The Bonus Army

by Paul Dickson

  Douglas MacArthur (center, with handkerchief ) and Dwight David Eisenhower (right, smoking) on July 28. The two leaders became increasingly distant over time. Writing about July 28 in his memoirs, MacArthur said, “I . . . brought with me two officers who later wrote their names on world history,” referring to Eisenhower and Patton. (General Douglas MacArthur Foundation)

  At 4:10, with General MacArthur at his side, General Miles stood in the Ellipse and addressed the cavalry, tank, and infantry officers assembled before him: “Gentlemen, the so-called Bonus Marchers are occupying certain Government properties in Washington and are successfully resisting efforts by the police to evacuate them. This command has been called upon by properly constituted authority to clear those properties. . . . You will use such force as is necessary to accomplish your mission. Tear gas will be used. Women and children who may be found in the affected area will be accorded every consideration and kindness.”

  The force stepped off at 4:30. More than two hundred cavalrymen, carbines at the sling and sabers drawn, spread across Pennsylvania Avenue, rank upon rank, trotting from the Treasury Building at Fifteenth Street NW toward the Capitol. The trucks carrying the tanks rolled slowly behind the cavalry. Then came about four hundred infantrymen.66 Bringing up the rear were two staff cars, one bearing Miles and MacArthur, the other Eisenhower and Captain Thomas Jefferson Davis, MacArthur’s longtime aide.67

  Bartlett, still near the Pennsylvania billets called Camp Glassford, looked in the direction of the White House and saw “a force of Cavalry with sabers glistening, making the ominous click of iron feet on the pavement, which sounded so much like war.”68 Spectators on the north side of the avenue wondered if this was a show of force, a parade of military strength. On the south side, in the shacks and rubble of the billets, some veterans thought the same. “Let’s give them a big hand,” one of them said, and many of them started clapping. Morris Reynaud, a black vet who had come to Washington from New Orleans with two hundred white and black vets, didn’t clap. “They’re going to come back and give us some trouble,” he said.69

  The size of the crowd—some ten thousand, by army estimates—surprised Miles, who was in command, but with MacArthur at his elbow.70 Captain H. W. Blakeley looked around and saw “a fantastic mixture of rioters, spectators, shoppers, streetcars, baby carriages, police, infantry, and officers from the War and Navy Departments in civilian clothes.”71

  The infantrymen came to a halt, turned smartly, and fixed bayonets. Miles labeled his two adversaries “the crowd” and “the mob” and ordered some of the cavalry troopers to herd the crowd out of the way to the north while other troopers and infantrymen worked on the mob, driving the veterans southward.

  From the roof of the Ford building, where the evictions had begun in the morning, Richard L. Strout, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, looked down to see the soldiers assembling on the avenue and fixing bayonets, while in the rubble of the billets some veterans were lining up for mess call. Just below Strout, a veteran yelled down to the soldiers, “The last time I saw them bayonets I was going through Marne.” An officer stood in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue and shouted up: “You got three minutes to clear out! Three minutes! I warn you!”

  The soldiers donned gas masks. Strout saw a stone fly. “Then the riot started.”72

  Without warning, the soldiers started hurling gas grenades at the vets. Troops drove Strout and other onlookers off the roof and through gas-clouded floors to the street. An infantry squad rushed into another wrecked building still housing veterans, ran to the roof, and hurled tear-gas grenades down the stairwells, clearing the place.73 But the wind was from the south, and clouds of tear gas wafted over the crowd.

  The cavalry “made war” on the spectators gathered to watch the eviction, J. F. Essary of the Baltimore Sun reported. “Men and women were ridden down indiscriminately,” he wrote. “Nothing like this cavalry charge has ever been witnessed in Washington. The mad dash of these armed horsemen against twenty to thirty thousand people who were guilty of nothing more atrocious than standing on private property observing the scene was bitterly commented on by spectators.” Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut, wearing a Palm Beach suit and Panama hat, had a tear-gas bomb thrown at his feet.74

  Soldiers, ordered by President Hoover to evict the Bonus Army, herded veterans and onlookers alike out of downtown Washington. “God, that I should see such things in the United States,” said a reporter. (General Douglas MacArthur Foundation)

