THE BONUS ARMY OF 1932

What you are about to read are varied versions of the same story - but ONE FACT appears in ALL of them - the U.S. Government had no qualms about sending military force out against it's own citizens - citizens that were VETERANS OF WAR, defenders of the very freedom and rights that were being taken away from them, and promises broken to them.

Remember WACO / RUBY RIDGE / ELIAN GONZALES -it started in 1932 & still goes on today!!!!    DO WE HAVE ANY RIGHTS?

   Bonus veterans from Boston, Massachusetts

Photographs of members of the 1932 Bonus Expeditionary Force, jobless veterans of World War I who unsuccessfully tried to persuade Congress and President Hoover to grant them their Veterans Bonus ten years early. Any hopes for relief from their economic distress faded with their forcible eviction from their encampment by federal troops. Photographs of the Bonus marchers are sympathetic, showing their living conditions, sense of humanity, and their feeling of neglect.

Few images from the Great Depression are more indelible than the rout of the Bonus Marchers. At the time, the sight of the federal government turning on its own citizens -- veterans, no less -- raised doubts about the fate of the republic. It still has the power to shock decades later.

From the start, 1932 promised to be a difficult year for the country, as the Depression deepened and frustrations mounted. In December of 1931, there was a small, communist-led hunger march on Washington; a few weeks later, a Pittsburgh priest led an army of 12,000 jobless men there to agitate for unemployment legislation. In March, a riot at Ford's River Rouge plant in Michigan left four dead and over fifty wounded. Thus, when a band of jobless veterans, led by a former cannery worker named Walter W. Walters, began arriving in the capital in May, tensions were high. Calling themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary Forces," they demanded early payment of a bonus Congress had promised them for their service in World War I.

Army Chief of Staff MacArthur was convinced that the march was a communist conspiracy to undermine the government of the United States, and that "the movement was actually far deeper and more dangerous than an effort to secure funds from a nearly depleted federal treasury." But that was simply not the case. MacArthur's own General Staff intelligence division reported in June that only three of the twenty-six leaders of the Bonus March were communists. And the percentage within the rank and file was likely even smaller; several commanders reported to MacArthur that most of the men seemed to be vehemently anti-Communist, if anything. According to journalist and eyewitness Joseph C. Harsch, "This was not a revolutionary situation. This was a bunch of people in great distress wanting help.... These were simply veterans from World War I who were out of luck, out of money, and wanted to get their bonus -- and they needed the money at that moment."

At first, it seemed as though order might be maintained. Walters, organizing the various encampments along military lines, announced that there would be "no panhandling, no drinking, no radicalism," and that the marchers were simply "going to stay until the veterans' bill is passed." The government also did its part, as Washington Police Superintendent Pelham D. Glassford treated his fellow veterans with considerable respect and care. But by the end of June, the movement had swelled to more than 20,000 tired, hungry and frustrated men. Conflict was inevitable.

The marchers were encouraged when the House of Representatives passed the Patman veterans bill on June 15, despite President Hoover's vow to veto it. But on June 17 the bill was defeated in the Senate, and tempers began to flare on both sides. On July 21, with the Army preparing to step in at any moment, Glassford was ordered to begin evacuating several buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, using force if necessary. A week later, on the steamy morning of July 28, several Marchers rushed Glassford's police and began throwing bricks. President Hoover ordered the Secretary of War to "surround the affected area and clear it without delay."

Conspicuously led by MacArthur, Army troops (including Major George S. Patton, Jr.) formed infantry cordons and began pushing the veterans out, destroying their makeshift camps as they went. Although no weapons were fired, cavalry advanced with swords drawn, and some blood was shed. By nightfall, hundreds had been injured by gas (including a baby who died), bricks, clubs, bayonets, and sabers.

Next came the most controversial moment in the whole affair -- a moment that directly involved General MacArthur. Secretary of War Hurley twice sent orders to MacArthur indicating that the President, worried that the government reaction might look overly harsh, did not wish the Army to pursue the Bonus Marchers across the bridge into their main encampment on the other side of the Anacostia River. But MacArthur, according to his aide Dwight Eisenhower, "said he was too busy," did not want to be "bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders," and sent his men across the bridge anyway, after pausing several hours to allow as many people as possible to evacuate. A fire soon erupted in the camp. While it's not clear which side started the blaze, the sight of the great fire became the signature image of the greatest unrest our nation's capital has ever known.

