When Patton And MacArthur Burned The Bonus Army Veterans' DC Camp Like It Was Atlanta To The Sea

[Zorro]

On July 28, 1932, the US Army 12th Infantry regiment commanded by Douglas MacArthur and the 3rd Calvary Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Major George Patton, violently evicted the Bonus Army from their Washington DC encampment. This horrible treatment of impoverished veterans shocked the American public and demonstrated the utter indifference of Herbert Hoover to the desperate poverty the nation faced, helping to seal his overwhelming defeat that fall that ushered in the widespread change of the New Deal that would follow.

The Great Depression absolutely decimated the American working class. Unemployment shot up to 25 percent by the winter of 1933, while underemployment affected perhaps an additional 25 percent of workers. Herbert Hoover was simply unable to deal with these problems. Hoover was a man with a long humanitarian record, but he was very much a Progressive in a period where the voluntarist response to social problems that movement valued no longer worked. (Look how labels change!) Charges that Hoover didn’t care about the poor are overstated. But he simply could not accept any large-scale state involvement in solving the problem. By the summer of 1932 he had slightly moved off his position, but widescale social programs were anathema. Even more horrifying to him was worker activism and protest.

In 1924, Congress passed the World War Adjusted Compensation Act that granted World War I veterans a one-time pension check — in 1945. President Calvin Coolidge vetoed this bill because of course Coolidge would veto a bill that gave anyone a dime, but Congress overrode the veto. But by 1932, those soldiers needed that money now. They faced unthinkable poverty. They could not feed their families. What difference did it make if it was 1932 or 1945, veterans thought. So they began to demand the immediate payment of their bonus. The bonus was not a huge amount of money. It paid veterans $1 a day for service while in the US and $1.25 in Europe, up to a maximum of $500 in the US and $625 in Europe. That $625 is about $8,000 today. This was not going to make people rich. But it was something at a time when something was exactly what was needed.

As the Depression deepened, Congress did allow veterans to borrow against the value of the certificates. Originally, they could borrow up to 22 percent of the total, but in 1931 Congress expanded this to 31 percent. Congressional support for paying the entire bonus grew. In January 1930, 170,000 desperate veterans applied for the loans —in nine days. Veterans struggled with what must have been PTSD, as Veterans Administration studies in 1930 and 1931 showed that veterans had unemployment nearly 50 percent higher than non-veterans of the same age. Beginning in 1930, Congress began exploring new bills to help veterans, but none became law. Then, on June 15, 1932, the House passed the Bonus Bill that would grant the bonuses immediately.

As Congress debated the Bonus Bill, veterans descended on Washington, demanding the immediate payment of the bonus. Organizing this protest was an organization you might not expect today — the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The VFW had few members in the early 1920s. But after 1929, its membership exploded because it supported the immediate payment of the bonus, while the American Legion, a proto-fascist anti-worker organization in addition to supposedly advocating for veterans, opposed it. They created a Hooverville in what is today Anacostia Park. Despite being in Washington during the summer, they maintained sanitation. They did not welcome non-veterans or other radicals who might want to turn the event to their purposes. To stay in the camp, people had to prove their veteran status and eligibility. They could however bring their families. Approximately 20,000 veterans traveled to Washington during the summer of 1932.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/when-patton-and-macarthur-burned

[erronis]

1. Thank you for this record - we need to repeat these over and over

since the propagandists on the right will try to distract and imply that this history is inaccurate.

[brewens]

2. I got that on 1978 from my high school history teacher. He was our journalism teacher/

advisor as well. A real old school news reporter that was also an alcoholic and the Idaho correspondent for the Spokesman review that covered our legislature. No one knows how he did it.

I don't think that was taught in many high schools back then. I'm surprised he didn't teach us about the Tulsa massacre, but he had been in the north his whole journalism career.

[appalachiablue]

3. Thanks for remembering & posting. I never heard one word about this in classes, grr

- British Pathe news,1932.

The Great Depression (1929–1939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States.

The economic contagion began around Sept. 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of Oct. 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.

Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries,[specify] the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

- US National Archives, July, 1932.

[orthoclad]

4. Preach it!

Remember this when people say the military doesn't intervene in domestic matters.

Remember also the Battle of Blair Mountain, 11 years before the Bonus Army, when WV was radical working class.

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history[3] and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War.[4] The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early-20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia. Up to 100 people were killed, and many more arrested.

For five days from late August to early September 1921, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers (called the Logan Defenders)[5] who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired,[6] and the United States Army, represented by the West Virginia Army National Guard led by McDowell County native William Eubanks,[7] intervened by presidential order.[8]

They used bombers dropping poison gas against the miners.

Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair. At least one did not explode and was recovered by the miners; it was used months later to great effect as evidence for the defense during treason and murder trials. On orders from General Billy Mitchell, Army bombers from Maryland were also used for aerial surveillance. One Martin bomber crashed on its return flight, killing the three crew members.[1][2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain


Blair Mountain happened around the time that the Socialist Eugene Debs ran for President while in prison, serving ten years for opposing US entry into WWI and the draft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs

I never heard about any of these events in school, where we actually had pretty good geography and middlin' history. I could name every major river in the world and the capitals of Central America and cities in Central Asia, but nothing about class warfare.

PS: also remember the 1933 Business Plot aka Wall Street Putsch, where the plotters planned a coup to be led by Maj. Gen Smedley Butler. Certainly, Trump's backers like Bannon are studying that plot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot