The Bonus Army: America Attacks Its Own

In the summer of 1932, roughly twenty thousand World War One veterans and their families descended on Washington, D.C., to demand early payment of bonus certificates they'd been promised under the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924. Led by former Army sergeant Walter W. Waters of Portland, Oregon, the Bonus Expeditionary Force built a sprawling encampment on the Anacostia Flats and spent weeks peacefully lobbying Congress to pass the Patman Bonus Bill.

The House passed it on June 15, 1932, but the Senate killed it two days later by a vote of 62 to 18.When the veterans refused to leave, President Herbert Hoover authorized the United States Army to clear them out. On July 28, 1932, General Douglas MacArthur led six hundred infantry with fixed bayonets, two hundred cavalry under Major George S. Patton, and six tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue against unarmed citizens. MacArthur's aide that day was future president Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, who advised against the operation.

Two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, had already been shot and killed by D.C. police earlier that day during an eviction scuffle. MacArthur then defied a direct order from Hoover not to cross the Anacostia River, advanced on the main camp, and burned it to the ground. Women, children, and infants were tear-gassed in the assault. An infant named Bernard Myers died in the chaos.

MacArthur held a press conference declaring he'd stopped a Communist revolution, but a Veterans Administration survey confirmed that 94 percent of the marchers were verified veterans with documented service records.

The public backlash was devastating and contributed to Hoover's landslide defeat by Franklin Roosevelt in November of 1932. When a smaller bonus march arrived in 1933, Roosevelt sent Eleanor Roosevelt to meet with the veterans instead of the Army. Congress finally authorized early payment of the bonus certificates in January of 1936, distributing approximately $580 to each of roughly 3.5 million veterans. The Bonus Army's legacy is widely credited as a driving force behind the passage of the GI Bill of 1944, one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in American history.

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