The Bonus Army
Page 26
Too late, lobbyists flooded congressional offices with heart-wrenching stories of veterans hurt by the Economy Act. Arthur Krock, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, wrote that “down many Main Streets go armless veterans who used to get $94 a month from the Government, and now get $36.”5 Men who had lost two arms, two legs, or two eyes would have their pensions reduced; those with service-related illnesses would lose up to 80 percent of their pensions; veterans with such diseases as tuberculosis and neurosis would lose their entire pensions if their conditions were not unequivocally connected with their service in uniform.6
“I know many many veterans will soon be laid in there [sic] graves, death being brought on by the additional worry which is bound to come,” an Ohio official of the Disabled American Veterans wrote to a member of Congress, who passed it to the White House.7 Death did indeed come to troubled veterans. A Philadelphia man killed himself and left a message to President Roosevelt saying that because his benefits were gone, he had no way to provide for his family except through his death, which would give his wife the remaining $275 from his bonus. A patient in a Dayton, Ohio, veterans’ hospital killed the chief of the medical staff after being told that because he no longer got a $60 benefit check, he had to leave the hospital.8
Reports of suicides poured into congressional offices, and members of Congress began to regret their hasty endorsement of the Economy Act. Roosevelt held firm and appealed to the veterans’ patriotism in a special message. “I do not want any veteran to feel that he and his comrades are being singled out to make sacrifices,” he said. “On the contrary, I want them to know that the regulations issued are but an integral part of our economy program embracing every department and agency of the government to which every employee is making his or her contribution.”9
In late April the old BEF reappeared, minus Waters, and an organization calling itself the Veterans’ Relief Association claimed that 30,000 veterans were ready to march—both for the bonus and the restoration of benefits.10
Four leaders from the 1932 march met in the White House to negotiate with Louis McHenry Howe, Roosevelt’s longtime confidant and his principal political adviser. Howe, an ex-newspaperman, had known and counseled Roosevelt when he had been governor and when he had been stricken with polio. No one in the White House in 1933, with the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, knew Roosevelt better. Mrs. Roosevelt and Howe had formed a bond during her first shaky days after Roosevelt’s victory. In a letter to a friend, she had said she “could not live in the White House.” Confidentially shown the letter by the friend, Howe had torn it up and thrown it away,11 then took it upon himself to guide and counsel the woman, who would become the most influential and celebrated First Lady of modern times. The first test of their bond would come with the second bonus march.
Harold B. Foulkrod, formerly the “legislative agent” or chief lobbyist for the BEF, now became the spokesman for the self-anointed BEF leaders. In their public statements, they showed themselves as pro-Roosevelt by sidestepping the hot veterans’ benefits topic. They listed their demands as: payment of the bonus immediately to two million unemployed veterans; preference in federal, city, and state jobs for veterans; the immediate removal of General MacArthur as Army chief of staff and Frank T. Hines as administrator of Veterans’ Affairs—and the firing of all married women employed by the federal government to make way for veterans.
Foulkrod claimed that four thousand veterans were already in Washington, ready to go “to their tents.” But he assured Howe that he and the other leaders would try to hold off their march because of the president’s troubles, a tactful reference to the firestorm over Roosevelt’s slashing of veterans’ benefits. “Mr. Howe told us that he was not in a position to give us an answer today,” Foulkrod reported. “He told us to come back in two weeks and therefore we will hold up our plans to move on Washington until after that time. He was very sympathetic with us, but added that nothing is ever accomplished by a club.”12
Whereas in 1932 legislators favoring the bonus were introducing legislation as the marchers arrived, the 1933 Congress saw itself, in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “staving off violence—even (at least some thought) revolution.” In what would become Roosevelt’s epic First Hundred Days, from March 9 to June 16, he would send Congress a record number of bills, and, like the vet-targeting Economy Act, all of them would pass.13 Even such stalwart bonus advocates as Representative Wright Patman and Senator Elmer Thomas joined their colleagues in a congressional statement urging “all buddies who are really sincere and want to see the bonus pass to think carefully before joining any movement which will hurt our cause.” The statement urged veterans not to march again.