  When eight-year-old Naaman Seigle and his father left their home at Four-and-a-half and M streets NW that afternoon, they saw soldiers marching, and Naaman thought it was a parade. They went to the F. P. May hardware store at Sixth and C streets to buy a Philco radio. When they stepped out of the store, they suddenly began crying and coughing. Naaman was frightened and bewildered. Solomon Seigle, a pharmacist and part-time newspaper reporter, knew they had been gassed and, Naaman remembers, “He was mad as hell.”75

  Most of the veterans broke and ran. But some remained, taunting the soldiers and throwing bricks and stones. Cavalrymen tried to drive them north with slaps of their sabers. The tank trucks let down their ramps, and five small tanks rumbled onto the avenue. The infantrymen, wearing gas masks and with bayonets fixed, advanced toward the billets, hurling gas grenades. Vets threw some of the soup-can-size containers back, burning their hands.

  The cavalry, on the flanks of the infantrymen, moved ahead in line. “Most of the marchers gave way and fell back,” wrote Joseph C. Harsch of the Christian Science Monitor. “In front of me, one stood his ground. A saber flashed in a swinging arc and grazed the cheek of the marcher. Blood flowed. The marcher backed away holding a hand to his bleeding ear.”76

  A. Everette McIntyre, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, saw the infantrymen in gas masks advance on the veterans, jabbing with bayonets to move them on. “Soon, almost everybody disappeared from view, because tear gas bombs exploded,” he remembers. “The entire block was covered with tear gas. Flames were coming up, where the soldiers had set fire to the buildings to drive these people out.”77

  “I watched the soldiers moving from hut to hut, starting the blaze,” Strout reported. Shanty after shanty went up in flames, along with the meager belongings of the vets and their families. “Be careful, men. Don’t burn any flags,” an officer said. But the camps were full of flags, and they burned as well as scraps of wood and cardboard that had sheltered the vets. As cavalrymen headed into the camps, most vets and their families fled across the Mall. Some men stood in defiance. “Hit me, you yellow bastard!” shouted a vet carrying an American flag.

  “If we had guns—” said another. A buddy agreed, saying, “Jeez, if we had guns.”

  The father of six children roped orange crates onto the fenders of his battered car. His wife ran up with her arms full of clothes.78

  Soldiers in gas masks drove veterans away from their billet near Pennsylvania Avenue. Bonus marchers had been allowed to live in abandoned buildings on a site that would become the Federal Triangle. (General Douglas MacArthur Foundation)

  Paul V. Anderson heard an officer bark a command and then saw cavalrymen charge the crowd with drawn sabers. “Men, women and children fled shrieking across the broken ground,” Anderson wrote, “falling into excavations as they strove to avoid the rearing hoofs and saber points.” A woman at a shack pleaded for permission to go inside and snatch a suitcase with all the clothes she had for herself and her child. “Get out of here, lady, before you get hurt,” the soldier said. He then set the shack on fire.79

  As Major Patton saw it from his saddle: “Bricks flew, sabers rose and fell with a comforting smack, and the mob ran. We moved on after them, occasionally meeting serious resistance. Once six men in a truck threw a regular barrage of bricks, and several men and horses were hit. Two of us charged at a gallop, and had some nice work at close range with the occupants of the truck, most of whom could not sit down for some days.”80

 
A veteran wearing the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre stood his ground when a soldier advanced toward him and pointed his bayonet at the vet’s chest. The veteran made a quick motion with his hip and sent the soldier sprawling. He stood and was about to lunge when an officer stopped him and, nodding toward the medals, said, “Have some respect for those.” Then he said to the vet, “Buddy, I’d go along if I were you. It will be better.”81

  Anderson followed infantrymen who were casually tossing tear-gas grenades. “Some fell in front yards jammed with Negro women and children,” he reported. “One appeared to land on the front porch of a residence. Two small girls fell to the sidewalk, choking and screaming.”82 An infantry officer felt he was getting more opposition from spectators than from vets, particularly in a neighborhood “occupied by colored people” who “joined with the bonus marchers in insulting language toward the troops.”83

  After clearing the vets from Camp Glassford, infantrymen and cavalrymen headed for Fourteenth and C streets SW. “Now you’ll see some fun,” someone yelled. “They’re heading for the Reds’ camp.”84 Tanks clanked toward the shacks as men scrambled over rubble in retreat. A reporter spotted people carrying babies, oil lamps, sacks of bread, and a black cat. Flames rose from the deserted shanties. MacArthur appeared and ordered counterfires to keep the fires from spreading.85 Few veterans were seen, and the word was passed that the Communists had fled.

