July 28th, 1932 was when President Hoover ordered the military to break up the Bonus Army, a group of American World War 1 vets who were camping out near Washington, D.C. to pressure Congress to pay their war bonus earlier than 1945. The country was in the grips of the Great Depression and the vets needed the money now.
Notice you can see the Capitol in the background.
From wikipedia:
“On the 28th of July 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the police evacuation of the Bonus Army veterans, who resisted; the police shot at them, and killed two. When told of the killings, President Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to effect the evacuation of the Bonus Army from Washington, D.C.
At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported with six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of Civil Service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton charged the cavalry against them — to which action the Civil Service employee spectators yelled: “Shame! Shame!” against the charging cavalry.
After the cavalry charge, infantry, with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, entered the Bonus Army camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River, to their largest camp; President Hoover ordered the Army assault stopped, however, Gen. MacArthur — feeling this free-speech exercise was a Communist attempt at overthrowing the U.S. Government — ignored the President and re-attacked. Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed — including William Hushka and Eric Carlson; a veteran’s wife miscarried; and many other veterans were hurt. The sight of armed U.S. Army soldiers attacking poor American veterans of the recent Great War later prompted formal veteran relief funds, and, eventually, establishment of the Veterans Administration. As member of Gen. MacArthur’s staff, Dwight D. Eisenhower had strong reservations about routing the anti-Bonus Army.
The Posse Comitatus Act — forbidding civilian police work by the U.S. military — did not apply to Washington, D.C., because it is the federal district directly governed by the U.S. Congress (U.S. Constitution, Article I. Section 8. Clause 17). The exemption was created because of an earlier “Bonus March”. In 1781, most of the Continental Army was demobilised without pay, two years later, in 1783, hundreds of Pennsylvania war veterans marched on Philadelphia, surrounded the State House wherein Congress was in session, and demanded their pay. The U.S. Congress fled to Princeton, New Jersey, and, several weeks later, the U.S. Army expelled the war veterans back to home, out of the national capital.
Gen. MacArthurs attack’s on the Bonus Army veterans yielded:
* Two veterans killed.
* Two infants asphyxiated with adamsite gas.
* An 11-week-old baby suffered shock from the gassing.
* An 11-year-old boy, David Barscheski, was partially blinded by the gassing.
* A civilian bystander was shot in the shoulder.
* Veteran, Christopher Bilger’s ear was severed by a cavalryman.
* A veteran was bayonetted in a hip.
* Some twelve policemen were injured by the veterans.
* More than 1,000 men, women, and children were gassed with adamsite gas, including policemen, news reporters, and civil residents of Washington D.C., and ambulance drivers.
Following his election, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want to pay the bonus early either, but handled the veterans with more skill. In March 1933 Roosevelt issued an executive order allowing the enrollment of 25,000 veterans in the Civilian Conservation Corps for work in forests. When they marched on Washington again in May 1933, he sent his wife Eleanor to chat with the vets and pour coffee with them, and she persuaded many of them to sign up for jobs making a roadway to the Florida Keys, which was to become the Overseas Highway, the southernmost portion of U.S. Route 1. On September 2, the disastrous Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 killed 258 veterans working on the Highway. After seeing more newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, public sentiment built up so much that Congress could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt’s veto was overridden, making the bonus a reality.
Perhaps the Bonus Army’s greatest accomplishment was the piece of legislation known as the G. I. Bill of Rights. Passed in July, 1944, it immensely helped veterans from the Second World War to secure needed assistance from the federal government to help them fit back into civilian life, something the World War I veterans of the Bonus Army had not received. The Bonus Army’s activities can also be seen as a template for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and popular political demonstrations and activism that took place in the U.S. later in the 20th century.”
Most people have never heard of the Bonus Army. Which is a shame.