After learning of the White House meeting, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation, passed on to his new boss, Attorney General Homer Cummings, a warning about Foulkrod, whose past had been only partially revealed the year before.14 Hoover reported that Foulkrod had five aliases and a criminal record that included convictions for burglary, passing bad checks, and forgery.15 Oddly, he did not add information about Communist influence on the march. For months Hoover had been aware of plans for a Washington march by Communists. “Organizers of the so-called ‘Purple Shirts,’” the “Mystic Multitudes,” and 333,000 delegates of the “oppressed people of the Nation” were also planning to descend on the city, Hoover said in one of his reports to Ernest W. Brown, Glassford’s successor as Washington’s chief of police. Another report told of 473,000 “trained men ready to take action” with their 116 airplanes and 123 machine guns. None of Hoover’s reported invaders were ever sighted.16
The day after the Foulkrod group met with Howe, the Veterans National Liaison Committee wrote to President Roosevelt, “Large groups of veterans are now en route, and thousands more are preparing for the trip to Washington and will arrive on or about May 12th.” Howe invited the committee to the White House even though MID reports had identified the committee as a Communist front. Emanuel Levin, while admitting he was a Communist, tried to show Howe they were not a gang of Reds. He introduced the men in this way: George Dewey Brady, a Democrat, a Catholic, and the father of two children, was named after the great American hero Admiral George Dewey. Edward J. Williams voted Democrat, was the father of two children, and was active in relief work for Disabled American Veterans. Harold Hickerson was the father of one child in a family whose menfolk had fought in the Revolution, on both sides of the Civil War, and in every war since. Hickerson was also the coauthor, with Maxwell Anderson, of a Broadway play.17
Several meetings were held over the next few days. At one point, Frank T. Hines, administrator of Veterans’ Affairs, was called in. He began by saying he hoped that they would not “get tied up with that terrible fellow, Levin.” Williams interrupted Hines to say, “General, we took that bull by the horns six months ago. Let me introduce you to Mr. Levin. He sits right here.” Hines, a consummate politician, turned to Levin and remarked on how the press “distorts a person’s reputation.”18
So Howe found himself involved with two bonus marches—one obviously from the Left, and one that would soon evolve into a right-wing group. In 1932 Police Chief Glassford had dealt directly with Waters and other march leaders, including Communists. Now Glassford was gone, and there was no one to stand between the White House and the rival planners of the second bonus march. Howe—and ultimately Roosevelt—decided to bestow extraordinary privileges on Levin’s Veterans National Liaison Committee, which started calling itself the Veterans Expeditionary Force, the VEF.19
Howe, certainly with Roosevelt’s blessings, had allied the administration with Levin’s group, despite the fact that Levin was a Communist and not a veteran of the Great War. The Navy Department made public records that showed Levin had served in the Marine Corps, albeit before the war. According to the records, he was born in Russia on November 10, 1884, and had been living in Cleveland when he enlisted in the Marines on May 9, 1906. He was discharged on
May 8, 1910, and enlisted again on November 29, 1915, but he had secured a “purchase discharge”—meaning that he had been able to end his enlistment by paying an undisclosed sum—on March 24, 1916, saying that his mother had died of tuberculosis and he had to take care of his sisters.20 Even though it was a matter of public record, the Navy’s revelation was largely forgotten; most accounts referred to Levin as a veteran, implying he was a veteran of the Great War. Unlike Foulkrod’s BEF, which was composed of veterans of the Great War, the VEF admitted any veteran or dependent with a grievance.21
Howe, willing to face criticism from anti-Communists, decided to accept the VEF’s agenda for a national veterans’ convention and began making plans to feed and shelter about 9,000 veterans at Fort Hunt, an old abandoned Army post that had been the site of an Army field hospital that cared for bonus marchers in 1932.22 As for the cost, word leaked that Wright Patman— even though he had said he opposed a second march—had introduced a congressional resolution drawing expenses for the convention from a fund that Congress had authorized in 1932 to pay for a Washington reception for French veterans that had never been held. The expenses included free bus transportation between downtown Washington and Fort Hunt.23
On Thursday, May 9, 1933, Washingtonians, begrudging hosts for another bonus march, once again saw U.S. Army troops moving into the city. This time, however, the fifteen army trucks, escorted by police motorcycles, kept on moving, crossing the Potomac on the Arlington Memorial Bridge into Virginia and heading down the George Washington Memorial Parkway to Fort Hunt.