Although many Americans applauded the government's action as an unfortunate but necessary move to maintain law and order, most of the press was less sympathetic. "Flames rose high over the desolate Anacostia flats at midnight tonight," read the first sentence of the "New York Times" account, "and a pitiful stream of refugee veterans of the World War walked out of their home of the past two months, going they knew not where."

_________________________________________________________

Hard economic times always incur a certain amount of social dislocation and consequently create opportunities for politically extreme movements. The global economic event that began in 1929, known as the Great Depression, allowed radical movements of the Left and Right to make headway in Europe during the 1930's. As one of the major industrial powers and one of the hardest hit by the Great Depression, radical groups like these could have posed a serious challenge to public order in the United States. There were many instances of labor unrest and strikes that turned violent, incidents that prompted temporary mobilizations of state National Guards. There were also instances where regular Army troops were called out in aid of the civil power. The worst incident of this type was the Bonus Army March in Washington in the summer of 1932.

At the end of World War One, as the American Expeditionary Force was being demobilized, a grateful U.S. government passed legislation that authorized the payment of cash bonuses to war veterans, adjusted for length of service, in 1945. However, the Crash of 1929 wiped out many veterans' savings and jobs, forcing them out into the streets. Groups of veterans began to organize and petition the government to pay them their cash bonus immediately. In the spring of 1932, during the worst part of Depression, a group of 300 veterans in Portland, Oregon organized by an ex-Sergeant named Walter Walters named itself the 'Bonus Expeditionary Force' or 'Bonus Army,' and began traveling across the country to Washington to lobby the government personally. By the end of May over 3,000 veterans and their families had made their way to the capital. Most of them lived in a collection of makeshift huts and tents on the mud flats by the Anacostia River outside of the city limits. Similar ghettos could be found sheltering the migrant unemployed and poor outside any large city in the United States and were called 'Hoovervilles.' By July, almost 25,000 people lived in Anacostia, making it the largest Hooverville in the country.

In June, the Patman Bonus Bill, which proposed immediate payment of the veterans' cash bonuses, was debated in the House of Representatives. There was stiff resistance from Republicans loyal to President Hoover, as the estimated cost of the bill was over $2 billion and the Hoover Administration was adamant about maintaining a balanced budget. The bill passed in the Congress on June 15, but was defeated in the Senate only two days later. In response, almost 20,000 veterans slowly shuffled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue for three days in a protest local newspapers titled the 'Death March.'

As the weather and the rhetoric grew hotter, concern grew that the Bonus Army Marchers could cause widespread civil disorder and violence. There were scuffles with the police and some Senators' cars were stoned by unruly crowds of veterans. Retired Marine General Smedley Butler, an immensely popular figure among veterans and who had become a vocal opponent of the Hoover Administration, participated in Bonus Army demonstrations and made inflammatory speeches (He would be approached in 1933 by Fascist sympathizers in the American Legion, who would try to involve him in an actual plot to seize power in a coup d'etat.). It was alleged at the time that the March was directed by the Communist Party of the USA in pursuit of a genuine revolution, but it has since been established that the Party's only actual involvement was sending a small number of agitators and speakers. Nevertheless, President Hoover considered the Bonus Army Marchers a threat to public order and his personal safety. Contrary to tradition, he did not attend the closing ceremonies for that session of Congress on July 16 and many members left the Capitol building through underground tunnels to avoid facing the demonstrators outside.

Many of the Marchers left Washington after Congress adjourned, but there were still over 10,000 angry, restless veterans in the streets. On July 28, 1932, two veterans were shot and killed by panicked policemen in a riot at the bottom of Capitol Hill. This provided the final stimulus. Hoover told Patrick Hurley, the Secretary of War, to tell General Douglas Macarthur, then the Army Chief of Staff, that he wished the Bonus Army Marchers evicted from Washington. Troops from nearby Forts Myer and Washington were ordered in to remove the Bonus Army Marchers from the streets by force.

One battalion from the 12th Infantry Regiment and two squadrons of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment (under the command of Major George S. Patton, who had taken over as second in command of the Regiment less than three weeks earlier) concentrated at the Ellipse just west of the White House. At 4:00 p.m. the infantrymen donned gas masks and fixed bayonets, the cavalry drew sabers, and the whole force (followed by several light tanks) moved down Pennsylvania Avenue to clear it of people.

