Posted on May 29, 2018
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At the height of the Great Depression, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans’ bonus certificates, arrive in Washington, D.C. One month later, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation’s capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong, most of them unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans’ payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.
While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters’ trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, to evict them forcibly. MacArthur’s men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation’s many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.
While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters’ trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, to evict them forcibly. MacArthur’s men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation’s many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.
Bonus Marchers arrive in Washington - May 29, 1932 - HISTORY.com
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The Veterans' Bonus March, Washington DC 1932
While in school, from the primary grades through college, students are supposed to learn American history. But what a student can learn in one hour, three da...
Thank you my friend TSgt Joe C. for reminding us that on May 29, 1932 the 'Bonus Army' of more than 40,000 World War I veterans arrived in Washington, DC.
Out of work, destitute, and with families to feed, the veterans organized a march on Washington in May of 1932 to force Congress to immediately pay their bonus. An estimated 15,000 made their way to the nation's capital and dubbed themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Force."
Using scrap wood, iron and any other loose materials they could find, the veterans set up ramshackle camps throughout the city. The largest housed an estimated 10,000 people. They waited in vain for Congress to act.
On June 17 the Senate voted against the House-passed bill that would have given the Bonus Marchers immediate payment of their benefit.
Shame on those US Seantors
Images:
1. 1932-07-28 Tanks and cavalry prepare to evacuate the Bonus Army
2. 1932-07-29 Aftermath - with the Capitol in the background, the shacks of the Bonus Army are burned. July 29, 1932.jpg
Background from .eyewitnesstohistory.com/bonusarmy.htm
"The Bonus Army Invades Washington, D.C., 1932
Six years after the end of World War I Congress enacted a bill that would reward veterans of the conflict a cash bonus for their service. However, the legislation stipulated that the veterans would not collect their bonus until 1945.
July 28, 1932 This delayed gratification was acceptable to the World War I veterans during the prosperous '20s but the onslaught of the Great Depression changed their attitude. Out of work, destitute, and with families to feed, the veterans organized a march on Washington in May of 1932 to force Congress to immediately pay their bonus. An estimated 15,000 made their way to the nation's capital and dubbed themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Force."
Using scrap wood, iron and any other loose materials they could find, the veterans set up ramshackle camps throughout the city. The largest housed an estimated 10,000 people. They waited in vain for Congress to act. On June 17 the Senate voted against the House-passed bill that would have given the Bonus Marchers immediate payment of their benefit.
Having no other place to go, the majority of the Bonus Army remained encamped in the city, despite the fact that Congress had adjourned for the summer. Finally, President Hoover ordered the Army to forcibly remove the veterans. On July 28 a force of tanks and cavalry under the command of General Douglas MacArthur stormed the camps and drove the veterans out. Their makeshift houses were then set ablaze.
"I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces."
Evalyn Walsh McLean was the wife of the owner of the Washington Post and a pillar of Washington Society. She describes the scene as the Bonus Army first entered Washington and marched past her elegant mansion:
"On a day in June, 1932, I saw a dusty automobile truck roll slowly past my house. I saw the unshaven, tired faces of the men who were riding in it standing up. A few were seated at the rear with their legs dangling over the lowered tailboard. On the side of the truck was an expanse of white cloth on which, crudely lettered in black, was a legend, BONUS ARMY.
Other trucks followed in a straggling succession, and. on the sidewalks of Massachusetts Avenue where stroll most of the diplomats and the other fashionables of Washington were some ragged hikers, wearing scraps of old uniforms. The sticks with which they strode along seemed less canes than cudgels. They were not a friendly-looking lot, and I learned they were hiking and riding into the capital along each of its radial avenues; that they had come from every part of the continent. It was not lost on me that those men, passing anyone of my big houses, would see in such rich shelters a kind of challenge.
I was burning, because I felt that crowd of men, women, and children never should have been permitted to swarm across the continent. But I could remember when those same men, with others, had been cheered as they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. While I recalled those wartime parades, I was reading in the newspapers that the bonus army men were going hungry in Washington.
