The Bonus Army
Page 48
15. Roosevelt had little to say about or do with the bill before it landed on his desk. Biographer Frank Freidel takes the position that the president was willing to let the veterans’ groups and Congress move the bill. “Roosevelt husbanded his waning influence over Congress and did not spend any of it on this measure, so popular that it was not needed. His near silence was probably beneficial at making the bill less attractive as a conservative target.” (Friedel, Launching, 503.)
16. Both articles are called “The G.I. Bill of Rights,” Newsweek, May 29, 1944, 33; Time, April 3, 1944, 23. Time compared its easy passage in the Senate to a vote against man-eating sharks or the common cold. Neither magazine touched the Rankin racial issue or quoted the college presidents who were so strongly opposed to the bill.
17. Greenberg, The GI Bill: The Law That Changed America, (New York: Lickle Publishing, 1997), 18.
18. Robert Maynard Hutchins, “The Threat to American Education,” Collier’s December 30, 1944, 20–21; Milton Greenberg, The GI Bill: The Law That Changed America, 39.
19. President’s Official File 83, 4675-R, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
20. James Brady, “In Appreciation, the GI Bill,” Parade, August 4, 1996, 4–5.
21. Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993), 3. Drucker wrote that 1945, the year when GIs began to take advantage of the bill, marked a divide in world history comparable to 1776, the year the American Revolution began, and also the year James Watt perfected the steam engine and Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. He also wrote, We are clearly in the middle of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020. But already it has changed the political, economic and moral landscape of the world”; Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York: Random House, 1998), 372.
Appendix A: Long Shadow of the Bonus Army
1. Kenneth C. Davis is the author of Don’t Know Much about History. In Newsday, September 21, 1995 (“Our ‘Real History’ Is Seldom Tidy”), he wrote that “hundreds” were injured and “two infants died, suffocated by Army tear gas.”
2. Weston Kosova, “Bringing the War Home, Gen. MacArthur’s Anacostia Campaign,” City Paper (Washington, D.C.), January 2, 1992.
3. “Bonus Marchers Besiege Washington,” Roll Call, April 23, 1999 (an edition that included the section “Congress in the 20th Century”).
4. “Report on Bonus Expeditionary Force Emergency Camp Johnstown, Penna. Also Other Kindred Matters and Visits,” Glassford Papers, UCLA Library Department of Special Collections.
5. Daniels, Bonus March, p. 257.
6. Patrick J. Hurley, “The Facts about the Bonus March,” McCall’s, November 1949, 142–43.
7. Gabriel over the White House, American Film Institute Catalog.
8. Review of the film Gold Diggers of 1933, New York Times, June 8, 1933.
9. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt, 61.
10. Letters to Hays and others are quoted in the American Film Institute Catalog entry on Gabriel over the White House. The catalog also notes that Louis B. Mayer, a Republican, was appalled by the anti-Hoover tone of the movie and held up release of the film until after the 1932 presidential election.
11. Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
12. “Lewis Says Hays Bans Film of Book,” New York Times, February 16, 1936; “Hays Denies Order to Ban Lewis Film,” New York Times, February 18, 1936; “Will Hays Bans New Lewis Book As a Movie Play,” Washington Post, February 16, 1936; “Lewis to Get $1,050 Weekly From WPA for Rights to Play,” Washington Post, October 30, 1936.
13. Robert Torry, “ ‘You Can’t Look Away’: Spectacle and Transgressiom in King Kong,” Arizona Quarterly 49, no. 4 (1993): 61–77.
14. “Future War ‘Vets’ Use Barbed Satire to Take a Dig at War,” Washington Post, March 22, 1936. The Manifesto was first published in the Daily Princetonian of March 14, 1936. Their spoof continued to be one of Princeton’s best-known and most fondly remembered jokes, and the papers of the group are housed in the archives at Princeton. The Veterans of Future Wars is also documented by Time magazine’s film series entitled March of Time (vol. 2, no. 4).
15. Gary Dean Best, The Nickel and Dime Decade: American Popular Culture during the 1930s (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), 146.
16. “Future Veterans Said to Total 6,000,” New York Times, March 24, 1936. The senator was David A. Reed of Pennsylvania.
17. “Future Veterans Bow to Criticism,” New York Times, March 21, 1936.
