The Bonus March—When MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton Did Hoover’s Dirty Work

 

Bonus Marchers in the St. Louis rail yards in late May 1932 ready to hop B & O freights to Washington.  Marchers clogged the freight trains for weeks from all over the country.

Note—On January 6, 2017 the highest echelons of the Trump maladministration did everything they could to prevent National Guardsmen or Army troops from defending the Capitol from a violent insurrection.  It was a different story in 1932 when the full force of the Army was unleashed on veterans who never posed any threat to the Capitol or government.

Today is the anniversary of one of the most important mass protests in American history being crushed by military force.  This is a bit of historical trivia that was never more relevant.

On July 28, 1932 Washington, D.C. became a battle zone when President Herbert Hoover ordered the Army to clear out veterans, their families, and supporters who had been camped since June to press demands for an early payment of a bonus promised to World War I soldiers and sailors. 

It was nearly four years into the Great Depression with no relief from an almost total economic collapse in sight.  True unemployment was estimated to be nearing 25% with no safety net other than voluntary soup kitchens.  Tens of thousands of small businesses failed dropping once solid citizens into poverty.  Farm income collapsed.  Across the board, conditions were bleak. 

Veterans of the Great War were still relatively young men, most in their early 30s.  They had been welcomed home as heroes.  Despite the inevitable post-traumatic stresses of any war’s aftermath, most had married and were raising families when disaster struck.  Largely able bodied and well disciplined, they were perhaps the most employable men in America.  But many, very many, were in desperate shape that summer. 

In 1924 under pressure from veterans’ organizations, especially the American Legion, Congress had passed the Adjusted Service Certificate Law over the strenuous objections of President Calvin Coolidge.  Vets were issued 3,662,374 bonus certificates, the face amount determined by a formula of how many days each soldier served with a greater payment for each day overseas.  The maximum amount due was $500 for domestic service up to $650 payable when the certificates matured in twenty years—1945. 

Although veterans were allowed to borrow against a percentage of that sum—eventually raised to 50%, the money had to be repaid with interest. 

Congress financed the scheme with annual appropriations of more than $12 million to fund the 1945 payments which were expected to total more than $3.5 billion.  Loans paid out against the certificates had already placed the fund in the red. 

None-the-less, in face of the dire emergency leading figures like popular retired Marine Corps General Smedley Butler began advocating for an immediate early payment of the bonus certificates.  

 

Texas Congressman Wright Patman, with hat in hand, is shown receiving a petitions from Veteran representatives in front of the Capital..  Patman sponsored legislation for an early payment of a promised bonus to World War I veterans.

Democratic Congressman Wright Patman of Texas, then in the second term of his long career, introduced a bill to authorize the payments.  It was ardently opposed by the President and Republicans in Congress. 

Hoover, a Quaker, had risen politically largely on his reputation as The Great Humanitarian for his work feeding starving European civilians in the wake of the war.  He was the only engineer until Jimmy Carter to be elected President, a man of meticulous attention to detail, a deep attachment to Republican laissez faire economic philosophy, and a practically physical revulsion to “disorder.”  He responded to the Depression with cheerleading, rosy predictions for recovery, expressed sympathy for those affected but a firm belief that they were on their own and that the Federal Government had no Constitutional responsibility to them.  More concerned with the holy writ of a balanced budget, he urged spending be slashed—a policy that not only did not help but actually deepened the Depression.  Naturally Hoover and unified Republicans railed against the proposed Patman Act as a budget buster.

The Bonus Expeditionary Force was organized by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant in the AEF—American Expeditionary Force—in World War I, to descend en masse on Washington to pressure Congress to pass the Patman Act.  Veterans and their families from all over the country, but mostly from the East, responded to the call arriving in the city on June 17 as the Senate took up the bill, which had already cleared the House.  

 

Bonus Army camps may have had ramshackle huts and tents, but they were neatly organized with streets and maintained with military discipline, men assigned to clean-up, cooking, and security duties in addition to regular drilling.

Senate Republicans blocked action on the bill and the Bonus Marchers settled into makeshift camps, nicknamed Hoovervilles.  Although the shabby camps were assembled from what tents could be obtained and junk scavenged from scrap yards, the veteran leaders exercised military discipline.  They were laid out in orderly streets, sanitation facilities were dug and maintained, common kitchens established, and camps patrolled by volunteer M.P.s.  Men had to register producing evidence of honorable discharge to be admitted and were each expected to do duty keeping the camps clean, orderly, and secure.  The men responded to daily reveille and held regular parades.  American flags were prominent.

