The Bonus Army
Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, 2004
The events have been newly resonant in recent months, when Americans again set out to
occupy public spaces in order to be heard.
Dickson and Allen collaborated in the fine overview of this
PBS documentary, viewable in 10-minute parts,
1,
2 and
3. The book itself is a thorough look at the era's policies and politics—
hands-off-business; racism and Red Scare—none of which have exactly gone away.
After several years of post-World War I effort, a 1924 law had been passed—but no funds budgeted—authorizing "adjusted universal compensation" for war veterans. The law was intended to help vets make up for domestic wages lost, as wartime pay had been only a dollar a day. The authors elaborate—
The so-called bonus was neither compensation nor a bonus. It was a twenty-one year endowment life insurance policy payable at death or in 1945, whichever came first. But the term "bonus" had become ingrained in the national consciousness, and it was the label given to the legislation and certificates. Veterans thought of it as just that—a bonus, an overdue monetary gift from a grateful nation. The misnomer was aided in part by Coolidge's infamous words, "We owe no bonus to able-bodied veterans of the World War." [pp 29-30]
The political opposition claimed it was "unaffordable" and would add to the national debt. Behind the politics were corporate interests that not only profited from the war but had also received post-war compensation.
And racism was used to argue against payment. The anti-bonus resolution introduced at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce convention was typical, claiming "the half million Negroes in the South, who probably would receive $500 or $600 each, would immediately quit work until the money was spent." [
p 23]
In response to that language an African-American paper, the
Cleveland Advocate
... took note of the fact that millions of acres of farmland were then owned and cultivated by a people little more than fifty years removed from slavery who were not prone to quitting work—and even if some of the bonus money was spent recklessly, white merchants would benefit. The Advocate was stunned that those who denied one Negro veteran his bonus would deprive four whites their payment, concluding the resolution was "an insult to the race, and a most reprehensible injustice to the white world war veteran." [p 23]
As the Depression worsened, seeking payment of money certified but still not budgeted became a matter of survival for veterans and their families.
The idea of marching to Washington for redress was in the air; the first instance being in January 1932, when Father James Cox led a group of unemployed workers from Pennsylvania. "Cox's Army" began with 6000, growing to about triple that size by the time it reached DC. Along the way, Cox would blast Hoover's policies—
"Our president is still trying to give money to the bankers, but none to the people... There is plenty of money in this country… I do think that our mission to Washington will have its effect. The government sent Al Capone to jail for cheating it out of $100,000, yet John D. Rockefeller is giving $4,000,000 to his son to escape the inheritance tax." [p 49]
Later in January, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was established—
Hoover's most ambitious effort to deal with the Depression, the RFC started off loaning money to banks and businesses, hoping that prosperity would "trickle down" through the economy. [p 51]
Dickson and Allen quote a Will Rogers column from the next month—
... "you can't get a hotel room in Washington.... Every hotel is jammed... with bankers from all over America to get their 'hand out' from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation." The bankers, it seemed to Rogers. "have the honor of being the first group to go on the 'dole' in America." [p 52]
Meanwhile, national veterans' groups organized efforts to bring petitions to legislators; on their own initiative, informal local groups discussed plans to travel to Washington. In spring of 1932, after pro-payment legislation failed in the House, a group of veterans set out for DC from Portland, Oregon. Traveling by loaned trucks, hitchhiking, freight hopping, and any means possible, this group sparked what would be called the BEF: the "Bonus Expeditionary Force," the name based on their wartime service in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF).
Thousands of people were already on the road in search of work, and the BEF began to grow organically, as veterans from around the country headed for the capitol.
 |
| (Photographer and location unknown) |
Popular sentiment was on the vets' side, and locals often fed and took up collections for marchers arriving in towns around the country. The military discipline usually maintained by groups won them positive press coverage. Whether from sympathy or just desire to move marchers to another jurisdiction, there were a number of junctures where local and state officials arranged transport to the next point. Dickson and Allen describe a Midwest route, where
... vets filled up truck belonging to the Indiana National Guard that had been provided by the governor. The trucks… made an overnight stop about fifty-five miles south of Indianapolis. The governor of Ohio, aware that the motorcade would soon cross into his state… ordered up his own convoy of National Guard and State Highway Department trucks. On the first truck was a banner: "Veterans Bonus March. On to Washington."
Photos throughout the book illustrate a striking degree of racial integration—one reason, the authors suggest, for the history's being buried.
Because wartime segregation kept black soldiers out of the military's all-white units, 404,000 African-Americans had fought under the
French flag. Later, separate and poorly-equipped ships took mothers and widows to visit graves in Flanders. But in 1932, vets marched in integrated groups, as they would live together in the DC encampments.
