Retro Raunch Revisit

MAY 29, 1932: 43,000 demonstators known as the Bonus Army (of whom 17,000 are WWI veterans) set up encampment in Washington,DC near the Capitol and the White House. They had marched to demand their cash bonuses awarded in 1924 but promised to be paid not until 1945. The money was needed at a crippling monent of suffering during the Depression as a great many were out of work. With growing tension & protests, civil disorder in the streets, and their calls for legislation to move immediate payment forward vetoed as non-emergency, in Jul, first the US Attorney General and then President Herbert Hoover both ordered the vets removed from all government property. Resistance was met with escalating police clashes & rioting that saw 2 ex-Army men shot dead (who were later buried in Arlington National Cemetery) and several wounded. Having received reports that the Bonus Marchers had been infiltrated by Communist Party agitators (whom were not welcomed & routinely expelled), Hoover then sent the US Army under Gen. Douglas MacArthur using infantry with fixed bayonets, machine guns & tear gas, alongside cavalry and tanks to clear out the homemade shantytowns. MacArthur had infact originally sent the demonstrators tents & mobile kitchens but now the vets along with women & children were forcibly driven out, and shacks/shelters & left behind belongings in the evictions were burned. Hoover's extremely unpopular approach led to a significant decline in his public image which was already met with mounted anger & deeper criticism of his inability to create solutions or deliver alleviation during the national economic hardship. This contributed to his defeat in the 1932 federal election. A second smaller Bonus March took place in May 1933 and again with no new Senate Bill, new President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration instead created the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) as a massive voluntary work relief program of manual labor jobs for the men to uplift themselves and provide for their families. Most of the vets accepted. In May 1934, an angry MacArthur sued 2 journalists for defamation over their negative description of his role in the military action, with the news damaging his reputation. Seeking $1.75 million, he later dropped the suit to prevent embarrasment from his Filipina mistress being called as a witness and also having their love letters being published revealing their affair. In Jan 1936, Congress struck down the veto and authorized the distribution of payments 9yrs early. The total compensation has been estimated at $45 million to $2 billion. A fictionalized version of the Bonus Army events is briefly depicted in the 1995 film 'IN PURSUIT OF HONOR'.