The veterans were very concerned that the public see them as loyal patriots.  And by in large, despite being denounced as dangerous Communists in the most conservative press, the public was at least sympathetic to them. 

Over 17,000 men enrolled. Their wives and children plus some approved volunteer supporters—especially nurses and medical personnel—swelled the camps to a total population of over 40,000.  The main camp was laid out on the mud flats and boggy ground by the Anacostia River across from the core of the city.  

 

Days before he ordered the Bonus Army dispersed and drive from Washington President Herbert Hoover was lampooned in the professional quality camp newspaper,  He was depicted as the Kaiser with a waxed mustache and wearing the Capital Dome asa a German spiked helmet.  Men of every trade and level of education were in the camps, including the experienced journalists, artists, typographers, and printers who produced the paper.

Marchers gathered daily for orderly demonstrations near the Capitol.  By late July it was evident that the Republicans in the Senate would not budge and that the Patman Act was doomed.  Acting on direction of the President, Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered District Police to “evacuate the city” of bonus marchers on the morning of July 28. 

Veteran leaders were taken by surprise by a police charge and the men resisted.  Ill trained police responded by emptying their revolvers into the crowd killing two men outright and injuring dozens.  Enraged, the veterans fought back, pelting police with rocks, bricks, and anything else they could lay their hands on.  A few may have had handguns and fired back or fired with weapons taken from disarmed officers.  Police were forced to withdraw with nearly 70 men injured.  The veterans remained on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Learning of the failure of the police, Hoover ordered the Army to take action.  Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, in dress uniform and festooned with every decoration he ever received, decided to take personal command.  As commander of the famed Rainbow Division made up of National Guard units, many of the veterans in the streets had served under him. 

 

Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur in full dress uniform consults with his cavalry commander Major George S. Patton.  MacArthurs aide-de-camp Major Dwight Eisenhower is the officer at right with his hands on his hips. 

MacArthur deployed two full regiments, the 12th Infantry, and the 3rd Cavalry supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton.  The Army arrived on the scene about 4:30 p.m. as Federal employees were leaving their offices.  MacArthur, with his aide Major Dwight Eisenhower at his side, ordered his troops to advance. 

At first many of the veterans were glad to see their brother soldiers.  Some believed that they had arrived to protect them from the police, others said they thought the advance at first was a parade in their honor.  Then Patton ordered his cavalry to charge, sabers drawn.  As the horrified witnesses from surrounding office buildings screamed “Shame, Shame!” the cavalry crashed into the thick mass of veterans.  As the veterans reeled back toward their camps, the infantry came up with bayonets fixed.  Using adamsite gas, an arsenic based gas inducing violent vomiting, the troops began to clear the camps.  Women, children, and civilian volunteers alike were swept up.  

 

Patton's Light Tanks attacked Marchers on Pennsylvania Ave. as did his mounted cavalrymen behind them with sabers drawn and used. 

Against the President’s explicit order, MacArthur crossed the Anacostia into the vast main camp.  Tents and huts were put to the torch, destroying all of the personal possessions of the veterans and their families.  Survivors, including many injured, were scattered into the countryside where local law enforcement personnel hectored them for days as they tried to find ways to get home.

In the end at least four veterans, including two of their leaders, William Hushka and Eric Carlson were killed and an estimated 1,017 injured.  Most historians agree that both of those figures are low because many of the injured were either unable to get medical treatment or afraid to seek it.  In addition, one woman suffered a miscarriage and an infant was killed.  Again historians, believe, based on eyewitness accounts, that other children, especially infants were killed or died later as result of the gas.  

 

The smoldering ruins of the main camp on the Anacostia mud flap.  Marchers and their families lost all of their personal belongings as they fled for their lives and were hectored and harassed for weeks by local authorities and sometimes vigilante mobs as they tried to make their way home.  Here and there local citizens organized aid and comfort.

Within a week newsreel footage of the attack was being played in every movie theater in the country.  Public outrage played a big part in the defeat of Hoover for re-election that November. 

But if veterans thought that Franklin D. Roosevelt would support payment of the Bonus, they were wrong.  Roosevelt wanted to use money for other projects and for direct relief.  But F.D.R. was not about to make the same mistake as Hoover when a smaller Bonus Army appeared in the summer of 1933.  Instead of sending in the Army, he sent Eleanor, who brought tea to the veterans and urged them to instead enlist in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). 

