Nothing much happened until May 1929 (five months before Wall Street’s Black Monday), when Congressman Wright Patman of Texas, himself a war veteran, sponsored a bill calling for immediate cash payment of the bonus.
The bill never made it out of committee.
Six years after the end of World War I, Congress responded to vets’ demands that the nation fulfill promises to compensate them by passing a bill granting “adjusted service compensation” to veterans of that war.
The legislation was passed over the veto of President Calvin Coolidge, who declared that “patriotism which is bought and paid for is not patriotism.” By the terms of the new law, any veteran who had served in the armed forces was due compensation at the rate of $1 a day for domestic service and $1.25 for each day spent overseas.
Those entitled to $50 or less were to be paid immediately; the rest were to receive certificates to be redeemed in 1945.
Now in 1932, the veterans were dubbing the deferred payment the “Tombstone Bonus,” because, they said, many of them would be dead by the time the government paid it.
Then, on March 15, 1932, a jobless former Army sergeant, Walter W. Waters, stood up at a veterans’ meeting in Portland, Oregon and proposed that every man present hop a freight and head for Washington to get the money that was rightfully his.
He got no takers that night, but by May 11, when a new version of the Patman bill was shelved in the House, Waters had attracted a critical mass of followers.
That afternoon, some 250 veterans, with only, as Waters would recall later, $30 among them, rallied behind a banner reading “Portland Bonus March—On to Washington” and trekked to the Union Pacific freight yards.
The next day, a train emptied of livestock but still reeking of cow manure stopped to take on some 300 men calling themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force, BEF for short—a play on American Expeditionary Force, the collective name that had been applied to those troops sent over to France.
In the summer of 1932, a growing delegation of World War I veterans totaling about 12,000 to 15,000 who, with their wives and children, converged on Washington, D.C., demanding immediate bonus payment for wartime services to alleviate the economic hardship of the Great Depression.
They proclaimed themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force but the public dubbed them the “Bonus Army.” The Bonus Army, gathered raising ramshackle camps at various places around Washington, D.C., they waited.
The veterans made their largest camp at Anacostia Flats across the river from the Capitol. Approximately 10,000 veterans, women and children lived in the shelters built from materials dragged out of a junk pile nearby – old lumber, packing boxes and scrap tin covered with roofs of thatched straw.
Discipline in the camp was good, despite the fears of many city residents who spread unfounded “Red Scare” rumors. Streets were laid out, latrines dug, and formations held daily.
Newcomers were required to register and prove they were bonafide veterans who had been honorably discharged.
Their leader, Walter Waters, stated, “We’re here for the duration and we’re not going to starve.
We’re going to keep ourselves a simon-pure (completely genuine ) veteran’s organization.
If the Bonus is paid it will relieve to a large extent the deplorable economic condition.”
June 17 was described by a local newspaper as “the tensest day in the capital since the war.”
The Senate was voting on the bill already passed by the House to immediately give the vets their bonus money.
By dusk, 10,000 marchers crowded the Capitol grounds expectantly awaiting the outcome.
Walter Waters, leader of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, appeared with bad news.
The Senate had defeated the bill by a vote of 62 to 18.
The crowd reacted with stunned silence.
Despite inadequate housing, sanitation, and food, the movement’s leader, Walter W. Waters, managed to maintain order and to oust agitators.
The bonus bill was defeated in Congress, however, and most of the veterans left for home discouraged.
“Sing America and go back to your billets” he commanded, and they did. A silent “Death March” began in front of the Capitol and lasted until July 17, when Congress adjourned.
The rest, variously estimated at 2,000 to 5,000, over the next few weeks engaged in protests and near-riots, producing an atmosphere of restlessness and threats of turbulence.
A month later, on July 28, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the evacuation of the veterans from all government property, Entrusted with the job, the Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two marchers killed.
Learning of the shooting at lunch, President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans.
Infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks were dispatched with Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur in command.
Major Dwight D. Eisenhower served as his liaison with Washington police and Major George Patton led the cavalry.
Troops led by Brigadier General Perry L. Miles, accompanied by General Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. Army chief of staff, drove out the demonstrators and destroyed their encampments, using tanks and tear gas.
By 4:45 P.M. the troops were massed on Pennsylvania Ave. below the Capitol. Thousands of Civil Service employees spilled out of work and lined the streets to watch.
The veterans, assuming the military display was in their honor, cheered. Suddenly Patton’s troopers turned and charged.
“Shame, Shame” the spectators cried. Soldiers with fixed bayonets followed, hurling tear gas into the crowd.
By nightfall, the BEF had retreated across the Anacostia River, where Hoover ordered MacArthur to stop.
Ignoring the command, the general led his infantry to the main camp.
By early morning the 10,000 inhabitants were routed and the camp in flames.
Two babies died and nearby hospitals overwhelmed with casualties.
Eisenhower later wrote, “the whole scene was pitiful. The veterans were ragged, ill-fed, and felt themselves badly abused.
To suddenly see the whole encampment going up in flames just added to the pity.”
One veteran was shot to death, and several veterans and policemen were wounded.
Congress then appropriated $100,000 to send the protesters home, and they dispersed.
Politically, the event was a blow to Hoover.
A second Bonus Army came in May 1933 and this time was greeted by the new president’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, and presidential assistant Louis Howe.
Although again no bonus legislation was passed, Congress did create the Civilian Conservation Corps, in which many of the veterans were able to find work.
In 1936, however, Congress finally passed, over a presidential veto, a bill to disburse about $2 billion in veterans’ benefits. The Bonus Army laid the foundation for the G.I. Bill of Rights (1944).