THE BONUS ARMY IN WASHINGTON

A Documentary Source Problem

In 1925 Congress passed a law giving World War I veterans a "bonus" payment for their service, to be paid in 1945. As the Depression worsened in 1932, some veterans began to demand their bonus immediately, arguing that they should get the money when they needed it most. In April, 1931, Representative Wright Patman, Democrat from Texas, introduced a bill providing for the bonus to be paid at once. House Republicans and some Democrats, however, held it up in committee. In May a group of unemployed veterans from Oregon rode the rails, hitch-hiked and walked across the nation to Washington, D.C., agitating for the Patman Bonus Bill.

The veterans' cause soon drew national attention, and soon veterans from all parts of the country began to gather in Washington. By the end of June between fifteen and twenty thousand "bonus marchers" were camping in Washington, most on a mud flat on the banks of the Anacostia River. The presence of these men (many with their wives and children) annoyed District of Columbia officials and embarrassed the Hoover administration. Still, they were allowed to remain and were actually helped in finding food, shelter and clothing by some District citizens, charities, and officials, including the Police Superintendent, Pelham Glassford.

On July 15 the Patman Bonus Bill passed the House of Representatives, but two days later the Senate defeated a bill almost identical to it. The bonus marchers took this setback peacefully and intensified their lobbying. The Hoover adminstration and many Congressmembers increased their efforts to persuade the veterans to leave the Capitol. ON July 17 Congress adjourned for the summer. Now the Administration and District officials could see little reason for the marchers to remain in the city. Tensions mounted, but until July 28 only a few minor conflicts erupted between the veterans and the police.

The events in Washington on July 28 were seen by some as a disgraceful and cruel treatment of our veterans by the Hoover administration, and by others as a courageous defiance of lawlessness and a budding revolution. Analyze the following documents in answering these questions:

1. Was there clear evidence that a Communist-led revolution was in the making?

2. Was the Hoover administration trying to provoke a conflict by ordering the eviction of the veterans?

3. Did the clashes betwen police and the bonus marchers on July 28 amount to an actual riot?

4. Is there evidence to show that Police Superintendent Glassford did lose control of the situation?

5. If the government's main aim was to contain the disturbance, then why did the army push all the marchers from the city?

6. Under what authority did General MacArthur act when he crossed the Anacostia River?

7. Did President Hoover lose control of the army?

8. What problems or difficulties in interpreting historical documents present themselves in this exercise? In other words, why is it so hard to find out "the truth" from them?

DOCUMENT #1

Mauritz A. Hallgren in The Nation, July 27, 1932 (written July 17.)

"Hardly more than fifty of the veterans started for the White House, but...President Hoover issued orders to the police to close the gates of the grounds and to clear Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent streets of all...traffic ....The demonstrators were quickly dispersed, three of their leaders being arrested. According to Inspector O.T. Davis of the metropolitan force, President Hoover had said that if the police could not clear the streets within a few minutes he would call out regular army troops....In my judgment there was not the slightest possibility of any really serious trouble developing, for there is in these bonus-seekers no revolt, no fire, not even smoldering resentment...

"Out in their camps, they show even less spirit. Squalid, miserable and unhealthful as these camps certainly are, life there offers more security and comforts than many of these men have known for months.

"Who are the bonus-seekers and where have they come from? They are mostly farmworkers, fruit pickers, itinerant factory workers, and other unskilled or semi-skilled laborers....However, a large minority of the men are skilled mechanics, white-collar workers, and even professional people....Thus the movement is essentially bourgeois and not proletarian, at least in outword form. This explains in large measure the patriotism and flag-waving of the bonus-seekers...

"The veterans are all in or beyond middle age; every one of them has been thoroughly whipped by his individual economic circumstances. There is about the lot of them an atmosphere of hopelessness, of utter despair...[with] no stomach for fighting. People who see in the bonus army the beginning of a fascist movement...are in error. Such a movement may start among the younger unemployed, but it will not, I am certain, start with the bonus army.

"There is no doubt that Washington officialdom from Mr. Hoover on down is badly frightened by the presence of these former soldiers..."