Hundreds took her up on the proposal and were put to work building the causeway road to Key West, Florida.  When the Labor Day hurricane on September 2, 1935 killed 258 veterans working on the Highway, public sentiment again swung behind the veterans’ demand. 

In 1936 Congress over-rode Roosevelt’s veto to finally authorize the early payment of the promised bonus. 

After World War II the G.I. Bill with its promises of immediate money for education or a home purchase was enacted specifically in response to the plight of World War I vets. 

 

In 1968 Resurrection City, the camp of the Poor People's Campaign was unmolested by troops.  President Lyndon Johnson remembered the Bonus March. 

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom called by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his allies was inspired by the Bonus Marchers.  His 1968 plans for the Poor People’s Campaign, which included a camp of protesters, were even more evocative.  The Campaign, conducted after King’s murder, was not dispersed by troops.

  

How the Purple Heart Became the Medal Soldiers Don’t Want

My father never wanted a Purple Heart and dodged attempts to pin one on him.  W.M. Murfin served as an Army Medical Corps officer in the Pacific during World War II.  That service included three amphibious landings under fire and front-line service with forward battalion aid stations.  While never seriously wounded he was injured three times including being cut up crawling over barbed wire and scrapes and abrasions rescuing seriously wounded soldiers under fire.  On one day of such rescues when his unit was cut off by the Japanese on Leyte in the Philippines he dragged several men to safety under machine gun fire.  That earned him the Bronze Star.  He was glad to receive that medal and after the War kept it in its presentation case along with another award he treasured—his Eagle Scout medal.

                                First Lieutenant W.M. Murfin, U.S. Army Medical Corps on Leyte in the Philippines in 1943.

But he dodged the Purple Heart despite repeated attempts to give him one.  He knew what they represented and what they were worth—as a Medical Corps officer he had handed out scores of them to the maimed men his unit treated.  He felt that his own minor bleeding did not match the suffering of those in his care.  He also felt, sometimes at least, that the medal was a trinket that was inadequate recompense for the pain and suffering.

The Purple Heart is said to be the oldest U.S, combat decoration which it is, sort of, but then again isn’t.  Let me explain.

During the Revolutionary War the Continental Army did not have formal awards for bravery.  This was due partly to concern for republican virtue—a rejection of the titles and decorations of European royalty and their military, and partly because no one knew exactly who could or should authorize such awards, Congress, the Commanding General, or even the states.  Besides, everyone was concerned by more pressing matters.

But in 1782 with the war slowly winding down after the defeat of Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown and as peace negotiations dragged on in Paris George Washington was faced with a restless—and mostly unpaid—army in his camp at Newberg, New York.

The only formal recognition of bravery or distinguished service was mention in official reports on engagements.  Most frequently officers were cited, non-commissioned officers and private soldiers only rarely.  Some time the citations were read aloud to units in assembly but even that was often overlooked. 

Just once, in 1780, Congress authorized the striking of a special medal designated at the Fidelity Medallion to honor three soldiers who were conspicuous in the capture of Major John André, the man who received Benedict Arnold’s traitorous offer to deliver West Point to the British.  But the three men, Privates John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart were New York militiamen not troops of the Continental Line.  The Fidelity Medallion was never awarded again and is thus considered a commemorative award rather than a regular military decoration.

George Washington's Revolutionary War cloth Badge of Military Merritt.

General Washington designed a cloth purple heart shaped patch that could be sewn on a uniform.  On August 7, 1782 he signed an order authorizing the award of a Badge of Military Merritt to specifically award the “common soldier” and was meant to recognize those who gave “loyal military service.” Washington personally cited three men—sergeants William Brown, Elijah Churchill, and Daniel Bissel who served as a spy.  All three were from Connecticut. Other commanders were authorized to make the award as well, but it is unclear if any did, or how many may have been granted before the Continental Army officially disbanded. Any records of such awards would have been kept in an Orderly Book which has never been found.

After the war the Badge of Military Merritt was never again awarded, although the honor was not officially abolished.  It simply was forgotten.  None-the-less, the boosters of the modern Purple Heart medal claim that it directly traces its origins to Washington’s 1782 order.  The claim is tenuous at best, but those who lobbied for the creation of the current medal identified it with the Badge and its design was based on the purple heart shape with a cameo of Washington added to bolster the connection.