  When all the veterans had been chased away from downtown Washington and the soldiers could take a break, a couple of them were approached by an older man.

  “Were you in France?” he asked.

  “No,” one of the soldiers said.

  “No, you were running around in short pants. Well, I was. And if we had guns we’d show you something. We’re just as good shots as you are. Better maybe.”

  The young soldier mumbled something.

  “This ain’t going to stop here,” the veteran said. “The whole country is gonna hear about this.”86

  As a soft summer evening closed over Washington, flames silhouetted the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The day had ended—but not the Army’s battle against the BEF. At 9:00 P.M., after he and his troops had eaten, MacArthur told the ranking infantry and cavalry officers that “this command will proceed to Anacostia Flats and evacuate Bonus Marchers from that property.”87 Ten minutes later, the troops were on the march.

  Morris Reynaud, who had not joined his applauding buddies on Pennsylvania Avenue earlier in the day, was one of the thousands of men, women, and children driven southward toward the Anacostia River. Now, in the dark of night, he was standing near the bridge when he saw soldiers approaching. He rushed back to Camp Marks and shouted, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”88

  Smoke veiled the Capitol dome as flames engulfed veterans’ shanties, set afire by soldiers. Later that night, General MacArthur, defying presidential orders, would send soldiers into Camp Marks, which would also go up in flames. (General Douglas MacArthur Foundation)

  As the cavalry passed on its way to the bridge, Walter Griffin, a black veteran from Chattanooga, stood in front of the Navy Yard at attention, holding an American flag, with three or four companions in formation behind him. When the last of the cavalry reached the bridge, Griffin and his pals fell in behind, along with a band of cheering, jeering bystanders. They followed for a few paces. Then the rear guard of the unit wheeled and hurled a gas bomb at them, forcing them to retreat back onto the sidewalks.89

  The infantry next passed with fixed bayonets. The crowd began to boo. “As we were going across the Anacostia Bridge, they had their bayonets on their guns and they were really prodding them,” wrote Raymond P. Brandt of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “And . . . a Negro was there and he got stabbed in the back, badly stabbed. He said, ‘Well, I may not be an American, but I’m a Virginian.’ ”90

  A civilian jumped out and began pulling soldiers out of line, causing the march to break up momentarily. The crowd scattered in the confusion. Through all of this, and for as long as troops passed by, Griffin held his flag high, still at attention.

  When Griffin’s story was retold a few days later by I. S. David, a reporter for the Washington Tribune, the city’s only African-American newspaper in 1932, it ended with these lines: “Company after company marched by. . . . Not an officer looking up. Many of the soldiers looked scared and most of these mere boys hung their heads as if in shame.” Added in italics by David or his editor was a postscript to the story: “For the first time in American history, American troops on duty passed the colors held in loyal hands without being called to attention and without giving a salute.”

  In Camp Marks, Police Lieutenant Ira E. Keck saw a crowd gathered around Eddie Atwell, the camp commander. Keck heard Atwell say, “I have never advocated violence. Violence is knocking at the back door. We wish to protect ourselves. We have already lost one man [Carlson was still alive] and several police are in the hospital. We do not blame the municipal police department for what is happening. But we blame the Army and the President. . . . If they come to this camp tonight, I will meet them at the gate. . . . I will give you a promise to kill the first man to put his foot across the line.”91

  Keck left, continuing his eyes-and-ears mission for the commissioners. But police officers from the local precinct, who had worked with Atwell and respected him, tried to reason with him. He knew and they knew that there were about seven thousand people in Camp Marks, and six hundred were women and children.92

  MacArthur and his men paused to regroup at the northern side of the bridge. General Moseley, who had spent the day in his office, appeared with an urgent message from Secretary of War Hurley to MacArthur. “As we walked away, alone, from the others, I delivered that message to him and discussed it with him,” Moseley recalled. The message was from Hoover, stating that he did not wish the troops to cross the bridge that night to force the evacuation of Anacostia. MacArthur, according to Moseley, “was very much annoyed in having his plans interfered with in any way until they were executed completely. After assuring myself that he understood the message, I left him.”

