Probably the greatest
coup of all was the distortion of the story of the Bonus March on
Washington in July 1932. About 11,000 supposed veterans congregated in
Washington to urge action by Congress to pay a deferred war bonus in
cash instead of over a period of years.
The Democratic leaders did not organize the Bonus March nor conduct
the ensuing riots. But the Democratic organization seized upon the
incident with great avidity. Many Democratic speakers in the campaign of
1932 implied that I had murdered veterans on the streets of Washington.
The story was kept alive for twenty years. I, therefore, deal with it
at greater length than would otherwise be warranted. As abundantly
proved later on, the march was in considerable part organized and
promoted by the Communists and included a large number of hoodlums and
ex-convicts determined to raise a public disturbance. They were
frequently addressed by Democratic Congressmen seeking to inflame them
against me for my opposition to the bonus legislation. They were given
financial support by some of the publishers of the sensational press. It
was of interest to learn in after years from the Communist confessions
that they also had put on a special battery of speakers to help
Roosevelt in his campaign, by the use of the incident.
When it was evident that no legislation on the bonus would be passed
by the Congress, I asked the chairman of the Congressional committees to
appropriate funds to buy tickets home for the legitimate veterans. This
was done and some 6,000 availed themselves of its aid, leaving about
5,000 mixed hoodlums, ex-convicts, Communists, and a minority of
veterans in Washington. Through government agencies we obtained the
names of upwards of 2,000 of those remaining and found that fewer than a
third of them had ever served in the armies, and that over 900 on the
basis of this sampling were ex-convicts and Communists.
Some old buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue had been occupied by about
50 marchers. These buildings stood in the way of construction work going
on as an aid to employment in Washington. On July 28th the Treasury
officials, through the police, requested these marchers to move to other
quarters. Whereupon more than 1,000 of the disturbers marched from camps
outside of the city armed with clubs and made an organized attack upon
the police. In the melee Police Commissioner Glassford failed to
organize his men. Several were surrounded by the mob and beaten up; two
policemen, beaten to the ground, fired to protect their lives and killed
two marchers. Many policemen were injured.
In the midst of this riot the District Commissioners, upon
Glassford’s urging, appealed to me. They declared that they could not
preserve order in the Capital, that the police were greatly outnumbered,
and were being overwhelmed. With the same right of call on me as
municipalities have on the governor of any state, they asked for
military assistance to restore order. At my direction to Secretary of
War Hurley, General Douglas MacArthur was directed to take charge.
General Eisenhower (then Colonel [actually major]) was second in
command. Without firing a shot or injuring a single person, they cleaned
up the situation. Certain of my directions to the Secretary of War,
however, were not carried out. Those directions limited action to seeing
to it that the disturbing factions returned to their camps outside the
business district. I did not wish them driven from their camps, as I
proposed that the next day we would surround the camps and determine
more accurately the number of Communists and ex-convicts among the
marchers. Our military officers, however, having them on the move,
pushed them outside the District of Columbia.
I reviewed the incidents at once to the press, saying in conclusion:
‘Congress made provision for the return home of the so-called bonus
marchers who have for many weeks been given every opportunity of free
assembly, free speech and free petition to the Congress. Some 6,000 took
advantage of this arrangement and have returned to their homes. An
examination of a large number of names discloses the fact that a
considerable part of those remaining are not veterans: many are
communists and persons with criminal records.
‘The veterans amongst these numbers are no doubt unaware of the
character of their companions and are being led into violence which no
government can tolerate.
‘I have asked the Attorney General to investigate the whole
incident and to cooperate with the District civil authorities in such
measures against leaders and rioters as may be necessary.’
General Glassford, shortly afterwards, published a series of articles
stating flatly that he had opposed calling out the troops, and that he
could have handled the situation without them. The Attorney General,
however, took sworn statements from the District Commissioners proving
that Glassford had implored them to call for troops. Among the
statements to the Attorney General was one from General MacArthur
stating flatly that General Glassford had appealed to him directly for
help and accompanied him throughout.
The misrepresentation of the bonus incident for political purposes
surpassed any similar action in American history. Not only did Roosevelt
use the incident in the 1932 campaign, but Democratic orators also
continued to use it for twenty years after, despite all the refutations
and proof to the contrary. I was portrayed as a murderer and an enemy of
the veterans. A large part of the veterans believe to this day that men
who served their country in war were shot down in the streets of
Washington by the Regular Army at my orders — yet not a shot was fired
or a person injured after the Federal government took charge.
And it was I who, as President, provided more for World War I
veterans in need than any previous President, as I placed all needy and
sick veterans on disability allowances.
That the Bonus March was largely organized and managed by Communists
became clear with the passage of time, through disclosures by
Congressional committees and repentant Communist leaders who
participated in it. Benjamin Gitlow, who was a leader in the Communist
Party, later published a full account of the movement in which he
described the organization of the march and its direction in Washington
by a Russian Communist agent from a safe hotel room, and the anger of
the director when the attempt failed after the troops took charge
without hurting a single veteran.
