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Rethinking the Bonus March: Federal Bonus Policy, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of a Protest Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Stephen R. Ortiz
Stephen R. Ortiz
Affiliation:
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

In 1927, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the national organization founded in 1899 by veterans of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, appeared destined for historical obscurity. The organization that would later stand with the American Legion as a pillar of the powerful twentieth-century veterans' lobby struggled to maintain a membership of sixty thousand veterans. Despite desperate attempts to recruit from the ranks of the nearly 2.5 million eligible World War veterans, the VFW lagged behind in membership both the newly minted American Legion and even the Spanish War Veterans. The upstart Legion alone, from its 1919 inception throughout the 1920s, averaged more than seven hundred thousand members. Indeed, in 1929, Royal C. Johnson, the chairman of the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation and a member of both the Legion and the VFW, described the latter as “not sufficiently large to make it a vital factor in public sentiment.” And yet, by 1932, in the middle of an economic crisis that dealt severe blows to the membership totals of almost every type of voluntary association, the VFW's membership soared to nearly two hundred thousand veterans. Between 1929 and 1932, the VFW experienced this surprising growth because the organization demanded full and immediate cash payment of the deferred Soldiers' Bonus, while the American Legion opposed it. Thus, by challenging federal veterans' policy, the VFW rose out of relative obscurity to become a prominent vehicle for veteran political activism. As important, by doing so the VFW unwittingly set in motion the protest movement known as the Bonus March.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 275 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2006

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References

Notes

1. Mencken, H. L., “The Case for the Heroes,” The American Mercury 24 (12 1931): 410Google Scholar.

2. VFW's membership totals in Goldsmith, Mary Katherine, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States: The History of a Veterans' Organization, Its Function in Assisting Veterans, Influencing National Legislation, and Interpreting and Promoting Americanism, 1899–1948” (M.A. thesis, University of Kansas City, 1963), 194Google Scholar. Legion membership totals in National Tribune, 7 February 1935. Letter from Royal C. Johnson to Herbert Hoover, dated 1 April 1929, in “World War Veterans—Correspondence, 1929,” box 371, Subject Files Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter SFHH).

3. For the first and most thorough studies of the Bonus March, see Daniels, Roger, The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression (West Port, Conn., 1971)Google Scholar and Lisio, Donald J., The President and Protest: Hoover, Conspiracy, and the Bonus Riot (Columbia, 1974Google Scholar), reprinted as The President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur, and the Bonus Riot (New York, 1994)Google Scholar. For New Deal narratives, see Schlesinger, Arthur M., The Age of Roosevelt, vols. 1–3 (Boston, 1957–1960)Google Scholar; Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Kennedy, David M., Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999)Google Scholar; and Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar. For a recent, yet typical, textbook description of the March, see Martin, James Kirby et al. , America and Its Peoples, 5th ed. (New York, 2004), 676–677Google Scholar.

4. See Keene, Jennifer D., Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (Baltimore, 2001)Google Scholar, Barber, Lucy G., Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002)Google Scholar, and Dickson, Paul and Allen, Thomas B., The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York, 2005)Google Scholar.

5. On the American Legion, see Pencak, William, For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941 (Boston, 1989)Google Scholar, and Rumer, Thomas A., The American Legion: An Official History, 1919–1989 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

6. The VFW maintains a limited archive at its national headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The complete catalog of the organization's monthly publication, Foreign Service, comprises the sole archival material of the national organization. While VFW national encampment proceedings were published by the Government Printing Office and are readily available, no personal papers of the organization's leaders during the period under examination can be located. For the sparse literature on the VFW, see Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States: The History of a Veterans' Organization, Its Function in Assisting Veterans, Influencing National Legislation, and Interpreting and Promoting Americanism, 1899–1948” (hereafter “The Veterans of Foreign Wars”), and the most recent official history of the organization, Mason, Herbert Molloy Jr., VFW: Our First Century, 1899–1999 (Lenexa, Kan., 1999)Google Scholar. For more on the importance of existing organizational structures to social protest movements, see Morris, Aldon D., The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York, 1984)Google Scholar, and Payne, Charles M., I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995)Google Scholar.

7. For the “symbiotic relationship” between voluntary associations and the federal government, see Skocpol, Theda et al. , “How Americans Became Civic,” in Skocpol, Theda and Fiorina, Morris P., eds., Civic Engagements in American Democracy (Washington, D.C., 1999)Google Scholar; Skocpol, et al. , “Patriotic Partnerships: Why Great Wars Nourished American Civic Voluntarism,” in Shefter, Katznelson and, eds., Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development (Princeton, 2002), 134–180Google Scholar; and Jacobs, Meg and Zelizer, Julian E., “The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History,” in Jacobs, Meg, Novak, William J., and Zelizer, Julian E., eds., The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History (Princeton, 2003), 1–19Google Scholar.

