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AFTER WORLD WAR I, A FIGHT FOR PAY -- The
former World
War I soldiers pitched tents and built
makeshift shacks.
It was 1932, and they had come by the thousands
to
collect war bonuses the government had
promised.
World War I veterans known as the
Bonus Army march for early benefit pay on Pennsylvania Avenue in
July 1932. (photo: Historical Society Of Washington) |
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Story here...
http://www.washingtonpost.
com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07
/28/AR2007072801091.html
Story below:
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After World War I, a Fight for Pay
By Ashlee Clark
Washington Post Staff Writer
John Gill was 10 when his father, Theodore, took him to visit the
destitute veterans on the muddy Anacostia River flats.
The former World War I soldiers pitched tents and built makeshift
shacks. It was 1932, and they had come by the thousands to collect war
bonuses the government had promised.
Payouts were scheduled to begin in 1945. But as hard times swept the
country during the Great Depression, the veterans demanded their money
early. While they waited, sympathizers such as the Gills visited and
gave away cigarettes.
"Things were really bad," said John Gill, now 84, describing veterans in
line at soup kitchens on Constitution Avenue.
Yesterday, the Historical Society of Washington commemorated the 75th
anniversary of the Bonus Army's march with the opening of an exhibition,
"Wages of War: Bonus Army to Baghdad." It includes firsthand accounts of
what happened, police nightsticks used to drive the veterans away,
buttons and photographs.
It is an effort, organizers said, to reclaim a piece of the past.
"It's been bleached out of the history books for too many years," said
Paul Dickson, co-author of "The Bonus Army: An American Epic."
The government had promised veterans $1 for each day of service at home
and $1.25 for each day served overseas. But 1945 seemed too far off for
people who were starving. Veterans and their families converged on
Washington to lobby for a bill to permit advance distribution of the
bonuses.
They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force. It is estimated
that as many as 65,000 veterans and their families came, spreading out
in Anacostia and across the city, Dickson said.
The bill died in the Senate. But many of the veterans remained.
On July 28, 1932, District police tried to remove some veterans. Two
were fatally shot by police. Then the U.S. Army, ordered by President
Herbert Hoover and commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, continued the
removal, with tear gas and bayonets.
"What was compelling to me about this story is that veterans could go
through the experience that they went through in World War I and then be
completely mistreated when they came home," said Robert Uth, who
directed the PBS documentary "The March of the Bonus Army."
Still, the impact of the protest has been lasting.
In 1936, Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto to
grant the bonuses. Uth said the bonus was a half-step toward the GI
Bill, which gave veterans a college tuition benefit and home loan
guarantees.
"It had such a positive effect on the people of the country, and it
motivated a young generation to be patriotic and to believe that
veterans were treated fairly just before that generation was called upon
for World War II," he said. "The Bonus Army was a test that let the
government see that positive social change came from treating veterans
fairly."
Austin Kiplinger, chairman of the Kiplinger Washington Editors, was 13
when he was taken to Anacostia and he remembered the heat, mud and
sewage.
"It was a pretty messy and pretty desperate-looking sight," he said.
The exhibition runs through Veterans Day.
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Larry Scott --
