1932 — July 28, DC Police & US Army confront “Bonus Expeditionary Force” Vets., DC–2
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 1-13-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–2 Laurie and Cole. The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders 1877-1945. 1997, p.374
–2 PBS. Freedom: A History of US, Webisode 12: Depression and War.
Narrative Information
Laurie and Cole: “As government workers left their office buildings in downtown Washington, D.C., during the late afternoon of Thursday, 28 July 1932, they witnessed an unusual military procession. Led by a one-star general, a column of nearly 200 mounted cavalrymen, 300 infantrymen, and 5 tanks advanced southeast from the Ellipse, down Pennsylvania Avenue, toward 3d Street, Northwest, as the base of Capital Hill. Instead of marching bands, colors with streamers, and dress uniforms, however, somber khaki uniforms, steel helmets, and grim expressions characterized the appearance of the troops. Accompanying the column in a staff car, Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur prepared to evict from the city a ragtag group of unemployed veterans known as the Bonus Expeditionary Force.
“Not since the West Virginia coal mine wars of 1921 had so large and potent a federal military force taken to the field in a domestic disturbance. It would be the last major deployment of troops on riot duty before World War II. The fears of radicalism and urban insurrection, largely latent during the previous decade, resurfaced during the years immediately following the stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. By 1932 the world had seen the consolidation of Mussolini’s Fascist rule in Italy, Stalin’s Communist rule in the Soviet Union, and increasingly successful attacks on the German Weimar Republic by Communists and Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists. As the economic and social effects of the worldwide depression hit the United States, many Americans called for similarly drastic reactionary or radical changes. The public and many government leaders feared an attack against the American system by elements of both extreme left and extreme right wings. The advent of the 1932 Bonus March was to many a harbinger of revolution.
….
“Although by 1932 many Americans were without hope, some veterans of World War I looked optimistically to an early payment of the Veterans’ Compensation Certificate. In 1924 Congress had voted all veterans of World War I a bonus of $1.25 for every day served overseas or $1 for every day served within the United States – a lump sum of $2.4 billion, payable in 1945. In the spring of 1932 Congressman Wright Patman introduced a bill making the bonus payable at once. To help pressure Congress into passing it, Walter W. Waters, an unemployed former Army sergeant from Portland, Oregon, organized a band of 300 veterans to march in Washington, D.C. Within the next several weeks similar groups gathered in other cities. By May 1932 nearly 20,000 veterans, the so-called Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), boarded trains for the capital.
“….city officials – many of them veterans, including Washington, D.C. Chief of Police Pelham D. Glassford – initially empathized with the marchers and helped the first contingents to set up temporary living quarters at twenty sites scattered throughout the city. Principal camps were located on Pennsylvania Avenue near 3d Street, Northwest, at 12th and Cf Streets, Southwest, and on the meadows east of the Anacostia River that were called the Flats.
“The relatively positive attitude held by local authorities toward the Bonus marchers was not shared by all officials in the Washington area. Some conservative officials, including high-ranking members of the War Department and the Army general staff, were opposed to the idea of allowing almost 20,000 unemployed veterans to camp in the city. The marchers aroused military concerns of radical activity, especially from the American Communist Party, which many officers believed might try to exploit discontent among the Unemployed and recruit new members.
….
“Though somewhat concerned about Communist activity, Hoover refused to be swayed by pressures from some congressmen to supplement city police with either federal deputy marshals or the Army. Baring solid evidence, such as an overt insurrection, he defended the rights of citizens, including Communists, to parade and peacefully protest government policies….
“Perhaps the most ardent and influential anti-communist in the high command was Maj. Gen. George Van Horn Moseley, MacArthur’s deputy chief of staff. Moseley’s rabid anti-communism dated back to the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s betrayal of the Allied cause in World War I. Since then Moseley had believed in the existence of a ruthless and ceaseless Communist conspiracy to subvert Western democracies and overthrow capitalism. In 1932 Moseley had not yet become clearly and publicly aligned with American right-wing, anti-Semitic, and pro-Nazi groups as he did later, but he had long urged his confidants to support legislation calling for the deportation of foreign-born radicals and the outlawing of the Communist Party. In correspondence with several prominent Americans in May 1932 Moseley even advocated a military coup d’etat in the United States should the government prove unable to solve the nation’s problems. When Wright Patman reintroduced the Bonus bill in 1932, Moseley adjudged the Bonus marchers as ‘veterans, Communists, and Bums’ and offered his support to a conservative New York law firm in lobbying vigorously against passage of the bill.
….
“The Military District of Washington’s version of Emergency Plan White had been drafted in the early 1920s. The plan’s authors had not anticipated a disorder involving up to 20,000 military veterans, not the alleged willingness of a revolutionary party to lead those veterans in a Communist insurrection. In May 1932 Moseley warned MacArthur that the plan should be revised and adapted to current events and Army capabilities. Appealing to his chief’s vanity, he pointed out that in a crisis the country would look to the Army and, above all, to General Duglas MacArthur for strong, decisive, and effective leadership. MacArthur ordered the revision.