  Moseley went back to his office and soon got a call from a White House official, who had been keeping abreast of the situation. He asked if the message had been delivered and understood. Moseley called in Colonel Clement H. Wright, the secretary of the Army General Staff, and ordered him to go to MacArthur “and explain the situation as I had it from the White House.” Wright reached MacArthur and conveyed Moseley’s message. Wright reported back to Moseley that it was too late—“the troops had not crossed the Anacostia Bridge, but were advancing on the bridge,” and MacArthur soldiered on.93 Both Eisenhower and Miles also later recalled that Hurley’s verbal message had been delivered to MacArthur.94

  Shortly after 10:00 P.M., Atwell, carrying a white flag, approached an Army staff car. He pleaded for an hour’s truce so he could evacuate the camp. MacArthur granted the request.95

  At Camp Marks, Nick and Joe Oliver, the seven-year-old boxing twins, were asleep in the lean-to near the family car. Their father woke them up, shouting, “Come on! Come on! The soldiers are going to kill us. Let’s get out of here. The soldiers are going to kill us.”96 In the darkness, Tony Oliver found his friend Sam Ditz, loaded him and the boys into the car, and headed out of the camp. Steve Murray, who had witnessed the routing of the bonus marchers downtown, believed Camp Marks would still be safe. Some of Murray’s North Carolina friends had formed “The Friendly B.E.F. String Band” and driven with him to Washington to entertain the vets. Murray rounded up the band members, piled them into the car, and drove to Anacostia. “When we were just swinging into the camp grounds, a cop stopped us and said the only entertainment the camp would get tonight would be bullets. So we were forced to go back, but I went down to the camp and helped get the women and children out before the soldiers would get there.”97

  A unit from the District of Columbia National Guard arrived with a large searchlight, which played its b
eam around the dark camp, picking up scenes of panic—men trying to start jalopies, mothers calling for children, men and women carrying children toward the far hills of the camp.

  Tanks took up positions on the bridge to block traffic in and out of the camp. Then, as the infantrymen entered the camp, stones flew out of the darkness, along with one word from one man: “Yellow-w-w-w-!” Reporter Joseph C. Harsch, who was standing near MacArthur, saw him summon a sergeant and give an order. “I watched,” Harsch wrote, “as the sergeant collected a squad and started down the row of makeshift huts. They wadded newspapers into a corner and set them alight. The row of huts was soon blazing.”98 Thomas Henry of the Evening Star also followed the infantrymen, who at one point threw gas grenades into a crowd of booing citizens. Henry saw a truck from the District Fire Department shine its headlights to illuminate the first row of tents and hovels. “They are deserted now,” he wrote. “The soldiers apply the torch to them. They are like tinder.”99

  Reporter Bess Furman, who had seen the Camp Glassford evacuation, drove with her newsman husband to Anacostia but found the bridge raised. They turned around and drove to Haines Point, once the site of another small camp and a good vantage point for looking across the Washington Channel toward Anacostia. They saw “a blaze so big that it lighted the whole sky . . . a nightmare come to life.”

  On the Potomac River, under a crescent moon, a moonlight excursion boat, outlined in bright lights, was returning from a cruise to Fort Washington. “It had been a perfect evening,” recalled Elbridge Purdy. As the boat neared its landing dock on Water Street SE, the band was playing the last dance. Then, near the mouth of the Anacostia River, passengers saw a red haze, then a mass of flames. The whole riverbank seemed to be burning. Passengers rushed to the starboard side, and the crew began pushing them back because the boat was listing under the shift of the rubberneckers.