Against the advice of his assistant, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, Macarthur had taken personal command of the operation. President Hoover had ordered Macarthur to clear Pennsylvania Avenue only, but Macarthur immediately began to clear all of downtown Washington, herding the Marchers out and torching their huts and tents. Tear gas was used liberally and many bricks were thrown, but no shots were fired during the entire operation. By 8:00 p.m. the downtown area had been cleared and the bridge across the Anacostia River, leading to the Hooverville where most of the Marchers lived, was blocked by several tanks.

That evening Hoover sent duplicate orders via two officers to Macarthur forbidding him to cross the Anacostia to clear the Marchers' camp, but Macarthur flatly ignored the President's orders, saying that he was 'too busy' and could not be bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders.' Macarthur crossed the Anacostia at 11:00 p.m., routed the marchers along with 600 of their wives and children out of the camp, and burned it to the ground. Then, incredibly, he called a press conference at midnight where he praised Hoover for taking the responsibility for giving the order to clear the camp. He said, 'Had the President not acted within 24 hours, he would have been faced with a very grave situation, which would have caused a real battle.... Had he waited another week, I believe the institutions of our government would have been threatened.' Patrick Hurley, the Secretary of War, was present at this conference and praised Macarthur for his action in clearing the camp, even though he too was aware that Hoover had given directly contrary orders. It was this sort of insubordination and manipulation that would lead to Macarthur being summarily relieved of his command of the UN forces in Korea in 1951.

The last of the Bonus Army Marchers left Washington by the end of the following day. Hoover could not publicly disagree with his Chief of Staff and Secretary of War, and ended up paying the political cost of this incident. The possibility of widespread civil unrest growing into a popular revolution had been averted, but the forceful eviction of the Bonus Army Marchers, even though not one shot had been fired and only four people killed (the two demonstrators who had been shot by the police and two infants asphyxiated by tear gas), tilted public opinion against Hoover and ensured that he would lose the upcoming election. Franklin Roosevelt was elected by a landslide that November the rest is history.

______________________________________________

Great Events VI as reported in The New York Times

Following World War I, the U.S. federal government anticipated that its war-risk insurance plan would adequately protect American soldiers and sailors who had served during the war, and that there would be no demand for compensation to those who had suffered no injury during their service in the army or navy. In 1924, however, Congress enacted a law, over the veto of President Calvin Coolidge, providing for a system of adjusted compensation based on length of service, with a distinction made in favor of service overseas. Under this plan, veterans entitled to receive $50 or less were to be paid in cash; those entitled to receive more than $50 were to receive certificates maturing in 20 years.

In order to meet full payment of these certificates when they matured in 1945, Congress provided that a trust fund be created through the appropriation of twenty annual installments of $ 112 million each. This would yield a total of $2.24 billion. Interest compounded annually would increase this sum approximately to the amount required to meet the face value of the certificates at maturity. By April 1932, there were 3,662,374 of those certificates outstanding, bearing an aggregate face value of $3.638 billion. By this time eight annual installments of $ 112 million had been paid into the fund by Congress, making a total of $896 million, and accrued interest had added $95 million, bringing the fund to $991 million.

However, because of the national depression, in 1931 Congress expanded the privilege of borrowing with an amendment adopted over the veto of President Herbert Hoover, increasing the loan value of the certificates from 22 1/2 per cent to 50 per cent of face value.

By April 1932, loans amounting to $1.248 billion were outstanding. The difference between this figure and the total face value of the certificates, $3.638 billion, was $2.390 billion. This was the additional sum which the veterans would receive if Congress, again over the President's veto, approved a new proposal for immediate redemption of the certificates at face value, thirteen years before maturity in 1945.

This early redemption capability came to be referred to by members of Congress and veterans groups as a bonus, and during the early months of 1932 the bonus was a topic of ongoing discussion in the legislature. Because of the opposition of President Hoover and many senators and members of the House, due primarily to the fact that the country was trying to work its way out of the depression and this action would put a severe strain on the federal budget, veterans groups began to organize around the country with the idea of marching on Washington, D.C. to press their demands.

Beginning in May, 1932, groups of World War I veterans began difficult journeys across the country, traveling in empty railroad freight cars, in the backs of trucks, in cars, on foot and by any other means that became available. By mid-June it was estimated that as many as 20,000 veterans and some family members had arrived in Washington, and were camping out, often in dirty, unsanitary conditions, in parks and military bases around the city, depending on donations of food from a variety of governments, churches and private citizens.