A secret Army intelligence report by Asst. Chief of Staff Lanza, July 5, 1932.

"Word has been passed around in Syracuse (New York) that the first blood shed by the Bonus Army at Washington, is to be a signal for a communist uprising in all large cities, thus initiating a revolution. The entire movement is stated to be under communist control..."

Attorney General Wm. Mitchell, statement to the press, after the police started evicting the bonus marchers from the buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, July 28, 1932.

"During the time that Congress was in session and the members of the 'bonus Army' were justifying their presence on the grounds that they desired to petition Congress for a redress of alleged grievances, there was a natural disposition to show extreme consideration to these men. That time has gone by.

"Many of them are violating the laws of the District by holding unlawful assemblies in the streets, obstructing traffic, disorderly conduct, begging and other acts. Their refusal to leave government property and resisting removal is an offense against the law, punishable by fine and imprisonment."

Letter from the D.C. Board of Commissioners to Pres. Hoover, July 28.

The President:

This morning, officials of the Treasury Department, seeking to clear certain areas within the Government triangle in which there were numbers of...bonus marchers, met with resistance. They called upon the Metropolitan Police Force for assistance and a serious riot occurred. Several members of the Metropolitan Police were injured, one reported seriously...

It is the opinion of the Major and Superintendent of Police, in which the Commissioners concur, that it will be impossible for the Police Department to maintain law and order except by the free use of firearms...it is believed, however, that the presence of Federal troops in some number will [end] the seriousness of the situation and result in far less violence and bloodshed.

The Commissioners of the District of Columbia, therefore, request that they be given the assistance of Federal troops, in maintaining law and order in the District of Columbia.

Very sincerely yours,

L.H. Reichelderfer, President

Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia

Orders issued by Sec. of War Hurley to Gen. MacArthur at about 3:00 p.m., July 28.

TO: General Douglas MacArthur

Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

The President has just now informed me that the civil government of the District of Columbia has reported to him that it is unable to maintain law and order in the District.

You will have United States troops proceed immediately to the scene of the disorder. Cooperate fully with the District of Columbia police force which is now in charge. Surround the affected area and clear it without delay.

Turn over all prisoners to the civil authorities....

Use all humanity consistent with the due execution of the order.

Patrick J. Hurley,

Secretary of War

President Hoover's statement to the press, July 28.

"For some days police authorities and Treasury officials have been endeavoring to persuade the so-called bonus marchers to evacuate certain buildings which they are occupying without permission. These buildings are on sites where Government construction is in progress and their demolition was necessary in order to extend employment in the District...

"This morning the occupants of these buildings were notified to evacuate and at the request of the police did evacuate the buildings concerned. Thereafter, however, several thousand men from different camps marched in and attacked the police...

"I have received the attached letter from the Commissioners of the District of Columbia stating that they can no longer preserve law and order in the District.

"In order to put an end to this rioting and defiance of civil authority, I have asked the Army to assist the District authorities to restore order.

"Congress made provision for the return home of the so-called bonus marchers....Some 5,000 took advantage of this arrangement and have returned to their homes. An examination of a large number of names discloses the fact that a considerable part of those remaining are not veterans; many are communists and persons with criminal records..."

The New York Times, July 29, 1932, contains the following comments by W.W. Waters, made just before federal troops entered the city.

"The men got completely out of control. There was nothing and is nothing I can do to control them."

[Later the same day Waters isued this statement to the press:]

"Every drop of blood shed today or that may be shed in days to come as the result of today's events can be laid directly on the threshold of the White House.

"They [the bonus marchers] were under the strictest orders to conduct themselves in an orderly manner in the event of attempted forcible evacuation and to offer nothing but passive resistance, but the administration saw fit to issue orders for forcible evacuation of the Pennsylvania Avenue billet [barracks], making no provision for other billets nor allowing us time to make such provision: nor were we allowed the time to prepare the minds of the men for what was to occur...

"I have devoted these recent weeks to organization work that could prevent such an occurrence and the men of the [bonus army] were entirely in accord with the ideals that had been laid down.