8. A number of studies have been dedicated to veterans' relationship with the state. Pioneering studies such as Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1992)Google Scholar, and Orloff, Ann Shola, The Politics of Pensions: A Comparative Analysis of Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1880–1940 (Madison, 1993), argued that twentieth-century welfare policies were conceived with veterans' welfare as a negative referenceGoogle Scholar. Skocpol's introduction of “policy feedback” to social policy formulation in Protecting Mothers, however, has also proved very influential. For the importance of “policy feedback,” or the manner in which federal policy helps produce political participation in veterans and their dependents, see Mettler, Suzanne, “Bringing the State Back In to Civic Engagement: Policy Feedback Effects of the G.I. Bill for World War II Veterans,” American Political Science Review 96, no. 2 (06 2002): 351–365Google Scholar, and Civic Generation: The G.I. Bill in the Lives of World War II Veterans (New York, forthcoming, 2005)Google Scholar; and Hickel, K. Walter, “War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemen's Dependents in the South, 1917–1921,” Journal of American History 87, no. 4 (03 2001): 1362–1391Google Scholar, and “Entitling Citizens: World War I, Progressivism, and the Origins of the American Welfare State, 1917–1928” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1999)Google Scholar. For an excellent comparative study of European veterans that explores these issues, see Cohen, Deborah, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000)Google Scholar. Other important works on how federal policies affect political participation include: Campbell, Andrea Louise, How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar; Pierson, Paul, “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change,” World Politics 45 (1993): 595–628Google Scholar; and Soss, Joe, “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action,” American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 363–380Google Scholar.

9. On the GI Bill, see Ross, Davis R. B., Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Bennett, Michael J., When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington, D.C., 1996)Google Scholar; Van Ells, Mark D., To Hear Only Thunder Again: America's World War II Veterans Come Home (Lanham, Md., 2001)Google Scholar; Keene, Doughboys; Mettler, Suzanne, “Bringing the State Back In to Civic Engagement,” Civic Generation, and “The Creation of the GI Bill of Rights of 1944: Melding Social and Participatory Citizenship Ideals,” Journal of Policy History 17, no. 4 (2005)Google Scholar; and Amenta, Edwin and Skocpol, Theda, “Redefining the New Deal: World War II and the Development of Social Provision in the United States,” in Weir, Margaret, Orloff, Ann Shola, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton, 1988)Google Scholar. For the limitations of the GI Bill, see Onkst, David H., “‘First a Negro … Incidentally a Veteran': Black World War Two Veterans and the G.I. Bill in the Deep South, 1944–1948,” Journal of Social History 31 (Spring 1998): 517–544Google Scholar; Canaday, Margot, “Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill,” Journal of American History 90 (12 2003): 935–957Google Scholar; and Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2003)Google Scholar.

10. Daniels, The Bonus March, 23–28; Pencak, For God and Country, 75–77, 197–200; Weber, Gustavus A. and Scheckebier, Laurence F., The Veterans' Administration: Its History, Activities, and Organization (Washington, D.C., 1934), 229–231Google Scholar; Foreign Service, June 1919: 8 and November 1920: 1; and New York Times, 16–17 October 1920. For the most thorough discussion of war risk insurance, see K. Walter Hickel, “War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemen's Dependents in the South, 1917–1921,” and “Entitling Citizens: World War I, Progressivism, and the Origins of the American Welfare State, 1917–1928.”

11. Daniels, The Bonus March, 37–40; Pencak, For God and Country, 197–200; and Weber and Scheckebier, The Veterans' Administration, 231–34.

12. Resolution No. 141, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States,1926 (Washington, D.C., 1927), 264Google Scholar.

13. On the American Legion, see Pencak, For God and Country, and Rumer, The American Legion. On the VFW, see Mason, VFW: Our First Century, 1899–1999, 54–95; Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” and Ortiz, Stephen R., “‘Soldier-Citizens’: The Veterans of Foreign Wars and Veteran Political Activism from the Bonus March to the GI Bill” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 2004)Google Scholar.

14. Legion membership totals in National Tribune, 7 February 1935, and VFW's in Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 194. On Legion and VFW leadership, see Pencak, For God and Country, esp. 48–106; Mason, VFW: Our First Century, 1899–1999, 54–95; and Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 1–92.

