Smedley Butler was already the most famous soldier in America when, in 1931, he accused Benito Mussolini of willfully killing a child with his car.

Butler, a decorated Marine Corps general, made the allegation during a speech about “mad-dog states” at a luncheon in his native Philadelphia. The story, which had the ring of a tall tale, was reported the next day by the Philadelphia Record and promptly repeated around the world.

Butler claimed a friend of his, an American industrialist, had recently visited Mussolini in Italy. Mussolini convinced the American to join him for a drive, and later the dictator struck and killed a child on the edge of a rural highway — “crushing it under the wheels of the machine,” in Butler’s dramatic retelling. The guest panicked. Here Butler ended the story with a flourish: Mussolini placed a hand on the businessman’s knee and said, “What is one life in the affairs of a state?”