasty (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc.), p. 322

"the millionaire [Clark] was induced to reveal that the author [of the speech on reverting to the Gold standard given to Butler] was none other than John W. Davis, the 1924 Democratic candidate for President, and now chief attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company."
Source: Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973

[in 1931, after he had been placed under arrest and was scheduled for general court marshall for criticizing Mussolini] "He [General Butler] wired New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had presented him with one of his Medals of Honor as Undersecretary of the Navy, "Am in great trouble. Can you assist me in securing services of John W. Davis as counsel?" Davis, a leading Wall Street corporation lawyer, had been the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President in 1924. Roosevelt persuaded Davis to agree to argue Butler's case at the trial.
Source: Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973 p. 113

BUTLER: He said, "You have got the speech?" I said, "Yes. These fellows, [Bill] Doyle and [Gerald] MacGuire, gave me the speech." I said, "They wrote a hell of a good speech, too." He said, "Did those fellows say that they wrote that speech?" I said, "Yes; they did. They told me that that was their business, writing speeches." He laughed and said, "That speech cost a lot of money."
In testimony afterward censored, Butler revealed that the speech had apparently been written for the millionaire by the chief attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company, who had been the 1924 Democratic candidate for President.
BUTLER: Now either from what he said then or from what MacGuire had said, I got the impression that the speech had been written by John W. Davis-one or the other of them told me that.
Clark had been amused, Butler testified, that MacGuire and Doyle had claimed the authorship.
Source: Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973, pp. 146-147 (testimony to cttee)

Censored in [Paul C.] French's testimony was his revelation of the sources to which MacGuire had said that he could turn for the funds to finance the veterans' army.

FRENCH: He said he could go to John W. Davis [attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company] or Perkins of the National City Bank, and any number of persons to get it.
Of course, that may or may not mean anything. That is, his reference to John W. Davis and Perkins of the National City Bank.
Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973, p. 165 (testimony to cttee)

[John W.] Davis and [Al] Smith, two former [Democratic] party heads
Source: Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973, p.213 from Spivak, Man in His Time

one of a select few on the Morgan "preferred lists"
….
John W. Davis, once in the field for the Presidency of the United States, is Morgan's chief attorney. When a Senate investigating committee tried to get income tax reports of the world's leading private banking house, this man who wanted to be President of the United States bitterly fought every move designed to reveal its income.
Davis is one of those on the Morgan preferred lists.
Davis has borrowed money from the Morgans.
Davis is a director of the Guarantee Trust Co. of New York - the same bank that [Grayson M.-P.] Murphy is a director of and which has two Morgan partners on the board of directors.
Davis is the man who was named in Butler's testimony as the one who wrote the gold standard speech which MacGuire tried to bribe Butler to make at the American Legion convention.
Davis' name was suppressed by the Dickstein-McCormack Committee.
Source: John Spivak, "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy: Morgan Pulls the Strings," New Masses , Feb. 5, 1935
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-New.pdf

John W. Davis gave $15,000 to the Democratic Party to help defray its deficit from 1924.
Source: Ferdinand Lundberg, America's Sixty Families
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg28871.html

"In 1944, Davis acted as a constitutional advisor to the [Council on Foreign Relations] CFR's Informal Agenda Group (IAG). The IAG was established by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull to draw up plans to create the UN. Davis and two other lawyers (including Nathan Miller) approved the IAG's plans."

"the CFR's first president, was another Wall Street lawyer. He served President Woodrow Wilson as solicitor general, and then as ambassador to Great Britain. After World War I he formed his own law firm in New York City and became the chief counsel for J.P. Morgan and Company. He was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1924, but was beaten in the election by Calvin Coolidge. In 1933 John W. Davis became involved in a fascist plot to topple the new Roosevelt administration that threatened the Morgan interests that were allied with the Bank of England, a plot that was exposed by Major General Smedley Butler but then covered up by the Establishment press. Davis also helped to found the American Liberty League, a Wall Street-dominated organization that masqueraded as a patriotic "grass roots" movement that opposed the New Deal."

