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Part 6: Vets Movement: "Bloody Thursday" Army Attacks

By Pete Zastrow

On July 28, 1932, President Hoover sent in the US Army to drive the members of the Veterans Bonus Army out of Washington, DC. "Bloody Thursday" marked the last resort of a government grown desperate because of the relentless demands of its own veterans.

25,000 vets and their families were camped around the city of Washington, demanding that their Bonus be paid. By late July, the administration was running scared. The government saw the revolutionary potential in the thousands of angry vets, and further saw that the reformist and reactionary leadership of the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF) could not contain the vets' anger much longer. Hoover passed down an ultimatum: all vets out of DC by August 4th. He didn't wait, however; on the morning of July 28th the attack began.

The first assault came from the DC Police. Under the command of Glassford, self-proclaimed friend of vets and an early BEF leader, they moved into the area along the South side of Pennsylvania Ave near 3rd St where vets had occupied abandoned government buildings. At first there was little resistance, as vets scrambled to collect their families and the few belongings they had accumulated. But, as the police moved through the second building, vets fought back; rocks and bricks were hurled at the police. Policemen drew their guns and fired; one vet, William Hushka, an unemployed Chicago butcher who had served in Europe as a PFC at $1 per day, was dead; Eric Carlson, an Oakland vet who had been gassed in the trenches of France, was shot and died later. President Hoover order in the second line of attack--the Army.

This was the order that Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, had been waiting for (the order came earlier than expected, so the attack had to wait while his immaculate uniform was brought to him); with his aide, Major Dwight Eisenhower at his side, he sallied forth to take personal command. Down Pennsylvania Ave came the mounted Third Cavalry, under Major George Patton, brandishing their drawn sabers. They were followed by a machine-gun detachment, infantry units, and six tanks. The troops had been specially imported into the DC area to make certain that none of them had fraternized with the vets, a reaction to the Marine Company which had earlier refused to go against the Bonus marchers. The line of troops was faced by a line of vets, separated by the troopers bayonets; though they resisted at each step, the vets had to retreat in front of the saber-waving mounted soldiers, and a barrage of gas.

The vets were pushed back across the 11th Street Bridge toward the main encampment at Anacostia. Infuriated spectators as well as the vets picked up tear gas bombs (3000 of them had been brought to Ft Myers earlier in preparation for the attack) and threw them back at the soldiers. At the Anacostia camp, soldiers stormed through the make-shift city, setting fire to the tents and shacks the marchers had built, often destroying everything vents and their families possessed. Two babies would later die as a result of the teargas. The first Bonus March was over--the Bonus Army was dispersed out of the capital.

It was dogged determination of the Bonus marchers which had forced the government's hand. MacArthur, trying to justify his military overkill, saw the potential of the vets more clearly than many of the marchers: "Had the President waited another week, "MacArthur said, "I believe the institutions of our government would have been severely threatened." The Bonus Marchers were only a small part of the 17 million unemployed in 1932; their refusal to e tricked or co-opted by sellout leadership, or to be bribed out of the capital, or to give in to the wretched conditions they were forced to live in--all of this was a message to working and unemployed people around the country. The government could not afford to give in to the vets' demands; terrified, the government tried intimidation. But the vets movement wasn't stopped, and other people around the country weren't intimidated--there was a wave of militant strikes, of marches, of demonstrations which drew strength from the Bonus Army.

The Bonus marchers made some real mistakes. Their demands were aimed at Congress, part of the system which could never meet the needs of the people. Many of the vets saw their Bonus demands in isolation from other working peoples' needs. And, because the march was spontaneous, there was no clear organization or leadership--that is what allowed the government to slide its dupes in as leaders. Only the WESL (the Workers Ex-Serviceman's League) saw the need for organization and of unity--and they were only a small part of the Bonus Army. But, when the vets were dispersed, the rank-and file caucus, organized by WESL, stayed in DC to prepare for a Second Bonus march.

The marchers were scattered around the county; many of those with homes to go to went home; thousands ended up in a brief encampment in Johnstown, PA, where the mayor and local businessmen turned them into a tourist attraction. Some ended up in virtual concentration camps, supervised by the secret service, in the midst of large cities. Some went into the CCC work-camps used by Roosevelt to corral the army of the unemployed. The attempt of W.W. Waters, one of the early BEF leaders, to organize the "Khaki Shirts," an open copy of the Nazi brown shirts, failed, despite the backing of the "Key Men," a group of business tycoons who wanted their own fascist military.

The Second Bonus March, organized by the rank-and-file caucus, elected a permanent Liaison Committee to stay in Washington; future actions would have a real organization. This committee composed a three-point program--Immediate payment of the Bonus; No cuts in disability allowances (Hoover, and later Roosevelt, both tried to slash the payments to disabled vets); and Immediate relief for the unemployed and framers. The final demand, the major long-range victory of the Bonus March, would be passed later as unemployment insurance.

Around the country, growing rank-and file vets groups joined with other people to fight for the 3-point program. In May, 1934, a Veterans Congress brought 1429 representatives from 45 states to Washington; 270 were Black; overall, they averaged 3 years unemployed. They refused to be used as a force for reaction and refused to be separated from workers; as the Congress said, "Only one thing can defeat fascism and prevent war. That is unity and mass action....Our stand must be with our fellow workers."

(Next issue: the Vet's Movement before and after World War II.)