On June 16, the House passed the bonus bill by a vote of 209-176, but on June 18, the Senate defeated the bill 62-18.

At this point, the federal and district governments began to make arrangements to force the veterans to go home, but very few accepted the offer, vowing to stay until they received their bonus.

Throughout July the veterans, known as the Bonus Expeditionary Force, continued to hold marches and rallies despite the fact that they were receiving ultimatums to leave, with the White House proposing use of troops to force an evacuation.

Then on July 29,1932, troops did storm several buildings that the veterans were occupying as well as their main camp, setting tents on fire and forcing an evacuation. When it was over, one veteran had been killed and about 50 veterans and Washington police had been injured in various confrontations.

Over the next several months, a much smaller group of Bonus Expeditionary Force members continued to pressure Congress, and in May 1933 about 1,000 veterans marched again on Washington. Newly-elected President Franklin Roosevelt also opposed the bonus but demonstrated his concern for the unemployed veterans by issuing an executive order permitting the enrollment of 25,000 of them in the Citizens' Conservation Corps for work in forests. When the veterans realized that President Roosevelt would also veto the bonus bill but was offering an alternative solution they gradually backed away from their demands, and the issue of the veterans' bonus eventually faded from the news.

_________________________________________

 
MARCHING ON CAPITOL HILL The Bonus Expeditionary Force, an army of 20,000 jobless World War I vets and family members, held a large demonstration in June 1932 to plead its case for immediate cash payment of the bonus.

During the dark days of the Depression, VFW launched a fresh offensive to collect on the "Tombstone Bonus" -- an IOU to WWI Doughboys not redeemable in cash until 1945 when many veterans would be dead.

From his strategic congressional command post, Royal C. Johnson, chairman of the House Committee on World War Veterans, enlisted the aid of Reps. Isaak Bacharach and Hamilton Fish, (both from New York), Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and Rep. Wright Patman of Texas.

They put together the Bacharach Amendment that would allow veterans to borrow up to 50 percent of the maturity value of their bonus certificates -- IOUs issued by the government -- at 3 percent compound interest.

The amendment was hurried into committee and onto the floor before the 71st Congress could adjourn. It made it before the deadline, and on Feb. 27, 1931, Public Law 743 sailed through both Houses and was signed by President Herbert Hoover.

The stampede began. In Washington, VFW borrowed the ground floor of the Tower Building. It was staffed with volunteers to handle applications from thousands of threadbare veterans, standing in a serpentine line around the building.

In Kansas City, printers worked overtime to print cartons of application blanks. The demand was so heavy that a week later the local VA office called on VFW for help in supplying another 20,000 forms for distribution to needy men. One grateful applicant told a VFW volunteer that he had lost his business, then his home, to the Depression, and was down to his last 5-cent piece. The $800 check would enable him to retrieve his wife and child from her parents and start again.

By 1932, the country was in desperate shape. More than 12 million Americans were jobless, wandering from one place to another looking for work that was not there. In the big cities, veterans -- some wearing campaign medals on ragged coats -- stood on street corners trying to peddle apples. Men shuffled in long lines toward cauldrons filled with hot soup. Shanty towns grew haphazardly around city dumps, where the jobless picked about for scraps of food. Things were equally bad in the countryside.

In Le Mars, Iowa, a local judge was dragged out of his court by angry farmers when he issued a flock of foreclosure notices. Harry Terrell remembered: "The people were desperate. They took him to the fairgrounds with a rope around his neck, and they had the rope over the limb of a tree. They were gonna string him up in the old horse-thief fashion, but somebody had sense enough to stop the thing before it got too far. When you took a man's horses and his plow away, you denied him food and convicted his family to starvation. It was just that real."

'bonus expeditionary force'

To some veterans, desperate times demanded desperate measures. Walter W. Waters of Portland, Ore., decided to lead an army of jobless veterans to Washington to plead their case for immediate cash payment of the bonus. The former cannery superintendent had been out of work for 18 months and had a wife and two children to support. Waters had been an Army sergeant in France. He was still lean and carried himself like a soldier.

Hundreds joined Waters, and in early May of 1932 they set off to cross the nation. They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF). Waters warned his followers: "No drinking, no panhandling, no radicalism."