By late May of 1932 groups were nearing DC, where the police chief, war veteran and retired brigadier general Pelham Glassford, had been appointed only a few months earlier, to clean up the department's corruption. Glassford had a great deal of sympathy for the rank and file vets, and little cooperation from officialdom in dealing with an influx that would become tens of thousands. When military officials denied him tents and supplies, Glassford organized private donations, at times paying out of his own pocket to feed marchers. Initially concerned about "Red" involvement in the BEF, Glassford came to see it was not a significant factor—and that the rank and file themselves were eager to weed it out; sometimes violently, as events unfolded.
It was a very different picture to the various branches of military intelligence. Expecting the country to face radical insurrections, the Army's Military Intelligence Division (MID) had in the 1920s developed color-coded
plans of defense—plans and surveillance mainly directed against pacifist groups. The one for DC was Plan White, and in 1932 it would be adapted for use against veterans.
In several District locations, encampments grew during the spring and summer. Largest was the military-style Camp Marks, laid out by Chief Glassford on public land in the Anacostia area, and named after a policeman friendly to marchers. 15,000 campers, including about 1,100 wives and children, lived for two months in "the largest Hooverville in the country." As shacks improvised from junk were added to the rows of tents, commercial photographers recorded "picturesque" shelters and scenes of daily life. At bottom of this
post card archive page are some of these images.
While the national press would largely ignore the story, local witnesses noted racial integration in the encampments—particularly amazing to African-American residents of the highly segregated city, as survivors recalled in author interviews. Reporting for the NAACP magazine, Crisis, Roy Wilkins traveled in June to Camp Marks—
There I found black toes and white toes sticking out side by side from a ramshackle town of pup tents, packing crates and tar paper shacks. Black men and white men, veterans of the segregated army that had fought in World War I, line up equally, perspired in sick bays side by side. For years the U.S. Army had argued that General Jim Crow was its proper commander, but the Bonus Marchers gave lie to the notion that black and white soldiers—ex-soldiers in their case—couldn't live together. [p 118]
During the summer, veterans continued lobbying Congress.
The authors caption a photo of veterans (and their children) sprawled at night on the Capitol lawn—
More than 6,000 bonus marchers take over Capitol Hill on June 17, awaiting the Senate vote on the bonus bill, which the House has passed. To the tune of "The Yanks Are Coming," veterans sang, "The Yanks are starving, the Yanks are starving." [p 128]
As political action failed and demonstrations continued, the Army secretly sought evidence that Reds were among the marchers en route. A report from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, claimed the California delegations had "Jewish Communists financed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"—dog-whistle, yes, but particularly laughable in view of Louis B. Mayer's right-wing politics and friendship with President Hoover. Another submission, from J. Edgar Hoover to the Army's MID, alleged marchers had dynamite and plans to blow up the White House.
One Army operative's scenario went to readers (including MacArthur) so credulous that—
The Army now had information, passed through channels without comment, that a revolution was imminent and "that at least a part" of the Marine Corps garrison in Washington would side with the revolutionaries. It was one of the most remarkable documents ever to wind its way through the Army chain of command. If nothing else, it would go a long way to suggest why the Army would not rely on the Marine Corps in the days ahead. [p 143]
On July 7 Congress appropriated funds to transport veterans from the capitol. While 1100 vets were estimated to have left within a few days, new marchers continued arriving to take their places.
July 28, in pictures from the General Douglas MacArthur Foundation and authors' captions—
Soldiers, ordered by President Hoover to evict the Bonus Army, herded veterans and onlookers alike out of downtown Washington. "God, that I would live to see such things in the United States," said a reporter. [p 174]
Soldiers in gas masks drive veterans away from their billet near Pennsylvania Avenue [...where] Bonus marchers had been allowed to live in abandoned buildings... [p 176]
Smoke veiled the Capitol dome as fire engulfed veterans' shanties, set afire by soldiers. Later that night, General MacArthur, defying presidential orders, would send soldiers into Camp Marks, which would also go up in flames. [p 178]
In following days, remaining veterans, many of whom had no home to return to, were rounded up by soldiers and transported out of town—as were some unlucky passersby caught up in these sweeps. The authors include a July 29 photo of a soldier on a public bus: he still wears a tear gas grenade as he checks for veterans among the passengers.
Over the next few days, newspapers advertised theater newsreels that promised graphic images of fleeing veterans and their families, blazing shacks, clouds of tear gas, soldiers wielding fixed bayonets, and cavalrymen waving sabers....
