I am starting to re-read William Manchester's The Glory and The Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972. His opening chapter is an account of the assault upon the Bonus Army in the late summer of 1932. Reading the account in our current historical setting is eye-opening in a number of ways. First, there was the fact that the BEF, as they called themselves, were veterans under siege by the Great Depression, lobbying for an advance on the "bonus" guaranteed by law, which was not due until 1945. As no one in Congress or the Hoover Administration would see them, and as they had no resources to return to their homes, they set up camps in southeast Washington, across the Eleventh Street Bridge, and on the Mall. On a very hot, very muggy July day (Washington has no July days for which those words wouldn't apply), Hoover sent in the troops, under the command of Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with his faithful aide Maj. Dwight Einsehower at his side. The field commander was Maj. George Patton, riding one of his many horses.
To show what different times these were, it is important to say that the Bonus Army, AEF vets and their families, including many with combat wounds, and some with multiple decorations (including a PFC who won a DSC for saving the life of a young Lieutenant named George Patton), when they saw the Army coming down Pennsylvania Avenue, stood and cheered; they actually thought it was a parade in their honor. That was, until Patton's cavalry brigade turned and charged. Not only were those on the Mall routed, MacArthur ignored a direct order from his Commander-in-Chief (the commander guy) and marched across the Eleventh Street Bridge and destroyed the main BEF camp in Anacostia. Several small children, including a three-month-old infant, died as a result of inhaling tear gas. One was bayoneted as he tried to protect his pet rabbit.
Part of what made this all possible was the same kind of media conventional wisdom that could ignore convenient facts, and allow official propaganda to work its magic upon a ruling class feeling the pinch of those lean years. The President, the Army Chief of Staff, and the Attorney General continued to harp on the constant disruptions and radical elements within the ranks of the BEF. None of this was true. The Bonus Army and their familial camp followers refrained from panhandling, were peaceful and respectful of official authority (until they started getting gunned down), and were seeking the radical solution of getting was was promised them 15 years earlier, due to extremely changed, and straightened circumstances. Journalists who reported these truths were silenced by editors who saw nothing more than a rabble bent upon, in MacArthur's words, "incipient rebellion".
The army chasing down vets, gunning them down, gassing them, the President and Attorney General lying about the whole situation to a gullible press - God, how the wingnuts would love it.