"But all this has been offset and a life sacrificed to serve the political interests of the administration."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell To Friends, 1967.

"As quickly as the order was announced to us, General MacArthur decided that he should go into active command in the field....saying that it was a question of Federal authority in the District of Columbia, and ...that there is 'incipient revoution in the air', as he called it...

"Instructions were received from the Secretary of War, who said he was speaking for the President, which forbade any troops to cross the bridge into the largest encampment of veterans...

"These instructions were brought to the troops by Col. Wright...and then by Gen. Moseley.... In neither instance did Gen. MacArthur hear these instructions. He said he was too busy and did not want either himself or his staff bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders."

Gen. George Moseley (Deputy Chief of Staff in 1932), One Soldier's Journey, 1936-1938.

"Sometime after the troops had completed their mission on Pennsylvania Avenue, and before they had crossed the Anacostia Bridge with the view of cleaning out the camp on the other side, Mr. Hurley, the Secretary of War, directed me to inform Gen. MacArthur that the President did not wish the troops to cross the bridge that night, to force the evacuation of the Anacostia Camp....I delivered that message to [Gen. MacArthur] and discussed it with him. He was very much annoyed in having his palns interfered with in any way until they were executed completely....Later I was instructed to repeat the message and assure myself that Gen. MacArthur received it before he crossed the Anacostia Bridge. I sent Col. Clement B. Wright...to repeat the message to MacArthur....In any event, Gen. MacArthur went on with his plan, carrying it through, compelling the complete evacuation of the large Anacostia Camp, which held most of the veterans..."

The New York Times, July 29, 1932.

"At 10:00 this evening infantrymen with drawn bayonets advanced into the camp [on Anacostia Flats], driving the crowd before them with tear gas bobms. Then they applied the torch to the shacks in which the veterans lived..."

Gen. MacArthur, statement to the press, July 28.

"It is my opinion that had the President not acted today, had he permitted this thing to go on for twenty-four hours more, he would have been faced with a grave situation which would have caused a real battle. Had he let it go another week I believe that the institutions of our Government would have been very severely threatened....

"I have never seen greater relief on the part of the distressed populace than I saw today...

"At least a dozen people told me, especially in the Negro section, that a regular system of tribute was being levied on them by this insurrectionist group...

"I have been in many riots but I think this is the first riot...in which there was no real bloodshed..."

Benjamin Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives, 1948, on the author's experiences as a Communist.

"Waters [the head of the Bonus Army] charged that the communist gang...which seized the Illinois contingent were drunkards guilty of misusing veterans' funds. The communists, now in the driver's seat, kicked Waters out of command and...took complete charge of the Bonus March movement.

"The communists had succeeded in keeping the veterans in Washington almost a month. The mood of th veterans got uglier from day to day. The communists' leaders were then firmly in the saddle...

"On July 28 the Government went into action. General Douglas MacArthur...stepped in to prevent bloodshed after a fight between communist-led veterans and police resulted in the death of one veteran and the shooting of an innocent bystander. It was just what the Communists wanted. Now they could brand Hoover as a murderer of hungry unemployed veterans. They could charge that the U.S. Army was Wall Street's tool with which to crush the unemployed, and that the government and Congress of the U.S. were bloody Fascist butchers opf unarmed American workers."

Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences, 1964.

"For two fruitless months the [bonus marchers] lived in abject squalor making their daily marches to the Capitol...where they hoped to loosen the pursestrings of government. In the end, their frustration, combined with carefu needling by the Communists, turned them into a sullen, riotous mob.

"The [bonus march] was actually far deepr and more dangerous than an effort to secure funds from a nearly depleted federal treasury. The American Communist Party planned ariot of such proportions that it was hoped the United States Army, in its efforts to maintain peace, would have to fire on the marchers. In this way, the Communists hoped to incite revolutionary action. Red organizers infiltrated the veteran groups and presently took command from their unwitting leaders...

"On July 28...a mob of 5000 strong began to move up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Treasury Building and the White House. The police were outnumbered five to one....Two men were killed and a score or more badly injured. It was evident that the situation had gotten beyond the control of the local authorities.