In movie theaters all across America the unthinkable happened: the United States Army was booed and MacArthur jeered.... The images and lurid words—"a day of bloodshed and riot"—contributed to a caricature of Hoover as a cold and heartless man, unable to cope with the needs of the hungry and dispossessed.
In justifying their actions, MacArthur and Hoover claimed that most of "the mob" had not been veterans. A few days after the evictions, J. Edgar Hoover arranged with the VA to receive veterans' names, so he could search his fingerprint files in hopes of matching them to crimes—despite the tacit admission that the men were indeed veterans.
After Roosevelt's election, the administration insisted that able-bodied men be taken care of through New Deal programs like the CCC, where camps were racially segregated and left out older vets. Roosevelt not only opposed bonus payment, but also made VA cuts part of his budget balancing measures. New if smaller bonus marches continued, reminders of how the public had turned against Hoover's handling of vets. In October 1934 the administration began setting up Veterans Rehabilitation Camps, where older men were put to work.
On Labor Day 1935 a hurricane approached the Florida keys. Administrators of an isolated VRC road construction camp made the disastrous decision to "wait and see" about evacuation, then ordered a train when it was too late. The storm hit record 200 mph winds and 18 foot storm surges. Of known losses, 259 recovered bodies were identified as veterans. Due to the storm's terrible force the deaths of men in government charge were especially gruesome, as was the process of recovering remains.
After an administration report whitewashed events as an "act of God," veterans' organizations sought a real investigation, and formed a newly united front in favor of bonus payment. Anger over the deaths and public sentiment in favor of bonus payment led Congress to take up a new bill, which passed in January 1936. FDR's veto followed; it soon was overridden in both houses, and payment scheduled for June 15.
Employees of the Veterans Administration, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Postal Service worked overtime to provide packets for 3,518,000 veterans, with an ultimate cash value of more than $1.9 billion. Distribution of the packets to regional and local post offices began at the U.S. Postal Service headquarters in Washington at midnight on June 15. Through announcements in newspapers and on radio, veterans were told to be home on June 16... to sign for the registered mail... Each vet got an application to be filled out and taken to their local post office, where "certification officers," after checking identification, handed over a receipt. This was converted into a U.S. Treasury check the vet could then cash...
The process worked at amazing speed. Many vets who met the postman at the door on Tuesday June 16, had cash in their hands by Thursday.[pp 260-1]
Throughout a country hit hard by the Depression, cash began circulating immediately. Veterans paid bills and bought necessities; merchants benefitted from a "bonus rush."
Very clear in 2012 is the efficiency with which the process worked—and the scope of public services in the public good that the privatizers aim to destroy.
Within a few years of payment, as millions were in uniform for another war, veterans groups and political figures realized this time around, planning was needed before large numbers returned to civilian life. A proposal by the American Legion became the basis of the GI Bill of Rights introduced in Congress. College administrators opposed it, believing academic standards would be lowered. Congressional Dixiecrats fought the Bill as long as they could, on the usual grounds of that blacks wouldn't work if they received benefits; preserving the south's two-tier economy—low pay for blacks to control wages of the white working class—was the real motivator.
By June 1944 the Bill had passed and been signed by Roosevelt. Veterans transitioned to civilian life via the "52-20 Club" unemployment provision, receiving $20 a week for a year, while job hunting or applying to schools. The new availability of a college education and the home loans that led to a growing middle class: more success stories that are becoming ancient history.
Much as the New Deal may have "saved capitalism," fear of civil unrest in 1944 was a motivator for the GI Bill. When post-war fear of communism became pervasive, Dickson and Allen find the story of the Bonus March became distorted, and dismissed, as something stirred up by Reds.
Along with racism being stoked by those it serves, fear of Commies is a perpetually useful theme. Who needs the Soviets to even exist, when the White House is home to a socialist so terrifying that even Republicans obstruct his deviously Republican proposals. From
McCarthy list rehash by a crazed tea partying member of Congress, to "centrist" billionaire's
warnings against a new USSR (
i.e., NYC $11.50/hour minimum wage proposal), red-baiting continues keeping us safe from budgets in the public interest and living wage standards.
The same old tactics and media framing keep any discussion of the success of Scandinavian-style social spending forever Off The Table. The latest
"social happiness" study is out, with the usual suspects heading the list. Clever Sister caught a context-free local news report, with anchor model reaction: "
Denmark is the happiest country? But it's cold!
Canada ranks higher than
us?
How can that be? The study (
i.e., this bozo's teleprompter)
doesn't say..."