That night I woke up before I had been asleep an hour. I got to thinking about those poor devils marching around the capital. Then I decided that it should be a part of my son Jock's education to see and try to comprehend that marching. It was one o'clock, and the Capitol was beautifully lighted. I wished then for the power to turn off the lights and use the money thereby saved to feed the hungry.
When Jock and I rode among the bivouacked men I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces; I heard them trying to cadge cigarettes from one another. Some were lying on the sidewalks, unkempt heads pillowed on their arms. A few clusters were shuffling around. I went up to one of them, a fellow with eyes deeply sunken in his head.
'Have you eaten?' He shook his head.
Just then I saw General Glassford, superintendent of the Washington police. He said, 'I'm going to get some coffee for them.'
'All right,' I said, 'I am going to Childs'.'
It was two o'clock when I walked into that white restaurant. A man came up to take my order. 'Do you serve sandwiches? I want a thousand," I said. "And a thousand packages of cigarettes.'
'But, lady - '
'I want them right away. I haven't got a nickel with me, but you can trust me. I am Mrs. McLean.'
Well, he called the manager into the conference, and before long they were slicing bread with a machine; and what with Glassford's coffee also (he was spending his own money) we two fed all the hungry ones who were in sight.
Army are burned. July 29, 1932...One day Waters, the so-called commander, came to my house and said: 'I'm desperate. Unless these men are fed, I can't say what won't happen to this town.' With him was his wife, a little ninety-three-pounder, dressed as a man, her legs and feet in shiny boots. Her yellow hair was freshly marceled.
'She's been on the road for days,' said Waters, 'and has just arrived by bus.'
I thought a bath would be a welcome change; so I took her upstairs to that guest bedroom my father had designed for King Leopold. I sent for my maid to draw a bath, and told the young woman to lie down.
"You get undressed,' I said, 'and while you sleep I'll have all your things cleaned and pressed.'
'Oh, no,' she said, 'not me. I'm not giving these clothes up. I might never see them again.'
Her lip was out, and so I did not argue. She threw herself down on the bed, boots and all, and I tiptoed out.
That night I telephoned to Vice-President Charlie Curtis. I told him I was speaking for Waters, who was standing by my chair. I said: 'These men are in a desperate situation, and unless something is done for them, unless they are fed, there is bound to be a lot of trouble. They have no money, nor any food.'
Charlie Curtis told me that he was calling a secret meeting of senators and would send a delegation of them to the House to urge immediate action on the Howell bill, providing money to send the bonus army members back to their homes."
"While in school, from the primary grades through college, students are supposed to learn American history. But what a student can learn in one hour, three days a week, is ultimately pretty little. What makes this even worse is not what they try and teach you, but the important things they decide not to teach you.
The Bonus March of 1932 is one of those things they didn't teach you.
This march happened in one of the worst years of the Great Depression. The veterans -- some of whom brought their entire families with them to Washington DC -- were not greedy men. On the contrary, they were desperate men, desperate to keep their families fed and alive. Many of these men were unemployed in a time before food stamps and public assistance.
Simply put, if they did not work, they did not eat. And more important to many of them, their families did not eat.
So what bonus were they marching for? Well, as World War I veterans, the United States Government had promised them a bonus of several thousand dollars, payable in 1945. A relative few veterans, being hungry, hopeless and seeing no other possible help in sight, put together this march. As word spread to other veterans across the country, the numbers heading to the Capital grew and grew.
There were a few historic figures taking part in the episode -- General Douglas MacArthur, Major George S. Patton and Major Eisenhower forced the veterans out of Washington at gunpoint, effectively destroying President Hoover's hope for a second term.
Supporting the veterans was America's most decorated military officer of the day, Smedley Butler (Marine General, retired). As an aside, Butler would go on to write a book -- War is a Racket -- condemning several of the campaigns he had taken part in, and condemning the practice war itself.