At first, neither the White House nor the Army would disclose why the trucks, carrying a company of infantry—about 230 men—had traveled from Fort Meade to Fort Hunt. Soon, though, Washingtonians learned that Louis Howe24 had selected Fort Hunt as the place where the second march would be housed. The Fort Meade infantryman would put up a tent city for the 8,700 VEF veterans expected for their national convention, which was to begin on Saturday, May 11. The precise number came from a political move that had a Howe look to it: the White House–VEF agreement called for twenty men from each of the 435 congressional districts. Foulkrod, seeing that his men were not included in the agreement, demanded that his thousands of followers get their own food and shelter.25 But in a statement printed on a White House mimeograph machine and distributed by Levin’s committee, it was quite obvious that the food and shelter would go only to “properly accredited delegates”—and Levin’s group was doing the accreditation.
Foulkrod said that 4,000 “right-wing” veterans were on the march from Baltimore. George Alman assembled 1,000 men in New York City, and one of them said, “No matter how many police are in front of the White House, we will walk in.” Five hundred VEF members were reported on their way from Chicago, and 150 more from Indianapolis.26 The stage was being set for a confrontation between the Left and the Right, for the White House agreement covered only the VEF.
While the troops were putting up tents and setting up field kitchens at Fort Hunt, Washington police cleared the city of crooks, robbers, and agitators. Some fifty “undesirables” were rounded up and “held for investigation.” Under the White House–VEF agreement, tents were set up on Pennsylvania Avenue near Sixth Street NW—a few blocks from the spot where Hushka and Carlson had been killed—for the registration of accredited veterans. They were to have their convention at the Washington Auditorium on Saturday, May 11, and leave the city on May 19. Only VEF members would be admitted to the convention.
Veterans Bureau buses or army trucks took the registered members to Fort Hunt, where they found a tent city laid out in company streets of forty tents each. The eight-man tents had electric lights, and at the end of each street were sinks and running water. Army cooks worked in field kitchens and served the meals on mess kits issued to each camp guest. Latrines had been dug by infantrymen from Fort Meade. There was a large tent, with loudspeakers, for meetings. Overlooking the Potomac River was a bathhouse with one hundred showers. Fort Meade troops patrolled the perimeter of the camp—and dozens of Virginia state troopers were strung around the sovereign soil of Virginia beyond the camp. The governor of Virginia said that nearby citizens were fearful, and he wanted to make sure that when the vets left, they would not threaten the Old Dominion.27
Instead of the club-carrying MPs of Commander in Chief Waters’s days, men assigned to a “safety committee” walked around wearing blue armbands marked “SC.” Instead of boot-wearing officers with assumed military ranks, there were “committeemen” and elected “street leaders.” On a typical day the men had oranges, eggs, potatoes, bread, butter, and coffee for breakfast; a lunch of baked ham, potatoes, peas, rice pudding, bread, butter, and coffee; and a supper of sliced bologna, potato salad, apple butter, bread, and coffee.