18. March 17, 1936, OFO5-OF 95C, FDR Library.
19. “Future Wars Bonus Drive Called ‘Crazy,’ ” Washington Post,March 18, 1936.
20. “House Hears Future Veterans Denounced for Unpatriotism,” Washington Post, April 2, 1936.
21. Oswald Garrison Villiard, “Issues and Men,” Nation, April 18, 1936, 450.
22. “Future Veterans Amuse First Lady,” Washington Post, April 3, 1936.
23. “Columbia Seniors Cool to New Deal,” New York Times, March 25, 1936.
24. “Lobbies for Bonus in College Recess,” New York Times, April 2, 1936.
25. “Future War ‘Vets,’ ” Washington Post,March 22, 1936.
26. “Legion’s Depot for Veterans of Future Smacks of Nursery,” Washington Post, April 25, 1936. The vets got on the radio with the grand opening of the first-aid station and sang the ditty:
Let’s be wise, let’s be prudent
Sings the modern college student
We will never fight the foe
Unless we’re paid before we go
27. The New York Times was especially troubled as to how to characterize the Veterans of Future Wars, finally creating the term serio-satirical to describe it. “Youth Asks a Program,” New York Times, June 28, 1936.
28. “The Financial Bookshelf,” Wall Street Journal, May 4, 1936. Gorin’s book was also presented as his senior thesis at Princeton.
29. “New Peace Plan Urged,” New York Times, June 1, 1936.
30. “Future Veterans Give Up Trenches,” New York Times, April 4, 1937. The Veterans of Future Wars was brought back for a brief moment on the Princeton campus at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, according to an item in the October 25, 1950, Wall Street Journal. Considered by many a “stale joke,” it miscarried almost immediately, marking the organization’s final decline.
31. “‘Veterans of Future Wars’ Are Becoming Just That,” Washington Post, November 30, 1941.
32. “When Pacificists Decide to Fight,” Washington Post, January 23, 1944.
33. In 1949, claims of Communist control of the Bonus Army were lavishly publicized by the Hearst press, which ran a series entitled “Inside Story of Plot against Hoover.” The series was based on extensive interviews of John Pace, an ex-Communist in 1932 and a Tennessee deputy sheriff when he talked to Hearst reporter Howard Rushmore in 1949. (Pace was elaborating on testimony he had given to a congressional committee.) One of the stories in the Hearst series, published on August 29, 1949, begins: “Hoping for bloodshed and violence, the Communist Party agents within the ranks of the bonus marchers used every Red Fascist trick to get President Hoover to call out the army in 1932.” When Hoover and General MacArthur managed to keep blood from being shed, the story continues, “Red Fascist wrath was directed against these two great Americans—a raging ‘smear’ campaign that has lasted for almost two decades.” Pace’s story was taken up in the December 1951 Reader’s Digest as “The Story of a Smear,” which aired Pace’s claim that the rioting was touched off by “a flying communist wedge carrying an American flag” and that it was a Communist who ripped the badge from Glassford’s shirt. In February 1952, the U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal carried an article, “When the Army Was Smeared,” by Major General. H. W. Blakeley. The subhead: “The Communists turned the bonus march of 1932 intro a vicious slander of the Army.” Blakeley quotes from
the Digest piece and goes on to say, “The Army has been the chief victim, of this smear to which many newspapers and magazines have been continuing contributors.” A new Army view comes in “The Bonus March: A Forgotten Stain,” Military Review, March–April 2000, in which Bryon Greenwald writes, “In reality, hardly any criminals or communists were” in the Bonus Army. “Ninety-four percent were bonafide veterans and few had ever committed a crime of consequence.”
34. Editor and Publisher, January 24, 2000, 37.
35. Benjamin Gitlow, I Confess: The Truth about American Communism (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940), 328.
36. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).
37. Lohbeck, Hurley, 112.
38. Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 1929–1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 225. There was more direct Communist opposition in 1932, in the form of Communist Party candidates for president and vice president. William Z. Foster, the Communist candidate, got 103,253 votes; by comparison, Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party, got 884,649 votes.
39. Chalmers M. Roberts, “Aug. 28 ‘March’ Could Prove Negro’s Vindication,” Washington Post, July 21, 1963; “Past Offers Little Encouragement to Negroes Marching on Capitol,” Wall Street Journal, August 27, 1963.
