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Government Attacks WWI Bonus 'Army'

By VVAW

On the evening of July 28, 1932, the smell of tear gas hung over Washington, DC, 25,000 veterans and their families--the Bonus Army--had been dispersed. After months of using every tactic to try to break the fight of the vets to get the Bonus payment, the government finally resorted to the last possible tactic of a desperate state and called in the military to drive the vets from the city. Complete with tanks under the command of Major George Patton, flashing sabers on the mounted cavalry, drawn bayonets, and orders from President Hoover, the young troops had to fight every inch of the way against the veterans, battle-hardened in the trenches of Europe and fighting mad over the way their government was treating them.

The Bonus wasn't really a "bonus" at all. World War I soldiers had been paid ($1 per day plus 25 cents overseas pay) so far below prevailing wages and so far below what the GIs had expected to be paid, that returning veterans had forced Congress to act. In 1924 Congress had passed the Adjusted Service Compensation Bill, giving vets an average of $1000 in adjusted pay. But, under pressure from big business and groups like the American Legion, payment was to be deferred until 1945. 1932 was the middle of the Depression and the bonus payment was the only thing standing between many vets and breadlines. And the same Congress that refused to pay the bets their needed bonus could happily give out billions to the Mellons, the Morgans and other huge financial interests.

Veterans began to protest. In October 1931, 400 vets from 49 cities marched as a vets contingent in a Hunger March of the unemployed in Washington. All over the country vets were being crushed under the great Depression and saw the immediate payment of the Bonus as a way to survive. So, when the first groups of vets started for Washington, more and more followed. Refused transportation, vets commandeered trains--one group fought a pitched battle with police and railroad thugs in Toledo, Ohio railyards. By rail, hitch-hiking, in caravans of broken-down cars and trucks, in cattle cars, even by foot, vets started to converge on Washington.

Washington wasn't prepared. Frantic calls went out to state governors saying Stop the vets; the vets pushed on. Even the Workers Ex-Serviceman's League (WESL), a group of rank-and-file vets who had first suggest the march wasn't prepared for the numbers. And, as the publicity grew, prices on stocks and bonds fell--the financial community and power brokers weren't at all sure what the vets might do next. They did know that it had to be stopped.

Every tactic was used; misleaders of vets opposed up to play on the basic trust of the veterans and succeeded, for awhile, in leading the struggle down blind alleys. Congressmen gave glowing speeches of appreciation for all the vets had done--and voted against immediate payment of the Bonus. Vets, such as members of WESL working for rank and file leadership were red-baited and threatened. Promises of government food were broken, but the people of Washington and the surrounding area helped feed the vets. Attempts to cut the vets off from the population (ranks of police lined any march route to keep the vets apart from the people, for instance) didn't succeed. Attempt to persuade the vets to leave without the Bonus, even attempts to bribe them away from the city, all failed.

Meanwhile the vets marched, demanding not only the Bonus payment but, refusing to be cut off from other working people, also demanding unemployment insurance. They lived in handmade shacks as best they could--many of them had been evicted back in their hometowns anyhow. Finally, Congress managed to sneak out of town without passing the Bonus. Conditions got worse and worse for the vets; it was clear that they wouldn't be pacified much longer and the "leaders" were no longer in command. Finally, Hoover called out the troops.

The troops were handpicked. For two months, young soldiers had been brought into Fort Meade (near Washington) and kept away from the city where they might talk with the vets. Older GIs, who might have been sympathetic, were sent on special assignments away from Washington. The government had earlier tried to get a contingent of Marines to challenge the vets, but many refused to go to Washington and the rest would not pick up arms against the veterans.

The 28th of July began with the Washington police trying to evict vets and their family from one deserted building where they had camped. They were met with a shower of bricks and pulled back. On the second attack, a nervous policemen shot and killed William Hruska, a meatcutter and veteran from Chicago. That's when the military was called in. General Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff, and Major Dwight Eisenhower, his aide, had been waiting for the order, though the military had to wait to begin the attack until MacArthur could have freshly pressed uniform brought to him.

Tanks rolled down Third Street. Troops put on gas masks, the first time outside of practice, and began throwing canisters of tear gas (and according to some observers, mustard gas); the vets picked them up and threw them back as soon as they hit the ground. Bayonets were pointed at the vets who fought every inch of the way; but the vets had to give ground, trying to grab what was left of their few possessions. A large group of vets were camped across the Potomac River at Anacostia; MacArthur sent his troops across the river, battled the vets out of their encampment, and burned it to the ground.

Two ideas were running around in the heads of the US ruling class and its Hoover puppet. First, they were scared. According to the DC police chief, "Some members of the wealthy classes throughout the country looked upon the occupation of the nation's capital as a revolutionary action." Second, the vets refused to be separated from people around the country and were gaining massive support both in Washington and elsewhere. The spark that they were providing for working people, all suffering under the worst economic crisis in history, was even more dangerous than the vets themselves.

Many of the veterans had come to Washington with the naíve faith that Congress once it understood how badly they needed the Bonus would come to their aid. They left having seen that the strings of the Congressmen were pulled by someone other than vets or working people. Even on the night of the 28th of July, 200 rank and file vets met on a street corner in Washington. Government schemes to divert vets into government camps had limited success. And many vets went home with the lesson learned from WESL who had fought and won an official ban on discrimination in the vets' camps.

The veterans movement did not die despite the vicious attack. Within a couple of years, the struggle of veterans and of working people forced Franklin Roosevelt and Congress to pass the Bonus Bill, and to institute unemployment compensation, a major victory for the struggle of vets and all working people.