Forgotten Military History: The Bonus Army of 1932.

[Jackpine Radical]

(From Wikipedia)

The self-named Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932. Called the Bonus March by the news media, the Bonus Marchers were more popularly known as the Bonus Army. It was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant. The veterans were encouraged in their demand for immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates by retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time.

The war veterans, many of whom had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression, sought immediate cash payment of Service Certificates granted to them eight years earlier via the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. Each Service Certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment, plus compound interest. The problem was that the certificates (like bonds), matured twenty years from the date of original issuance, thus, under extant law, the Service Certificates could not be redeemed until 1945.

On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two veterans were killed. President Hoover then ordered the army to clear out the veterans. The infantry and cavalry were supported by six tanks, and commanded by Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur. Major, later President, Dwight D. Eisenhower was his liaison with Washington police, and Major George Patton led the cavalry. The Bonus Army, their wives and children were driven out with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent, and their shelters and belongings burned. Two more of the veterans, and an unknown number of babies and children, died (accounts range from one to "a number" of casualties).

After Franklin D. Roosevelt's election, his wife, Eleanor, urged members of the Bonus Army to apply for work with the Works Progress Administration building the Overseas Highway to Key West. Several hundred veterans were later killed in the September 1935 Florida Keys hurricane. The Democratic-led Congress overrode a Roosevelt veto in 1936 to give the veterans their bonus years early.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Thanks for refreshing our memories.

[scarletwoman]

2. Thank you for this, much appreciated. Oddly enough, one of the most moving accounts I've read

about the military attack on the Bonus Army's encampment was in Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna.

The might of the government has always been arrayed against the poorest and least powerful of us. :cry:

k&r
sw

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I would assume that the average American has no idea

about the history of the Bonus Army. And it was only 78 years ago.

Well, hell, most of them still think Saddam masterminded 9-11, so I have no right to be surprised.

[scarletwoman]

8. I'll never understand the American antipathy toward history.

Even when I was I kid, who absolutely loved studying history -- ANY history -- I couldn't figure out why so many other kids just moaned and groaned and bitched about it.

It's one of the most destructive defects of our national character, imho.

[Bigmack]

3. You mean this Gen. Smedley Butler?...

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
“I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC two time Medal of Honor recipient. 8 Purple Heart
- - - - -
or this Gen Smedley Butler..?

In 1933, Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

According to the BBC, the plotters intended to impose a fascist takeover and "Adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."

The conspirators were operating under the umbrella of a front group called the American Liberty League, which included many families that are still household names today, including Heinz, Colgate, Birds Eye and General Motors.

Butler played along with the clique to determine who was involved but later blew the whistle and identified the ringleaders in testimony given to the House Committee on un-American Activities.

However, the Committee refused to even question any of the individuals named by Butler and his testimony was omitted from the record, leading to charges that they were involved in covering the matter up, and the majority of the media blackballed the story.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Yes, of course, THAT Smedley Butler.

The same Smedley Butler whom the industrialists tried to enlist to lead the military overthrow of FDR, but who ratted them out instead.

Butler was one of America's greatest heroes, if ya ask me.

[pnorman]

9. Of particular note here is the actions of FDR.

He was fully informed of this treasonable plot by Smedley Butler. But he carefully considered the "politics" of it, and took no official notice and allowed ALL the principals to walk. At that time, FDR's "political capital" was FAR larger than that of Obama's. Those professed admirers of FDR, should bear that in mind before calling Obama a "sell-out".

[Hannah Bell]

6. k&r

[WCGreen]

7. It's a lot more than that....

They started gathering all across the country and started the Bonus March which was a semi-coordinated series of events aimed at the gathering in DC...

For months these out of work veterans, often with their families, slowly made their way toward DC.

It was a big media event at the time.

[Catherina]

10. Shameful. Rec'd n/t

[w8liftinglady]

11. Jackpine...thanks for posting this...

[Major Hogwash]

12. Sadly, it wasn't forgotten in my family.

My grandfather's older brother was drafted to fight in WWI.
He became one of the Bonus Army members after he came back from Europe.
He didn't get along with my grandfather because he was nearly 10 years older than him and he told him he just didn't understand because he wasn't the one in the trenches being attacked by mustard gas.
He had mustard gas scars on his back for the rest of his life.
He wouldn't take his shirt off around other people because he didn't want them to see his scars.
He left the family farm after he came back from the war.

Then he drifted for awhile after the war during the early 20s and went East, and wound up in Baltimore in 1930.
And then he got involved with the Bonus Army.
He fled Washington when they moved them out and he went home one more time to tell them he would never vote again.
He wound up going West and worked on the Hoover dam.
As part of the WPA program.

A few years later, my grandfather's other brother was drafted to fight in WWII.