They climbed aboard empty boxcars and headed east, fed along the way by sympathetic citizens who gathered at stops to cheer them on. At almost every halt, BEF was joined by other out-of-work vets. Waters' small army began to grow as word spread, fueled by media publicity.

On May 21, the BEF reached East St. Louis and ran into trouble. Railroad cops barred them from climbing aboard a B & O freight train, whereupon the vets uncoupled the cars and soaped the rails. The governor of Illinois sent in the National Guard -- in the ensuing mêlée some heads were dented. The public outcry caused the governor to rethink his tactics -- he ordered state-owned trucks to ferry the veterans safely out of his state.

Other freight trains converged on the nation's capital. A Southern Pacific locomotive hauled more than 200 men across Nevada, rations, supplied by merchants and county officials in Sparks and Reno. In New Orleans, 300 bonus-seekers were routed by railroad cops when they tried to climb aboard empty cars. Veterans route-marched into Mississippi where they were fed and driven across the state line in Packards, Buicks and Pierce Arrows confiscated from bootleggers. Authorities in Alabama helped the men on their way to Washington board box cars headed north.

National officers at VFW headquarters in Kansas City were leery of the BEF and the march on Washington. The descent of a mob, however orderly and well-intentioned, could only prejudice Congress against pending legislation designed to give veterans what they were seeking. Nonetheless, state Departments and individual VFW Posts along the line of march opened their doors to the marchers, fed them and gave them a place to sleep.

The first BEF contingents arrived in Washington on Memorial Day, May 30, 1932. Others poured in from all points of the compass. Finally, there were some 20,000 homeless veterans, wives and children camped on the Anacostia Flats and in downtown buildings slated for destruction. Waters' deputy, George Kleinholz, told reporters: "Most of these men are married and have been out of work for two years. Just take a look at these fellows. If you offer any of them a job at a dollar a day they will take it."

The superintendent of the metropolitan police was Pelham D. Glassford, who had been the youngest American Expeditionary Forces brigadier general. Glassford, son of a career cavalry officer, had spent his youth on Army posts in the West. He was tall, lean as a whip, and a few minutes in his company revealed why cadets at West Point called him "Happy."

Glassford, an early member of the VFW, put out the welcome mat for the BEF by providing a pair of rolling kitchens serving up hot chow for the marchers. Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley, not to be outdone, ordered 2,000 bed sacks and two tons of straw to make beds. Cruising the streets of the capital aboard a dark blue motorcycle, Glassford became a familiar sight. He frequently stopped to share wartime experiences with the other men.

Waters had no trouble meeting Rep. Wright Patman, whose energy was responsible for the cash-now bill then making its way through Congress. Waters said, "We intend to stay here until the bonus is paid -- whether it is next week, next year, or in 1945." Patman told him he would try to force a vote within two weeks.

The issue was in doubt. A senator from Illinois, J. Hamilton Lewis, raised the specter of terrorism where none existed. He stood before an overflow crowd at the National Soldiers Home and said, "I warn you as a fellow soldier that you risk defeat by placing yourselves where the charge can be made against you that you have come here to terrorize the public servants and force their surrender."

Patman was as good as his word. His bill cleared the House on June 15, and would be voted on by the Senate two days later. Thousands of BEF men gathered around the Capitol Building and waited through the afternoon of June 17. Sen. Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma came out and approached Waters waiting at the top of the marble steps and gave him the bad news: The bill failed to pass the Senate.

Defeated members of the BEF drifted out of Washington by the hundreds, but thousands remained, and what happened next would shame the nation.

appalling conditions

Diehards threw together ramshackle dwellings of scrap lumber and tin on the muddy Anacostia Flats, dug latrine pits and lived in the squalor they called "Hooverville." A lucky few crawled under pup tents supplied by Glassford, determined to wait it out because they had nowhere else to go. Waters instilled military discipline, ordering the area policed however possible. A bugle sounded reveille and taps, men marched to chow in formation. The food was terrible -- rotting vegetables and meat scraps cast aside by grocers.

Appalled by the squalor, Glassford reached into his own bank account for $1,000 to buy fresh food for the hopeless marchers and their families. "They're my boys," he explained, "many fought with me in France."

By July, conditions in the camps were appalling. The place gave off an odor of rotting food and excrement -- it was a playground for rats. Many veterans left, but thousands stayed.