15. Weber and Scheckebier, The Veterans' Administration, 468. Foreign Service, September 1929, 4.

16. Resolutions, Proceedings of the 30th Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States,1929 (Washington, D.C., 1930), 267Google Scholar. Daniels, The Bonus March, 42. Interestingly, no mention of Wright Patman, the future congressional Bonus leader and then freshman congressman from Texas, can be found in the VFW encampment minutes. This is despite the fact that Patman proposed a Bonus bill in the House just days after Brookhart's proposal. For more on Patman, see Young, Nancy Beck, Wright Patman: Populism, Liberalism, and the American Dream (Dallas, 2000)Google Scholar.

17. Copy of 22 November 1929 Duff telegram in Foreign Service, December 1929, 27, and February 1930, 4. Veteran unemployment data found in Keene, Doughboys, 181.

18. Letter from Hezekiah N. Duff to Herbert Hoover, 29 January 1930, in “VFW, 1930,” box 359, SFHH. Rumer, The American Legion, 186–88, and Lisio, The President and Protest, 26–30.

19. For amicable relationship, see Frank T. Hines to Herbert Hoover, 10 September 1930, in “VFW, 1930,” box 359, SFHH. For VFW encampment information, see Proceedings of the 31st Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States,1930 (Washington, D.C., 1931)Google Scholar and New York Times and Washington Post, 1–6 September 1930.

20. Daniels, The Bonus March, 42–43; Lisio, The President and Protest, 30–32; and Pencak, For God and Country, 200–201. On Taylor's assistance in Hoover speech, see Pencak, For God and Country, 201.

21. Young, Wright Patman, 36. Washington Post, 29 December 1930.

22. Washington Post, 21 and 28 December 1930.

23. Ibid., 3 January 1931.

24. Petitions in Daniels, The Bonus March, 43, 71; New York Times and Washington Post, 22 January 1931.

25. Alfieri and VFW marchers in Washington Post, 27–28 January 1931.

26. Rumer, The American Legion, 190–91; Literary Digest, 14 February 1931: 5; and Washington Post, 25–26 January 1931.

27. Wolman testimony in House Committee on Ways and Means, Payment of Soldiers' Adjusted-Compensation Certificates: Hearings Before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 71st Cong., 3d sess., 1931, 129–35; Literary Digest, 14 February 1931, 5–6; and Washington Post, 28 January 1931.

28. Lisio, The President and Protest, 36–39; Daniels, The Bonus March, 43–45; and Literary Digest, 14 February 1931, 5–6;

29. Lisio, The President and Protest, 38–42; Herbert Hoover Veto Message, 26 February 1931, in “Veterans Bureau Correspondence, 1931, January–February,” box 356, SFHH; “Needy Served First,” Time, 19 March 1931, 11–12; Literary Digest, 14 March 1931, 5–6; Foreign Service, January 1932, 17; and letter from Arthur H. Vandenberg to Herbert Hoover, 10 August 1931, in “Trips—1931, 21 September, Detroit, American Legion Convention,” box 37, SFHH.

30. Foreign Service, March 1931, 5, and April 1931, 4.

31. VFW membership growth in Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 194; post growth obtained from Foreign Service, January 1929 to December 1931. Report in Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States,1931 (Washington, D.C., 1932), 244–246Google Scholar.

32. Internal Memorandum to Walter H. Newton, 8 August 1931, in “VFW, 1931–1933,” box 359, SFHH.

33. Hines's speech and Wolman retort in Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 38–46.

34. Letter from Royal C. Johnson to J. Edgar Hoover, 28 August 1931, in “Trips—1931, 21 September, Detroit, American Legion Convention,” box 37, SFHH. Address of President Hoover to the Thirteenth Convention of the American Legion, 21 September 1931, in “ Congratulatory Correspondence American Legion Address Detroit 21 September 1931, A-D,” box 47, President Personal File, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter PPFHH). Daniels, The Bonus March, 51. Letter from Gilbert Bettman to Walter [sic] Richey, 25 September 1931, in “Congratulatory Correspondence American Legion Address Detroit, 21 September 1931, A-D,” box 47, PPFHH.

35. Mencken, H. L., “The Case for the Heroes,” The American Mercury 24 (12 1931): 409–410Google Scholar.

36. Report of the Director of Publicity, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1933), 197–199Google Scholar.

37. Foreign Service, January 1932, 17.

38. Ibid., 19–21 (emphasis added).

39. Daniels, The Bonus March, 55. Foreign Service, December 1931 to March 1932.

40. Foreign Service, February 1932, 10–12, 24.

41. Daniels, The Bonus March, 52, 61–64; Young, Wright Patman, 45–46; Foreign Service, May 1932, 6–8; and New York Times, 2–11 April 1932.