Law firm: Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland and Kiendl [of the Morgan group's John W. Davis]
This law firm was one of "seven major financial groups or factions that in 1977 (IBT's publication date) maintained the highest levels of influence within the Council [on Foreign Relations]
The law firm was controlled by the Morgan Group, which controlled J.P. Morgan and Co., Morgan Stanley, New York Life, Mutual of New York, the law firm Davis, Polk, and the multinationals U.S. Steel, General Electric, and IBM.
Source: "One World Vision, New York City and the CFR," American Babylon - Rise and Fall
http://www.redmoonrising.com/AmericanBabylon/Part4.htm

DAVIS, JOHN WILLIAM (B.1873)
Britain 1918-1921
[Davis is mentioned in these books:]
· Chernow,R. The House of Morgan. 1990 (254-5, 360-1, 363, 371, 379)
· Council on Foreign Relations. Annual Report. 1988 (164, 166)
· Domhoff,G.W. The Higher Circles. 1971 (115)
· Dye,T. Who's Running America? 1983 (151)
· Hendrickson,K. Collins,M. Profiles in Power. 1993 (68)
· Hitchens,C. Blood, Class, and Nostalgia. 1990 (307)
· Lisagor,N. Lipsius,F. A Law Unto Itself. 1989 (191)
· Perloff,J. The Shadows of Power. 1988 (38, 49, 51, 158)
· Quigley,C. Tragedy and Hope. 1966 (53, 938, 952-3)
· Seldes,G. One Thousand Americans. 1947 (190, 206, 209, 247, 258, 289)
· Shoup,L. Minter,W. Imperial Brain Trust. 1977 (31, 91, 104-7, 226, 289, 301)
· Silk,L.& M. The American Establishment. 1980 (184, 187, 196)
· Simpson,C. The Splendid Blond Beast. 1993 (26)
· Vankin,J. Whalen,J. The 60 Greatest Conspiracies. 1998 (236)
Source: NameBase
http://www.namebase.org/main2/John-William-_28b_2E1873_29-Davis.html

"Davis of U.S. Steel"
Source: Gerard Colby, DuPont Dynasty (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc.), p. 322

[John W. Davis was] "a founder of the American Liberty League who attended planning meetings in the offices of Al Smith in New York"

[John W. Davis was] "the former U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James and accepted into the top circles of the British elite. A high-ranking Scottish Rite Freemason, Davis came from a line of British-linked traitors from Virginia, and was seconded into the Morgan firm as its counsel through these connections. Later, he was to defend segregation as necessary for the preservation of the race in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. Davis was with Morgan on his prviate yacht during the late spring of 1934."
Source: L. Wolfe, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. the Banks: Morgan's Fascist Plot, and How It Was Defeated," The American Almanac, July 11,1994.
http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan3.htm

[John W. Davis was] "friendly to the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), was on small executive committee directed the Liberty League's affairs"
Source: David Kyvig, Chapter 10, "Champagne and Sour Grapes," Repealing National Prohibition (1979)
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/rnp/RNP10.html

[John W. Davis was on the] "National Advisory Council of the Crusaders" .... [John W. Davis was] "Chief Morgan lawyer, shown to be tied up with fascist organizations"
Source: John Spivak, "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy: Morgan Pulls the Strings," New Masses, Feb. 5, 1935
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-NewMasses.pdf

[John W. Davis was a] "Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan."
Source: Steve Kangas, “The Business Plot to Overthrow Roosevelt,” Liberalism Resurgent: A Response to the Right, 1996.
http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/tenets.htm

[John W. Davis was the failed] Democratic presidential candidate in 1924.
Served as president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1933 and a director since 1921."
Source: Laurence H. Shoup & William Minter, "Shaping a New World Order, The Council on Foreign Relations' Blueprint for World Hegemony"
Trilateralism (edited Holly Sklar) South End Press, 1980
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Trilateralism/NewWorldOrder_Trilat.html

John W. Davis "of Clarksburg, Harrison County, W.Va.; New York, New York County, N.Y.; Locust Valley, Nassau County, Long Island, N.Y. Son of John James Davis; first cousin of Cyrus Roberts Vance. Born in Clarksburg, Harrison County, W.Va., April 13, 1873. Democrat. Lawyer; member of West Virginia state house of delegates from Harrison County, 1899; candidate for Presidential Elector for West Virginia, 1900; delegate to Democratic National Convention from West Virginia, 1904; U.S. Representative from West Virginia 1st District, 1911-13; U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, 1918-21; candidate for Democratic nomination for President, 1920; candidate for President of the United States, 1924; delegate to Democratic National Convention from New York, 1928, 1932. Member, American Bar Association; Council on Foreign Relations; Freemasons; Phi Beta Kappa; Phi Kappa Psi. Died in Charleston, Charleston County, S.C., March 24, 1955. Interment at Locust Valley Cemetery, Glen Cove, Long Island, N.Y."
Source: http://politicalgraveyard.com/group/phi-kappa-psi.html