This film clip is from the last half of episode two of the six part PBS/BBC2 series "The Great Depression." It is an important and overlooked piece of American history which needs to be shared.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvCuyqJXDVk
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Gabriel F.
Out of work, destitute, and with families to feed, the veterans organized a march on Washington in May of 1932 to force Congress to immediately pay their bonus. An estimated 15,000 made their way to the nation's capital and dubbed themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Force."
Using scrap wood, iron and any other loose materials they could find, the veterans set up ramshackle camps throughout the city. The largest housed an estimated 10,000 people. They waited in vain for Congress to act.
On June 17 the Senate voted against the House-passed bill that would have given the Bonus Marchers immediate payment of their benefit.
Shame on those US Seantors
Images:
1. 1932-07-28 Tanks and cavalry prepare to evacuate the Bonus Army
2. 1932-07-29 Aftermath - with the Capitol in the background, the shacks of the Bonus Army are burned. July 29, 1932.jpg
Background from .eyewitnesstohistory.com/bonusarmy.htm
"The Bonus Army Invades Washington, D.C., 1932
Six years after the end of World War I Congress enacted a bill that would reward veterans of the conflict a cash bonus for their service. However, the legislation stipulated that the veterans would not collect their bonus until 1945.
July 28, 1932 This delayed gratification was acceptable to the World War I veterans during the prosperous '20s but the onslaught of the Great Depression changed their attitude. Out of work, destitute, and with families to feed, the veterans organized a march on Washington in May of 1932 to force Congress to immediately pay their bonus. An estimated 15,000 made their way to the nation's capital and dubbed themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Force."
Using scrap wood, iron and any other loose materials they could find, the veterans set up ramshackle camps throughout the city. The largest housed an estimated 10,000 people. They waited in vain for Congress to act. On June 17 the Senate voted against the House-passed bill that would have given the Bonus Marchers immediate payment of their benefit.
Having no other place to go, the majority of the Bonus Army remained encamped in the city, despite the fact that Congress had adjourned for the summer. Finally, President Hoover ordered the Army to forcibly remove the veterans. On July 28 a force of tanks and cavalry under the command of General Douglas MacArthur stormed the camps and drove the veterans out. Their makeshift houses were then set ablaze.
"I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces."
Evalyn Walsh McLean was the wife of the owner of the Washington Post and a pillar of Washington Society. She describes the scene as the Bonus Army first entered Washington and marched past her elegant mansion:
"On a day in June, 1932, I saw a dusty automobile truck roll slowly past my house. I saw the unshaven, tired faces of the men who were riding in it standing up. A few were seated at the rear with their legs dangling over the lowered tailboard. On the side of the truck was an expanse of white cloth on which, crudely lettered in black, was a legend, BONUS ARMY.
Other trucks followed in a straggling succession, and. on the sidewalks of Massachusetts Avenue where stroll most of the diplomats and the other fashionables of Washington were some ragged hikers, wearing scraps of old uniforms. The sticks with which they strode along seemed less canes than cudgels. They were not a friendly-looking lot, and I learned they were hiking and riding into the capital along each of its radial avenues; that they had come from every part of the continent. It was not lost on me that those men, passing anyone of my big houses, would see in such rich shelters a kind of challenge.
I was burning, because I felt that crowd of men, women, and children never should have been permitted to swarm across the continent. But I could remember when those same men, with others, had been cheered as they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. While I recalled those wartime parades, I was reading in the newspapers that the bonus army men were going hungry in Washington.
That night I woke up before I had been asleep an hour. I got to thinking about those poor devils marching around the capital. Then I decided that it should be a part of my son Jock's education to see and try to comprehend that marching. It was one o'clock, and the Capitol was beautifully lighted. I wished then for the power to turn off the lights and use the money thereby saved to feed the hungry.
When Jock and I rode among the bivouacked men I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces; I heard them trying to cadge cigarettes from one another. Some were lying on the sidewalks, unkempt heads pillowed on their arms. A few clusters were shuffling around. I went up to one of them, a fellow with eyes deeply sunken in his head.