Communists infiltrated BEF ranks, precipitating on July 20 the first of two violent confrontations with police in an abortive attempt to storm the White House. The clashes were a prelude to the final showdown between the government and BEF, now estimated by Glassford to number 8,300 men, women and children.

The District of Columbia Board of Commissioners ordered Glassford to evict the veterans from the buildings they had occupied since May. Glassford warned of serious trouble and it came. On July 28, the veterans were ousted from the vacant buildings and milled around outside. Communist agitators hurled bricks at the cops and a riot erupted. One rattled officer stumbled and fell. He got to his knees, pulled his service revolver and fired blindly. The round struck a veteran named William Huska, from Chicago, who fell dead in the rubble. General firing broke out, answered by a shower of bricks, one of which cracked a police officer's skull. Glassford told the cops to holster their weapons and pull back.

Hoover now had to act. Secretary of War Hurley told Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur to form a battalion. His orders: drive the BEF from occupied buildings and raze the squatters village at Anacostia Flats. Hurley also instructed MacArthur to accord "every consideration and kindness" to women and children; to "use all humanity consistent with due execution of the order."

At 4:30 on the afternoon of July 28, MacArthur's combat-equipped troops, 843 infantrymen and cavalrymen behind a vanguard of six light tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, waded into BEF ranks. Tear gas drove the veterans out of the buildings. Resistance was met by blows from the flats of cavalry sabers.

Mounted regulars herded a mass of BEF members down Pennsylvania Avenue toward Anacostia Flats. There, MacArthur gave the inhabitants one hour to clear out. They frantically scurried around gathering their possessions, but before they could get everything together a rain of tear gas canisters fell among them. MacArthur and his aide, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, watched Red Cross and VFW volunteers treat frightened women and children.

Soldiers lit their kerosene-soaked torches and went among the shacks. Flames and smoke roiled up in the evening sky as the camp burned to ashes, the fires visible from the White House. By midnight, it was finished and so was the BEF.

Peggy Terry, wife of an Oklahoma veteran, said it all when she remembered: "My husband went to Washington to march with the Bonus boys. He was a machine gunner in the war. He'd say them damn Germans gassed him in France. And he come home and his own government stooges gassed him and run him off up there with the water hose, half drowned him. My husband was bitter -- and that's puttin' it mild."

The occupation that had lasted just under two months was dramatically ended in a day and set off a chain of lasting repercussions.

'morally indefensible'

At the VFW's 1932 National Encampment, former Department Commander Joseph C. Thomson submitted a lengthy resolution condemning the rout of a "pitiful and inoffensive crowd of ragged and unarmed bonusers." He shamed the government for the use of "charging cavalry, drawn sabers, fixed bayonets with rifles ready to fire, and with tanks against men with no arms -- men loyal to the United States -- men, women and children weakened by hunger and unemployment." To Thomson, it was "unnecessary, criminally brutal and morally indefensible." The resolution passed with a unanimous vote.

At national headquarters, an eight-page set of "Battle Orders" was drawn up and sent to every Post, County Council and Department in the country. The document outlined the Bonus Bill, guided publicity procedures that would get newspaper and radio attention and spelled out ways to draft petitions to Congress.

To finance the drive, a call went out nationwide for contributions. When ready cash was lacking, the Ladies Auxiliary pitched in to raise funds through ice cream socials, raffles and rummage sales. More than $9,000 came in to hire fiscal and public relations consultants. A second publication resulted, Bonus Campaign Ammunition, containing a dozen custom-written speeches designed to win public favor. The grass-roots campaign paid off: A Gallup poll showed growing public support for a Bonus.

Jimmy Van Zandt was joined in the Bonus crusade by two stalwarts: Wright Patman and the irrepressible Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler. Butler, twice a Medal of Honor recipient and member of Post 1086 in Harrisburg, Pa., was a character even by Marine Corps standards.

He addressed VFW gatherings at every opportunity, chiding members for forgetting how to fight now that the peacetime cards were stacked against them. After the Economy Act passed, he told one group: "I notice that you are getting a little old, but you are the same lovable class of Americans -- dumb though you are. Anybody can put anything over on you."

Commander-in-Chief Jimmy Van Zandt took to the road using planes, trains and automobiles. He crisscrossed the country, adding a million miles to his travel log. He was as indefatigable as he was enthusiastic: He averaged four cities, 10 speeches and a radio address every 24 hours. He talked Bonus from train platforms, front porches and from a rancher's fence in New Mexico.