"Not a shot was fired [by the federal troops]. The sticks, clubs and stones of the rioters were met only by tear gas and steady pressure....At Anacostia Flats I received word from the Secretary of War, as we were in the midst of crossing the river, to suspend the operation at my discretion. I halted the command as soon as we had cleared the bridge, but at that moment the rioters set fire to their own camp."

Paul Y. Anderson, writing in The Nation, Aug. 17, 1932.

"Excepting a small unit of Communists, which the ,main body proptly outlawed, the behavior of the men [of the Bonus Army] was characterized by extraordinary discipline and restraint. To one who visited their camps many times and talked to scores of them, any suggestion that they constituted a threat against the government is preposterous. Even the Communist gestures were confined mainly to two futile attempts to parade before the White House, which got them nothing but broken heads, jail sentences, and fines...

"[Secretary of War] Hurley mouths indignant phrases about 'panhandling' and 'forced tribute from citizens' , but in al my visits to the camps I was never asked for anything more valuable than a cigarette -- and I am a fairly prosperous looking citizen. As soon as Congress adjourned there was a steady exodus of the campers...

"But suddenly someone high in authority decided the government must have immediate possession of the partially razed block...where about 1,500 were existing in abandoned buildings and makeshift huts. Instructions went from the Treasury to the District commissioners to have the police evict the squatters. On two occasions Glassford convinced the commissioners that the police had no authority to conduct such evictions....On Wednesday there was a conference at the White House attended by Hurley, Attorney General Mitchell and General Douglas MacArthur, chief of staff of the army. On Thursday morning Glassford was informed that Treasury agents would begin evacuation of a part of the block, and that if anyone resisted eviction he was to be arrested for disorderly conduct....Someone had devised a technicality for getting around the law....It was obvious that irresistible pressure had been applied to the commissioners....

"At noon there was a scuffle, and one of the marchers was hit on the head with a nightstick....

There was a chower of bricks from the marchers in the rear....The cops kept their heads and no shots were fired....Glassford dashed into the heart of the melee...and stopped the fighting in a few seconds....Two policement had been badly hurt by thrown bricks, and several veterans were bleeding...

"The trouble was resumed with more serious consequences two hours later....Two veterans were fatally wounded.... Glassford made an illuminating statement to reporters. He said: 'The trouble began when I was compelled to enforce an order which I considered unnecessary. In a few more hours this area could have been evacuated peacefully.'

"According to Messrs. Hoover and Hurley, it was necessary to evacuate this block in order to 'give way to new buildings to be built...to give employment to the unemployed of Washington and vicinity'. As a matter of fact, inquiry at the Trasury discloses that the plans call for no buildings on this block.

"The Secretary asserts that 'the shacks and tents at Anacostia were set on fire by the bonus marchers before the troops crossed the Anacostia Bridge'. I was there when the troops crossed....About fifteen minutes after their arrival in the camp the troops set fire to two improvised barracks... [After about] thirty minutes, the veterans began firing their own shelters as they abandoned them."

Fleta Campbell Springer, in Harpr's Monthly Magazine, Nov., 1932.

"The veterans were so orderly, so quiet, so well-governed without government that the city was amazed by it...

"The small group of Communist veterans...at no time mustered more than 210 men for their demonstrations....And the loyal veterans...expended all their latent evergy against these Reds. Their own 'military police', armed with sticks instead of guns, were constantly on the watch. They ran out the Reds. They took radical speechmakers to the District line, and beat them up. The radicals came back."

Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 1952.

"Through government agencies we obtained the names of upwards of 2,000...and found that fewer than a third of them had ever served in the armies, and that over 900 on the basis of the sampling were ex-convicts and Communists....

"On July 28th the Treasury officials, through the police, requested [the] marchers to move to other quarters. Whereupon more than 1,000 of the disturbers marched from camps outside of the city armed with clubs and made an organized attack upon the police. In the melee Police Commissioner Glassford failed to organize his men. Several were surrounded by the mob and beaten up; two policemen, beaten to the ground, fired to protect their lives and killed two marchers. Many policemen were injured...