40. Gerald D. McKnight, The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King, Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People’s Campaign (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998), 22–23.
41. “‘Shanty Town’ on the Potomac,” New York Times, May 9, 1968.
42. “Hill Delegation Visits Resurrection City, Promises Hearings,” Washington Post, June 6, 1968.
43. Paul Hodge, “When the Vets Got a Bruising Sendoff,” Washington Post, April 25, 1971.
44. Transcript of Oval Office conversation between 4:18 and 4:31 P.M., April 21, 1971, Conversation 485–4, number 1, Nixon Tapes, NARA.
45. Sanford J. Unger, “Mayday Poses Legal Questions,” Washington Post,May 16, 1971.
46. “Veterans Demand to See Nixon,” New York Times, July 19, 1974.
47. “Two Viet Vets Plan ‘Nixonville’ in U.S. Capital,” Chicago Tribune, June 23, 1974.
48. Jim Abrams, “In the Home of the Brave, Vets Live on the Streets,” Buffalo News, February 24, 1994.
Appendix B: What Became of Them
1. “State Accuses Girl of Lying for Loeb,” New York Times, August 8, 1924, p1.
2. Warren Commission report and hearings [microform]. Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Glen Rock, N.J.: Microfilming Corp. of America; Ann Arbor; University Microfilms International [distributor], 1992.
3. From fellow writer and friend Joseph C. Goulden: Abt was identified in Venona cables of April 29, 1944, and May 13, 1944. (Venona was the code name for Soviet intelligence messages intercepted and decrypted by U.S. code breakers.) The New York rezidentura (resident spymaster) Akhmerov sent a cable to Moscow discussing a “group in Washington” of which Abt was a member. (He was identified by the code name “Amt.”) The cables dealt with the decision that Abt should conceal his Communist membership and continue working covertly to maintain his usefulness. A précis of what Abt did is contained in John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven, Mass.: Yale University Press, 1999). Abt admitted his Communist membership in his posthumously published autobiography, Advocate and Activist.
4. “One-Man Bonus Army Returns to Capital,” Washington Post, January 4, 1937.
5. “Father Coughlin Breaks Silence,” New York Times,May 27, 1966.
6. Obituary, New York Times,May 19, 1951.
7. “Hourglass,” Washington Post, January 19, 1936.
8. Carlo D’Este, “Dwight D. Eisenhower: Douglas MacArthur’s Whipping Boy,” Military History Quarterly, winter 2003.
9. “Eisenhower Scored on ’32 Bonus ‘War,’” New York Times, October 25, 1952.
10. The American Legion was founded in March 1919 in Paris. Among the founders were Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Medal of Honor winner William J. Donovan, who in World War II would lead the Office of Strategic Services, origin of the Central Intelligence Agency. Other early legionnaires were veterans Ogden Mills, who succeeded Andrew Mellon as secretary of the Treasury in the Hoover administration, and Harold C. Ross, who became editor of American Legion Weekly and later founded the New Yorker. During his tenure as editor of the American Legion Weekly, Ross said, he was told to ignore the bonus issue: “At convention after convention the membership would unanimously vote in favor of the bonus, but the leadership would have none of it. . . . I was given to understand that we on the magazine were suppose to ‘kiss it to death.’”
11. Walter J. Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 225.
12. “Memories of a Chief,” Washington Post, August 20, 1959.
13. Document dated May 1, 1944, RG 226, E 99, Records of the OSS, box 53, folder 3, National Archives.
14. Lohbeck, Hurley, 430.
15. Ibid., 454.
16. Oregon Journal, August 28, 1963.
17. Washington Post, September 17, 1967.
18. “MacArthur v. Pearson (D.C. Supreme Court, 1934),” New York Times,May 17, 1934. Pearson, who had reported firsthand on the eviction for the Baltimore Sun, and Allen published a book that contained a sardonic portrayal of MacArthur during the eviction. At one point they had photographers pose MacArthur beside his horse.
19. Oliver Pilat, Drew Pearson: An Unauthorized Biography (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1973), 141–46.
20. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences, 110–11.
21. “F.B.I. Jails Noble and Jones after Slur on Gen. MacArthur,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1942.
22. “Two Ex-Generals Term MacArthur Best U.S. Leader in Peace or War,” Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1948.
23. “Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, Capital Society Leader Dies,” Washington Post, April 27, 1947.
