Not making friends tonight…😘
Some things never change
The Bonus Army was the name applied a group over 17,000 U.S. World War I veterans who marched on Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1932 demanding immediate cash payment of the service bonuses promised to them by Congress eight years earlier.
The Bonus Army Veterans Occupy D.C.
The Bonus March actually began in May 1932 as some 15,000 veterans assembled in makeshift camps scattered around Washington, D.C. where they planned to demand and wait for the immediate payment of their bonuses.
The D.C. Police Attack the Veterans
On June 15, 1932, the US House of Representatives passed the Wright Patman Bonus Bill to move up the payment date of the veterans’ bonuses. However, the Senate defeated the bill on June 17. In protest to the Senate’s action, the Bonus Army veterans marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building. The D.C. police reacted violently, resulting in the deaths of two veterans and two police officers.
The U.S. Army Attacks the Veterans
On the morning of July 28, 1932, President Hoover, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the military, ordered his Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley to clear the Bonus Army camps and disperse the protesters. At 4:45 p.m., U.S. Army infantry and cavalry regiments under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, supported by six M1917 light tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, assembled on Pennsylvania Avenue to carry out President Hoover’s orders.
With sabers, fixed bayonets, tear gas, and a mounted machine gun, the infantry and the cavalry charged the veterans, forcibly evicting them and their families from the smaller camps on the Capitol Building side of the Anacostia River. When the veterans retreated back across the river to the Hooverville camp, President Hoover ordered the troops to stand down until the next day. MacArthur, however, claiming the Bonus Marchers were attempting to overthrow the U.S. government, ignored Hoover’s order and immediately launched a second charge.
By the end of the day, 55 veterans had been injured and 135 arrested.
https://www.thoughtco.com/bonus-army-march-4147568