From Hero to Scapegoat
The Battle of Anacostia, in which troops, led by Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, used excessive force to drive
thousands of unarmed, protesting WWI veterans from Washington, D.C., was a turning point in U.S. history.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 explicitly forbade the use of U.S. military forces against American citizens.
President Hoover blamed MacArthur for mishandling the whole incident, saying he had usurped authority by disobeying explicit orders. The District of
Columbia government asked federal troops to preserve order. Hoover reluctantly agreed, but only after limiting Major General
MacArthur’s authority.
MacArthur’s troops would be unarmed. The mission was to escort the marchers unharmed to camps
along the Anacostia River.
But [Army Chief of Staff] MacArthur ignored the President’s orders, taking no prisoners and driving
tattered protesters from their encampment.
After Hoover ordered a halt to the army’s march, MacArthur again took things into
his own hands, violently clearing the Anacostia campsite.
A national uproar ensued. Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt grasped the political implications instantly.
“Well,” he told a friend, “this elects me.”
Source: “From Hero to
Scapegoat,” Herbert Hoover Presidential Library- Museum. <hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery07/gallery07.html>
MacArthur's Defense of the Bonus Army Attack
From MacArthur’s statement, the night his men burnt Hooverville to the ground:
That mob down there was a bad-looking mob. It was animated by the essence of revolution. The gentleness, the consideration, with which they had been treated had been
mistaken for weakness and they had come to the conclusion... that they were about to take over in some arbitrary way either the
direct control of the Government or else to control it by indirect methods....
Had the President... permitted this thing to go on for 24 hours more, he would have faced...a real battle. Had he let it go another week,...the institutions of our Government would
have been very severely threatened....
It can be safely said that he had not only reached the end of an extraordinary patience but
that he had gone to the very limit in his desire to avoid friction and trouble before he used force. Had he not used it at that time, I
believe he would have been very derelict indeed in the judgment in which he was handling the safety of the country....
Had he not acted with the force and vigor that he did, it would have been a very sad day for the country tomorrow....
A reign of terror was being started which may have led to a system of Caponeism, and...later to insurgency and insurrection. The President played it
pretty fine in waiting to the last minute....
I think as a military maneuver,...it was unique. I have been in many riots, but I think this
is the first riot I ever was in, or ever saw, in which there was no real bloodshed. So far as I know, there is no man on either side
who has been seriously injured.
Source: News
conference, July 28, 1932.<www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/index_pppus.php>