"Without firing a shot or injuring a single person, [the Army] cleaned up the situation. Certain of my directions to the Secretary of War, however, were not carried out. Thjose directions limited action to seeing to it the disturbing factions returned to their camps outside the business district. I did not wish them driven from their camps, as I proposed the next day we would surround the camps and determine more accurately the number of Communists and ex-convicts among the marchers. Our military officers, however, having them on the move, pushed them outside the District of Columbia.

Editorial, The New Republic, Aug. 10, 1932.

"The orders which sent the soldiers to Anacostia, routing men, women and children out of bed, drenching them with tear gas, ruthlessly burning their poor shelters and whateever p[ersonal property they could not carry upon their backs, then driving all of them, cripples, babies, pregnant women, up a steep hill at the point of a bayonet -- these were the orders of a furious child who has been thwarted and is raging for revenge. It is profoundly humiliating to every ecent American that he must see his government thus persecuting and stealing from these hungry and ragged men whom, fourteen years ago, it did not hesitate to send into the trenches at the risk of death.

John H. Bartlett, The Bonus March and the New Deal, 1937.

"None of [the veterans] were harming anybody where they were. They were absolutely penniless, ragged, hungry, and sick.

"Those who were hesitating to go, confused and bewildered, simply did not know where to go or what to do...

"Police on the second day [July 29] also staged an unprecedented round-up of park sitters. Many who had not been identified with the bonus army were caught in the drive. Police patrols...ran, in a steady stream, to Judiciary Square, which a police cordon had transformed into a human corral. There all who could not establish definite means of support were reloaded into cars and taken to the district line where they were again transferred into trucks and whisked away and dumped. A police count showed 502 poor people, none criminals, had been evicted in this second campaign."

Benjamin Gitlow, "A Labor Party for America", Modern Monthly, Sept. 1933.

"We have had four years of the worst economic crisis in the history of the country, bringing with it unprecedented poverty, unemployment, misery, starvation and general discontent. Yet the Socialist and Communist parties were unable to capitalize [on] these conditions for their respective movement. They have failed to organize the unemployed....The rebellious actions that did take place, as for example the farmers' strikes, the Veterans' Bonus March on Washington, etc., were of a spontaneous character and took place in spite of these two parties....When the Communist Party tried to inject itself into the Veterans' Bonus March, the mass of the veterans resented it as interference and looked upon the Communists as a foreign, hostile force."

In 1932 John Pace was a member of the Communist Party of the U.S. He led a group of veterans from Detroit, Michigan that joined other veterans in Washington in June. Here is an excerpt of his testimony before the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, at the height of the Cold War.

Pace: I do not believe that the Government had any alternative....Had this thing gone on for another week, the Communists would have gained the leadership of the bonus...forces, thereby resulting in forcing the Government to take the action they did take...

---

Rep. Mandel: Are you acquainted, Mr. Pace, with the events that took place on July 29, 1932?

Pace: No, I was in jail at the time.

Mandel: Did you learn from party leaders what happened?

Pace: No; the only discussion that I had came probably 2 or 3 weeks after that date, when I was called to New York City....There was quite a hot argument over the policies that had been pursued by the party in connection with the bonus march. The Communist Party of the U.S. was severely criticized by the representative of the Comintern, Alpi....He told [us that we] slept while the masses rolled by...

The New York Times, July 29, 1932.

"The story of the bonus riots in brief facts and figures...

Killed, 1 veteran

Injured, 55, 5 seriously

Tear gas victims, 20

Arrests, 135

Still held, 55, mostly veterans, including 36 radicals for immigration authorities, 10 for technical investigation, 9 for disorderly conduct, and 1 for inciting a riot.

The New York Times, July 31, 1932.

"The police today ejected from the District [of Columbia] twenty-eight of the forty-three radicals arrested yesterday in a raid on a meeting.

"The released men, against whom no charges could be placed, were escorted to the Maryland line, where State troopers loaded them in trucks for Pennsylvania."