The first group of about two hundred BEF veterans arrived in a rainstorm on May 10. Wet, ragged, and angry, they set up a soggy camp on Capitol Hill in a vacant lot that was used as a neighborhood dump. They built a large campfire, and through its flames and smoke could be seen the dome of the Capitol. Foulkrod and his aides said they would go to the White House and demand separate—and presumably equal—accommodations for their right-wingers.28
The men awoke to find themselves being ogled by staffers in the nearby House Office Building. Ordered to leave, the vets stumbled off in columns of four and were taken, under police escort, down Capitol Hill to a park near the Botanical Gardens. Like an apparition from the past, Pelham Glassford appeared before them and told them they had been “duped by Levin and his crowd” into coming to Washington. Glassford’s words fell on rain-soaked ears, and the veterans paid him little heed. But during the day, about half of the BEF contingent drifted away, presumably to their homes or to the open road.29 (Waters also was reported to be in Washington, but his presence had no effect whatsoever on what was happening.30)
Later, when BEF veterans did go to the White House, Foulkrod was not among them; Howe, apparently acting on J. Edgar Hoover’s information, had decided that he would meet only with men who held honorable discharges. The White House tried to get the 200 or so right-wingers to agree to go to Fort Hunt, where 1,110 of Levin’s men were living.31 Talks dragged on while the right-wing veterans, dogged by police, wandered Washington in search of a place to call their own. Believed to be among the right-wingers was Eddie Gosnell, the poet-photographer who had snapped the controversial death photo of William Hushka during the violence the year before. Gosnell, who had the only photographic negative of Hushka’s killing, said he had other photographs and documents that would embarrass people connected with the march.32
Thanks to Howe’s extensive experience with thorny Albany politics, a solution was found to the Left/Right impasse. Levin and Harold Hickerson resigned. Foulkrod was ousted in an election. Under a new leader, the BEF agreed to join the VEF in Fort Hunt. But about twenty-five right-wingers refused to go to the camp. They headed off to find sympathizers in Washington, led by a Brooklyn vet who had deserted the VEF, saying he would rather “die in the mud” than remain with the Reds of Fort Hunt.33
Henry Meisel, who had arrived at the first bonus march on a motorcycle, got to the 1933 event by riding in boxcars and talking his way onto airplanes. After landing at Washington-Hoover Airport,* he hitchhiked to Fort Hunt, arriving just in time for supper. He was fed, but because he was unregistered, he had to take a free bus back to Washington. He returned to the camp by bus and ate a second supper. Meisel’s tent was in what he called the neutral ground between the two factions. Meisel disliked the dull-bladed razor he had been issued, so he took the bus into Washington and picked up his safety razor and camera at the office of his congressman, Gerald J. Boileau, a Republican and a veteran, to whom Meisel had forwarded them. He lingered in Boileau’s office, discussing the bonus and other matters, then returned to the fort, where the food was “very wholesome” and came with extra helpings.34
The convention, which originally had been the object of the VEF march, produced shouting matches as the tw
o groups collided in debate. There was also a parade of exactly 626 veterans—“there were almost as many police and detectives following the parade as there were veterans in it,” according to Meisel. The parade passed the White House, where a petition for the bonus was presented, and the Capitol, where no petition could be presented because Congress had adjourned for the day.35
The most dramatic event came at the camp, in a carefully orchestrated public relations move by the White House.
“Go out and see the men at the camp,” President Roosevelt had told Howe. “See that they have good food and shelter and above all good, hot coffee to drink. There’s nothing that makes people feel as welcome as a steaming cup of coffee.”
Members of the 1933 bonus march were housed by the government in tents at Fort Hunt in Virginia near Mount Vernon. They were well fed, provided with unlimited amounts of coffee, and were honored with a visit from the new First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt; but they got no further than their predecessors in gaining the bonus. (Authors’ collection)
Howe asked Mrs. Roosevelt to take him for a drive into the Virginia countryside. He directed her to a road that led to Fort Hunt.
“Louis! What is this place and what are we going to do here?” she asked.
“This is where the Bonus Army is quartered,” he answered, “and you are going in there and talk to those men, get their gripes, if any, make a tour of the camp and tell them that Franklin sent you out to see about them. Don’t forget that—be sure to tell them that Franklin sent you. Inspect their quarters and get the complete story.”