[John W. Davis was an] "American lawyer and public official, b. Clarksburg, W.Va. Admitted (1895) to the bar, he taught (1896-97) at Washington and Lee Univ. and later practiced (1897-1913) in Clarksburg. He served as Congressman (1911-13), U.S. Solicitor General (1913-18), and ambassador to Great Britain (1918-21). After 1921 he practiced law in New York City. He was nominated for President in 1924 on the 103d ballot, when, after a two-week deadlock at the Democratic convention, the forces of Alfred E. Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo agreed to compromise on a third candidate. Hampered by his legal affiliation with large corporations, Davis, even though he carried the South, won only 136 electoral votes and 8,386,500 popular votes. His speeches are collected in Treaty-making Power in the United States (1920) and Party Government in the United States (1929)."
Bibliography: See biography by W. H. Harbaugh (1973).
Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/D/DavisJ1W1.asp

[John W. Davis "(son of John James Davis), [was] a Representative from West Virginia; born in Clarksburg, Harrison County, W.Va., April 13, 1873; attended various private schools; was graduated from the literary department of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., in 1892; taught school; reentered the university and was graduated from its law department in 1895; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Clarksburg, W.Va.; professor of law at Washington and Lee University in 1896 and 1897; resumed the practice of law in Clarksburg, W.Va., in 1897; member of the State house of delegates in 1899; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1904; president of the West Virginia Bar Association in 1906; appointed a member of the West Virginia Commission on Uniform State Laws in 1909; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses and served from March 4, 1911, to August 29, 1913, when he resigned; one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1912 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Robert W. Archbald, judge of the United States Commerce Court; Solicitor General of the United States 1913-1918; appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James and served from November 21, 1918, to March 31, 1921; member of the American delegation for conference with Germany on the treatment and exchange of prisoners of war, held in Berne, Switzerland, in September 1918; honorary bencher of the Middle Temple, London, England; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 1924; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1932; was a resident of Nassau County, N.Y., and practiced law in New York City until his death; died in Charleston, S.C., March 24, 1955; interment in Locust Valley Cemetery, Glen Cove, Long Island, N.Y."
Source: Bibliography: DAB; Harbaugh, William H. Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nynassau/bios1.html

[John W. Davis'] advisor on foreign relations during his 1924 Democratic bid for President was John Foster Dulles.
Source unknown

[John W. Davis was] "Member of the Pilgrim Society of America: "the Pilgrims may be termed the wholesale agency for promoting the interests of Britain in this country. It is strictly a Tory organization. The retail outlet is the more widely known English-Speaking Union, which has for its avowed purpose:
'To draw together in the bond of comradeship the English-Speaking people of the United States and of the British Empire by the disseminating knowledge of each in the other and by reverence for their common institutions.'
It is interesting to note that the English-Speaking Union originated in London in the fateful year of 1917 when America bared her strong arm in defense of democracy. Like the Pilgrims, the English-Speaking Union has a British organization with headquarters in London and an American branch with central offices in New York. The purposes of the two organizations are virtually the same and there is an interlocking directorate and membership.
The patron of the English-Speaking Union (London) is His Majesty the King. The honorary president of the American English-Speaking Union is the prominent Pilgrim, John W. Davis, successor to the late Walter Hines Page as America's wartime Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Presidential Candidate in 1924, and member of J.P. Morgan & Co. As treasurer of the American English-Speaking Union is listed Harry P. Davison, also a Morgan partner whose father was instrumental in having J.P. Morgan & Co. appointed exclusive purchasing agents for the British Government in America during the World War."
Source: The Pilgrim Society & English Speaking Union
http://watch.pair.com/pilgrim.html

Source: The above references to John W. Davis were collected by Richard Sanders, editor of Press for Conversion!, during research on Issue # 53, "Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism," March 2004. Published by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade.

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