The Bonus Army : an American epic / Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dickson, Paul.

Contributor:

Allen, Thomas B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bonus Expeditionary Forces.

World War, 1914-1918--Veterans--Washington (D.C.).

World War, 1914-1918.

Protest movements--Washington (D.C.)--History--20th century.

Protest movements.

Veterans--Political activity--United States--History--20th century.

Veterans.

Veterans--Political activity.

History.

Economic conditions.

United States.

Veterans--United States--Economic conditions--20th century.

Washington (D.C.)--History--20th century.

Washington (D.C.).

Physical Description:

370 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Walker & Co., 2005.

Summary:

Veterans have vexed politicians since the days of Caesar's legions. Even the American Revolution ended with a disgruntled army menacing Congress. But no veterans' story has been as dramatic or eventful as that of the Bonus Army.

During the summer of 1932, in the depths of the Depression, some 45,000 World War I veterans descended on Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of a cash bonus promised them eight years earlier for their wartime service. They lived in shantytowns, white and black together, and for two months they rallied peacefully for their cause-an action that would have a profound effect on American history.

Despite their efforts, the bonus bill was defeated in the Senate after passage by the House. President Herbert Hoover, Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, and others-fearing the veterans were controlled by Communists and would turn violent-decided they had to be removed from their bivouac near the Capitol. On July 28, 1932, going beyond presidential orders, MacArthur drove the veterans out of the city with tanks, tear gas, and soldiers wielding bayonet-tipped rifles. Upon reading newspaper accounts of the eviction, Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a critical contest with Hoover for the presidency, said to an adviser, "This will elect me."

Yet Roosevelt proved even more determined than Hoover not to pay the bonus, and bonus armies returned in the first three years of his administration. Seeking a solution, Roosevelt sent many to work camps in Florida, where, on Labor Day, 1935, the worst hurricane ever to strike the United States killed some 250 unprotected vets, prompting a New Deal whitewash and cover-up of the facts.

Through seminal research, including interviews with the last surviving witnesses, Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen have unraveled the full and dramatic story of the Bonus Army, and of the many celebrated and unlikely figures involved: MacArthur and his aide, Dwight D. Eisenhower; Evalyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope Diamond, who sided with the marchers against the Washington establishment; Roy Wilkins, then a young reporter, who saw in the veterans' campsites the model for racial integration in America; Ernest Hemingway, who took up the cause of the vets who died in the Florida Keys.

Dickson and Allen also recover the voices of ordinary people who dared tilt at powerful injustice. The bonus was finally paid in 1936 when Congress overruled Roosevelt's fourth veto. But the Bonus Army's ultimate legacy came in 1944 when Congress passed the GI Bill of Rights, one of the most important pieces of social legislation in U.S. history, which in many ways transformed the nation.

Contents:

1 Over There 9

2 The Tombstone Bonus 25

3 A Petition in Boots 39

4 Mobilizing a Bonus Army 56

5 An Army of Occupation 81

6 Hooverville, D.C. 105

7 The Death March 131

8 Tanks in the Streets 153

9 The Long Morning After 184

10 The Return of the Bonus Army 207

11 Labor Day Hurricane 224

12 V Day for the Veterans 252

Epilogue: The GI Bill-Legacy of the Bonus Army 266

Appendix A The Long Shadow of the Bonus Army 283

Appendix B What Became of Them 291.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 345-353) and index.

ISBN:

0802714404

OCLC:

55982121