“The task devolved upon Brig. Gen. Perry L. Miles, commander of the 16th Infantry Brigade stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland….He believed that, although Communist leaders claimed credit for instigating the Bonus March, the overwhelming number of marchers had thus far resisted all Communist attempts at infiltration and control. Nonetheless the Communists could be expected to exploit every opportunity to provoke a violent confrontation between veterans and authorities. Before troops marched, therefore, the on-scene commanders should give the non-Communist veterans an opportunity to depart. Against those who remained, they should employ tear gas as a first resort. Meanwhile, the 16th Infantry Brigade should allot sufficient troops to guard the White House, the Treasury, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Capitol, and other critical points.
….
“During the remainder of June and early July…corps area commanders failed to uncover any solid evidence of Communist direction or influence on the Bonus March movement. In addition, Smith [Col. Alfred T. Smith, assistant chief of staff, G-2, War Dept. General Staff] and Glassford [DC Police Chief] concluded that the BEF leaders were moderates who actually feared being branded as radicals by the press, public, and government. Far from plotting revolution, the two men concluded, the marchers merely wanted advance payment of the money they believed they had earned and had been promised by Congress and the nation. Both men agreed further that the only danger posed by the Communists to the city was that of inciting violent clashes between otherwise peaceful and law-abiding marchers and the police.
“The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed the Bonus bill by a vote of 209 to 176 on 15 June 1932, but under threat of a presidential veto the Republican-controlled Senate defeated the measure by 62 to 18. Convinced that Congress could be persuaded to reconsider, the veterans of the Bonus Expeditionary Force were determined to stay in the capital until their demands were met. Congress, however, adjourned on 16 July without having taken any further action on the bonus issue, except to vote $100,000 to help defray homeward travel expenses of the Bonus army. Though the marchers now had no reason to remain in the city, over 11,000 stayed on and were soon joined by more new recruits. In all probability they simply had no other place to go. However, the failure of the Bonus army to disperse convinced MacArthur more than ever of its sinister intent. His beliefs were reinforced when marchers conducted mass demonstrations in front of the White House on three occasions between 16 and 26 July.
“Even the moderate president was growing weary of the marchers. To Hoover the White House demonstrations – which in turn triggered other incidents of protest in the city – were a gratuitous provocation of the federal government. For two months he and Chief Glassford had resisted strong pressures to take more forceful measures in dealing with the marchers, had tolerated their presence, and had largely supported their right. Their continued presence was irritating, unnecessary, and fruitless. From 21 to 27 July, therefore, he approved plans for U.S. Treasury agents to eject marchers from several abandoned buildings that they had occupied on Pennsylvania Avenue, ostensibly to clear the sites in preparation for constructing new offices for the Treasury Department. Evictions of marchers from Anacostia, 12th and C Streets, Southwest, and the numerous smaller camps by District police were scheduled to follow. Hoover had at last ‘flung down the gauntlet, apparently with the backing from his cabinet members, generals, and the district commissioners.’
“Escorted by 800 policemen, about half the District of Columbia’s force, treasury agents began evictions on the morning of 28 July. Although many grumbled and 20 Communists verbally harassed police and threw bricks, the marchers left the 3d and Pennsylvania site without major resistance. A few persons were arrested in scuffles with police. But as the evictions continued into the early afternoon, violence increased. As police began to evict marchers from buildings in the next block, bricks were again thrown, and the police responded with nightsticks. In the ensuing melee several policemen were badly beaten, many marchers were injured, and two men were fatally wounded. The deaths signaled a dramatic escalation in the confrontation….”
[Pages 374-389 describe the intervention following this confrontation of U.S. Army calvary, infantry and tanks, though without any further loss of life. The Bonus Force members were forced out of the District and their camps burned.]
(Laurie, Clayton D. and Ronald H. Cole. The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders 1877-1945 (Army Historical Series). “Chapter 16, The Bonus March, 1932.” Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1997, pp. 367-389.)
PBS: “In the summer of 1932, President Hoover says the Depression is over. But if he looks out the windows of the White House, he will see he is wrong. Thousands of World War I veterans and their families are camped in the center of Washington. Congress voted them a cash bonus for their war service, but the bonus is not due until 1945. They need it now. They call themselves the Bonus Army, and they build a Hooverville within sight of the Capitol. They march through the streets waving American flags and singing freedom songs like ‘My country ’tis of thee.’ Hoover asks the army to intervene. Ignoring the president’s orders that he not use force, General Douglas MacArthur sends in tanks and machine gun units and armed cavalry—soldiers on horseback with bayonets, tear gas, and billy clubs. The shacks are torn down and set on fire. Two babies die from the tear gas. War veterans are wounded. When it is all over, many Americans hang their heads in shame. Hoover later says, ‘I did not wish them driven from the camps. Our military officers pushed them outside the District of Columbia.’ But the United States does not need presidential excuses. It needs a strong leader, someone who will be open to new ideas, someone who will take charge.” (PBS. Freedom: A History of US, Webisode 12: Depression and War.)
Sources
Laurie, Clayton D. and Ronald H. Cole. The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders 1877-1945 (Army Historical Series). Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1997.
PBS. Freedom: A History of US. Webisode 12: Depression and War. Accessed 1-12-2009 at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web12/segment2b.html