Through the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and several Indian campaigns, the Army had no decoration for bravery.  With the coming of the Civil War there was a clamor for an award for heroism.  No one seemed to have thought of reviving the Badge of Merritt.  At the outset of the war Commanding General Winfield Scott opposed the creation of a medal as an un-republican symbol of aristocracy and privilege.  After Scott retired late in 1861 Navy Secretary Gideon Wells requested authorization of a medal from Congress.  By 1862 separate legislation authorized a Medal of Honor for each service.

With no other awards available the Medal of Honor was soon handed out nearly wholesale.  In the Civil War alone 1,523 were awarded and before World War I another 767 were handed out for conflicts big, small, and obscure including the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine Rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, and the occupation of Veracruz. 

By 1916 the Army became convinced that the Medal of Honor had become devalued by capricious awards.  After a report of a special Medal of Honor Review Board the Army rescinded 911 of the awards in 1917.  During World War I far fewer were awarded, but new medals were authorized for bravery below the level of “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.”  A number of new decorations were created for heroism in combat below the Medal of Honor including the Distinguished Service and Navy Crosses, Silver Star, and Bronze Star.  But the Badge of Merritt was not among them.

However nearly ten years after the war ended Army brass had second thoughts about being relatively stingy with medals during the Great War.  Army Chief of Staff General Charles Pelot Summerall proposed reviving the long defunct Badge of Merritt in 1928 but it died in Congress.  His successor General Douglas MacArthur with the support of private lobbying groups confidentially reopened work on a new design, involving the Washington Commission of Fine Arts and Elizabeth Will, an Army heraldic specialist in the Office of the Quartermaster General.  By Executive Order of President Herbert Hoover in one of his final acts the award was revived on the 200th Anniversary of George Washington’s birth, amid considerable hoopla by War Department General Order No. 3, dated February 22, 1932.

The criteria for the new Purple Heart medal were broad—and retroactive.  Servicemen from April 5, 1917, the day before the U.S. entered the war were eligible upon their request if they had the Meritorious Service Citation Certificate, Army Wound Ribbon, or were authorized to wear Wound Chevrons on their uniforms.  The Service Citation was given for “meritorious performance of duty” which could include combat but also other exceptional service.  Civilians serving with the military—Red Cross and YMCA volunteers for example were also eligible.

The first non-retroactive Purple Heart was awarded to General MacArthur not for wounds, but for his meritorious service during the defense of the Philippines.

 

In World War II many G.I.s were given their Purple Hearts by the staff of military hospitals.  This soldier seems happy to get his--perhaps because he received a "ticket home" wound.

Until early in World War II the same criteria were used for new awards.  By executive order in December 1942 the practice of awarding the Purple Heart for meritorious service was discontinued and the award limited to wounds suffered in combat.  Eligibility was extended to all armed services. 

During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained. More than 70 years later that cache of medals is still being used.  In 2000 more than 120,000 were in stock—plenty for new conflicts from Desert Storm to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As in previous wars there were plenty on hand with combat units for immediate award to the wounded. 

Since World War II there have been several adjustments to eligibility including allowing for posthumous awards; excluding previously eligible civilians; including those wounded in terrorist attacks, or while serving as part of a peacekeeping force, and to former prisoners of war wounded after April 25, 1962.

U.S. Army Major General Carla G. Hawley-Bowland pins a Purple Heart medal on U.S. Army Medical Corps Sergeant Juan Roldan-Jaramillo during a ceremony at Walter Reed Medical Center in 2008. The Sergeant lost both of his legs from an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Iraq.

An accurate total of Purple Hearts awarded is impossible since a great many were presented without ceremony or documentation in war zones when the wounded were treated for their injuries.  In 2009 National Geographic estimated the following totals of Purple Hearts awarded by conflict. 

    World War I—320,518

    World War II—1,076,245

    Korean War—118,650

    Vietnam War—351,794

    Persian Gulf War—607

    Afghanistan War—7,027 (as of June 5, 2010)

    Iraq War—35,321 (as of June 5, 2010)

Additional decorations have been awarded in numerous other operations among them the bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983; the invasions of Granada and Panama; peace keeping activities in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993; the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War in 1999, and the Benghazi attack in Libya in 2012.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart has helped place scores of monuments like this one on the Square in Woodstock, Illinois.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) was chartered by Congress in 1932 and is restricted to veterans who have received the medal.  It currently has approximately 45,300 members.  The Order annually promotes Purple Heart Day on August 7, helps place Purple Heart monuments in many locations including Woodstock, Illinois, and assists returning lost medals to the recipients or their families. 

All honor to those who have received the Purple Heart.  But as Dad knew, it’s the medal no one wants to earn.