42. Of the Bonus March accounts that mention this episode, most downplay its importance as a key precursor. For the most recent example, see Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army, 59. For the best coverage of this march, see Washington Post and New York Times, April 9, 1932; and Foreign Service, May 1932, 6–7.

43. For DeCoe, Ray, and Wolman testimony, see House Committee on Ways and Means, Payment of Adjusted-Compensation Certificates: Hearings Before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 72d Cong., 1st sess., 1932, 81–83, 188–91, 207–10; New York Times and Washington Post, 2, 6, 8, 11, 14, and 16 April 1932; Daniels, The Bonus March, 52, 61–64; and Memorandum from Raymond Benjamin to Larry Richey, 13 April 1932, in “World War Veterans, Bonus Correspondence, 1932, January–June,” box 373, SFHH. For more on the important collaboration between Father Charles E. Coughlin and veterans on the Bonus, see Ortiz, “‘Soldier-Citizens,’” 65–192.

44. Letter from John A. Weeks to Walter H. Newton, 9 January 1932, in “World War Veterans, Bonus Correspondence, 1932, January–June,” box 373, SFHH.

45. Legion totals in Pencak, For God and Country, 83–86. See also National Tribune, 7 February 1935. VFW post total from Foreign Service, April–July 1932. Quotation in Foreign Service, May 1932, 15.

46. For the most thorough description, see Daniels, The Bonus March, 65–122; Lisio, The President and Protest, 51–165; and Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army, passim. Keene, Doughboys, 179–98, and Barber, Marching on Washington, 75–97, provide excellent short descriptions. The Washington Post coverage from late May until July 1932 is excellent.

47. Ibid.Literary Digest, 25 June 1932, 6.

48. Daniels, The Bonus March, 80; New York Times, 9 and 12 June 1932; and Washington Post, 19 June 1932. Ironically, Dickson and Allen's work includes a photograph of the Chattanooga truck without mentioning the clearly legible “VFW” painted on its side panels. See Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army, 59.

49. New York Times, 8 June 1932. VA records in Frank T. Hines to Herbert Hoover, 2 August 1932, in “World War Veterans-Bonus Reports, Descriptions, and Statements, 1932, August,” box 376, SFHH.

50. Washington Post, 4 June 1932; New York Times, 12 June 1932. Frontline post activities in VA Report, Hines to Theodore G. Joslin, 27 July 1932, in “World War Veterans-Bonus Reports, Descriptions, and Statements, 1932, 26–31 July,” box 376, SFHH.

51. On Glassford, see President and Protest, 51–55, and BEF News, 13 August 1932, 6. On Heffernan, see obituary in Youngstown Vindicator, 21 April 1977. On Rice Means, see National Tribune, April–August 1932, and Mason, VFW: Our First Century. On Butler, see Schmidt, Hans, Maverick Marine: Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History (Lexington, Ky., 1987)Google Scholar.

52. New York Times, 3, 7–9 June 1932. Washington Post, 25 May and 3–12 June 1932.

53. Washington Post, 19–20 June 1932. Ranken's specific message to the Maryland encampment is unknown, but the passing of the resolution had been hotly contested on 18 June, only to be withdrawn after his address.

54. Letter from Francis Ralston Welsh to J. Edgar Hoover and Lawrence Richey, 13 June 1932, in “World War Veterans, Bonus Correspondence, 1932, January–June,” box 373, SFHH.

55. Letter from Royal C. Johnson to The President, 10 June 1932, in “World War Veterans, Bonus Correspondence, 1932, January–June,” box 373, SFHH. Johnson floor speech in Congressional Record, 72 Cong., 1st sess., 12716–17, and Washington Post, 12 June 1932.

56. Lisio, President and Protest, 139–278; FDR quote, 285.

57. VFW membership data in Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 194; post data obtained from Foreign Service, January 1929 to December 1932.

58. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States,1932 (Washington, D.C., 1933), 260Google Scholar. Drawing in Foreign Service, September 1932, 5.

59. VFW membership data in Goldsmith, “The Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 194; Legion data found in Pencak, For God and Country, 83–86. See also National Tribune, 7 February 1935.

60. See note 9 for a complete list of scholarship on the GI Bill.

61. The respective VFW and Legion roles are best described in Ross, Preparing for Ulysses, 34–124, and Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 82–153. For an interesting discussion of the “otherwise conservative” Legion and the GI Bill, and of the importance of veteran organizations to late twentieth-century civic life, see Theda Skocpol, “The Narrowing of Civic Life,” The American Prospect Online, 13 May 2004.