24. L. Patrick Hughes, “Beyond Denial: Glimpses of Depression-era San Antonio,” Austin Community College; published at http://www.austin.cc.tx.us/lpatrick/denial.htm; “Maury Maverick Dies at 58; Former Congressman, Mayor,” Washington Post, June 8, 1954.
25. Julie P. Means, “My Life With Gaston B. Means,” Washington Times-Herald, October 15, 1939.
26. “Wisconsin Primary: A Third Party Test,” New York Times, September 18, 1934.
27. Howard Rushmore, “Ex-Red Tells How ‘Smear’ of Hoover and MacArthur Started,” New York Journal-American, August 30, 1939.
28. “Moscow Ordered Riots in 1932 Bonus March,” New York Herald-American, August 28, 29, and 30, 1949. The articles were reprinted in the Congressional Record.
29. Obituary, Washington Post, November 28, 1960.
30. Letter to the editor, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1938.
31. Rogers Papers. Marked Korea speech, box 13, folder 170.
32. Day, Will Rogers, 291.
33. “D.C. Officer’s Alleged Killer Under Arrest,” Washington Post, May 29, 1935; “D.C. Returning Suspect in Killing of Policeman,” April 29, 1939; “Suspect Pleads Not Guilty of Killing Officer,” Washington Post, May 4, 1939; “Police Say Man Admits Killing Shinault,” Washington Post, May 1, 1939; “Bullock on Trial Monday in Policeman’s Death,” Washington Post, June 24, 1939; “Willie Bullock Goes on Trial in Shinault Death,” Washington Post, June 27, 1939; “Bullock’s Friend Testifies He Saw Officer Killed,” June 28, 1939; “Judge Admits ‘Confession’ at Bullock Trial,” Washington Post, June 29, 1939; “Policeman’s Slayer Gets Death in Chair,” Times-Herald, March 13, 1940; “Court Asked to Review Reversal in Murder Case,” July 19, 1941; “Bullock Retrial Move Brings Jeopardy Plea,” Washington Post, November 15, 1941; “Bullock to Face New Murder Trial,” Washington Post, December 3, 1941; “D.C. Policeman’s Slayer Sentenced to 20 Years,” Washington Post, June 26, 1943; “Death Takes Slayer of Policeman,” November 10, 1950.
We asked Sergeant Nick Breul, a
homicide detective with the District’s Metropolitan Police Department and its unofficial historian, to look over this case, based on a pile of newspaper clippings. “I found the news reports of Shinault’s death very interesting, particularly the inconsistencies in location of the incident, where he was shot, and even some speculative journalism regarding whether or not Shinault saw his killer,” Breul says. “I would assume that whatever was located at 39 F Street NW or 73 G Street NW is a high-rise now. What is curious to me is why he got so far ahead of his partner, but then died next to the scout car. As a policeman, you would not enter a building, or leap out of a car presumably because you see something, without communicating it to your partner. Most of the reports say he was shot in the front yard, or while entering the residence, and his partner was so far away that he did not see who fired the shot. I don’t think the position of ‘Emergency Man’ [the designation of Shinault’s passenger-seat position] means you go and handle the call by yourself. If for a moment I were to put on my Oliver Stone cap, I could see a crafted scenario in which a ‘fight call’ comes over the radio, they have conveniently switched positions in the car, and Edwards is slow to get out of the car ‘looking for his flashlight.’(What time in the night was this? The sun doesn’t set until 8:30 or 9 in August.) This delayed Edwards from getting to the house, where the reported disturbance was. This gave enough time to let Shinault get enough separation to be shot—and for Edwards to have plausible deniability, letting the man loose in a maze of alleys. Sounds a little like Serpico.
“However, there was at least one eyewitness who testified that it was Bullock who shot Shinault, and he was convicted. I have some faith in the system. While the case is puzzling and so close to the Bonus Army shootings to certainly raise eyebrows, without the full case file, it would be impossible to say they are connected. And it certainly seems reasonable that this was just a ‘killin.’”
Bullock died in Lorton Prison of a stroke in 1950. His obituary in the Washington Post said, “Police at first believed Shinault had been shot in retaliation for killing William Hushka in line of duty during the bonus army uprising of July, 1932. Then they learned Bullock’s identity and began a nationwide search for him.”