The Bonus Army is dispersed

The 1932 dispersal of the Bonus Army turned veterans’ demand for promised relief into a military assault on unarmed former soldiers. In the same year that young Jimmy Hoffa won a rare labor victory with the Strawberry Boys, the veterans’ fate exposed how little leverage ordinary people could have against those in power.

The march and its demand

Thousands of veterans of World War I marched on Washington and remained on the Mall, refusing to leave until Congress granted the bonuses they had been promised. The payments were not due until 1945, but the marchers sought them in 1932, when they needed the money. Their insistence made a deferred promise an immediate test of whether the government would answer hardship with relief.

The eviction

President Herbert Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to remove the marchers by force. MacArthur led troops, tanks, and tear gas against the veterans; they were given no chance to leave quietly. The force deployed against them made the confrontation more than an eviction: the country’s own army was sent against men who had previously served it.

Casualties and significance

The U.S. Army opened fire on the unarmed veterans, killing two and wounding several others. They were former soldiers of a war that had ended fourteen years earlier, a bitter reversal for men who had fought in the name of democracy. In the book’s juxtaposition, the assault sharply contrasts with Hoffa’s successful stand for the Strawberry Boys in that same year: one group of workers secured recognition through collective pressure, while the veterans’ appeal for help met armed force.