'Have you eaten?' He shook his head.
Just then I saw General Glassford, superintendent of the Washington police. He said, 'I'm going to get some coffee for them.'
'All right,' I said, 'I am going to Childs'.'
It was two o'clock when I walked into that white restaurant. A man came up to take my order. 'Do you serve sandwiches? I want a thousand," I said. "And a thousand packages of cigarettes.'
'But, lady - '
'I want them right away. I haven't got a nickel with me, but you can trust me. I am Mrs. McLean.'
Well, he called the manager into the conference, and before long they were slicing bread with a machine; and what with Glassford's coffee also (he was spending his own money) we two fed all the hungry ones who were in sight.
Army are burned. July 29, 1932...One day Waters, the so-called commander, came to my house and said: 'I'm desperate. Unless these men are fed, I can't say what won't happen to this town.' With him was his wife, a little ninety-three-pounder, dressed as a man, her legs and feet in shiny boots. Her yellow hair was freshly marceled.
'She's been on the road for days,' said Waters, 'and has just arrived by bus.'
I thought a bath would be a welcome change; so I took her upstairs to that guest bedroom my father had designed for King Leopold. I sent for my maid to draw a bath, and told the young woman to lie down.
"You get undressed,' I said, 'and while you sleep I'll have all your things cleaned and pressed.'
'Oh, no,' she said, 'not me. I'm not giving these clothes up. I might never see them again.'
Her lip was out, and so I did not argue. She threw herself down on the bed, boots and all, and I tiptoed out.
That night I telephoned to Vice-President Charlie Curtis. I told him I was speaking for Waters, who was standing by my chair. I said: 'These men are in a desperate situation, and unless something is done for them, unless they are fed, there is bound to be a lot of trouble. They have no money, nor any food.'
Charlie Curtis told me that he was calling a secret meeting of senators and would send a delegation of them to the House to urge immediate action on the Howell bill, providing money to send the bonus army members back to their homes."
"While in school, from the primary grades through college, students are supposed to learn American history. But what a student can learn in one hour, three days a week, is ultimately pretty little. What makes this even worse is not what they try and teach you, but the important things they decide not to teach you.
The Bonus March of 1932 is one of those things they didn't teach you.
This march happened in one of the worst years of the Great Depression. The veterans -- some of whom brought their entire families with them to Washington DC -- were not greedy men. On the contrary, they were desperate men, desperate to keep their families fed and alive. Many of these men were unemployed in a time before food stamps and public assistance.
Simply put, if they did not work, they did not eat. And more important to many of them, their families did not eat.
So what bonus were they marching for? Well, as World War I veterans, the United States Government had promised them a bonus of several thousand dollars, payable in 1945. A relative few veterans, being hungry, hopeless and seeing no other possible help in sight, put together this march. As word spread to other veterans across the country, the numbers heading to the Capital grew and grew.
There were a few historic figures taking part in the episode -- General Douglas MacArthur, Major George S. Patton and Major Eisenhower forced the veterans out of Washington at gunpoint, effectively destroying President Hoover's hope for a second term.
Supporting the veterans was America's most decorated military officer of the day, Smedley Butler (Marine General, retired). As an aside, Butler would go on to write a book -- War is a Racket -- condemning several of the campaigns he had taken part in, and condemning the practice war itself.
This film clip is from the last half of episode two of the six part PBS/BBC2 series "The Great Depression." It is an important and overlooked piece of American history which needs to be shared.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvCuyqJXDVk
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Gabriel F.
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SGT Brian Nile SGT Robert George SFC Shirley Whitfield MSG Mark Million COL Lee Flemming SFC George Smith SrA Christopher Wright LTC (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SSgt Harvey "Skip" Porter SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Alan K. SPC Mike Lake ] LTC Greg Henning SSgt (Join to see) Sgt Trevor Barrett Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MSG Andrew White
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My late mother, Rachel Hall Higgins, went back to get some carrots; during the Depression. TSgt Joe C.
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