Rep. Wright Patman joined Van Zandt and they stormed through the Midwest. The pair teamed up in front of microphones at radio stations, addressed businessmen's luncheons and women's clubs and filled school auditoriums.

Van Zandt's most ambitious plan was to pack Madison Square Garden in New York. To assure a huge turnout, Smedley Butler and the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin flanked the VFW Chief on the platform. Coughlin, the Irish-Catholic rector of the parish of Royal Oak near Detroit, was known as the "radio priest." He operated the Shrine of the Little Flower Radio Station. More than 10 million Americans tuned in to such observations as: "Gold was the root of all evil and New York bankers the devils." Coughlin was a risky choice. His reputation for intolerance often overshadowed his emotional appeal.

Van Zandt's unbridled enthusiasm, Butler's unvarnished castigation of the opposition National Economy League and Coughlin's Irish witticisms drew cheers from 20,000 New Yorkers still weighted down by the Depression.

vet groups unite

The classic cartoon of the two donkeys straining at opposite ends of a tether unable to reach a tempting pile of hay just out of their reach characterized the relationship between VFW, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in the 1930s. The Legion shifted uncertainly during the long battle for cash payment of the Bonus, and the DAV remained largely on the sidelines. To get the job done, political leverage would have to be brought to bear. Disparate veterans organizations would have to pull together as the donkeys did to reach the prize.

The familiar Patman Bill was resubmitted in 1935 and sailed through the House and Senate. Now it was up to President Franklin Roosevelt. Instead of a quick slash of his veto pen, he chose to appear in Congress and address both Houses to deliver the bad news.

"I hold that the able-bodied citizen because he wore a uniform and for no other reason," he began, "should not be accorded treatment different from that accorded to other citizens who did not wear a uniform during the World War. To argue for this bill as a relief measure is to indulge in the fallacy that the welfare of the country can be generally served by extending relief on some basis other than actual deserving need.

"The core of the question is that a man who is sick or under some special disability because he was a soldier should certainly be assisted as such. If a man is suffering from economic need because of the Depression -- even though he is a veteran -- he must be placed on a par with all other victims of the Depression."

So saying, FDR then put pen to paper and vetoed the bill. Whereupon the House overrode the veto by an overwhelming majority -- but the Senate did not by the narrow margin of 54-40.

Patman and some others tinkered with the wording to Van Zandt's satisfaction so that the bill, by then known as the Steiwer-Brynes Bill, could be reintroduced at the opening of the 74th Congress in January 1936. Another roadblock was thrown in the way when the Steering and Policy Committee of the Democratic Party majority in the Senate met and decided that no further Bonus action would be taken during the upcoming year.

Other senators dismantled this blockade by threatening to filibuster pending legislation known to be particular favorites of the man in the White House and his advisors. Opponents caved in, and the modified bill was scheduled for priority consideration.

So Van Zandt got together with Ray Murphy, the new national commander of the American Legion, in order to get at the hay on the same tether. Van Zandt called Murphy "one of the finest men I have worked with on a project."

To keep the National Economy League from getting wise and making counter moves, however, VFW and Legion officers met secretly on Nov. 10, 1935, and agreed on tactics. The coalition was strengthened when the DAV came aboard. For the first time since the end of the war, the three largest veterans groups were working in concert toward a common goal.

Reps. Patman, Fred M. Vinson and John McCormack sponsored the amended bill. It was swiftly reported and passed by the House on Jan. 10, 1936, by a vote of 346-59. It reached the Senate on Jan. 20 and went through 74-16. FDR promptly vetoed the measure again.

Back it went to the House on Jan. 24 for a 325-61 override, then to the Senate on the following Monday for the grand climax. This time, the issue was never in doubt: The senators destroyed Roosevelt's veto with a 76-19 vote. The cash-now Bonus was a reality.

Things moved swiftly. At 4:50 that same afternoon, Frank Hines handed the first printed application forms to a jubilant Van Zandt. Fifty minutes later, the forms were aboard DC-2s of the U.S. Air Mail Service headed for VFW Departments, Councils and Posts all over the country.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans began filling out forms that would have Bonus checks in their hands before the year was out. A little more than $2 billion was ultimately distributed to 3.5 million World War I veterans.