B.E.F. by Walter Waters

Author:Walter Waters [Waters, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cincinnatus Press
Published: 2014-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

8.

Sitting on the Conscience of Congress

WITH DRAMATIC suddenness, the first purpose that brought the B.E.F. to Washington, to force Congress to consider the Bonus bill, was accomplished in three days in mid-June.

The bill passed the House on June 15th. On the morning of the 16th the rain beat down on the shacks at Anacostia Field and a light wind blew a penetrating spray into the wall-less shelters of the various partly demolished houses around town. But no storm beat inside the closed room in the Capitol where the Senate Finance Committee was meeting to discuss the Bonus bill. A vote was speedily taken. The motion to bring the bill to the Senate was killed, twelve to two.

About the same time veterans, with muddy water oozing from shoes worn thin, were stumbling into police stations saying, “All we want is a dry place to flop.”

The bill would have died in Committee had not Senator Thomas, of Oklahoma, persuaded his fellow Senators that a matter as important as the Bonus should at least be put to a vote in the Senate. The vote was set for the next day.

Inside the Senate chamber, on that next day, voices droned the stereotyped arguments for and against the Bonus. “…payment of the Bonus will bankrupt the Treasury ... it will drive us off the gold standard … it is not due until 1945 … the veterans are not the only class suffering from the depression. . . .” On the other hand, “…the Government has helped everyone except the common people … payment of the Bonus will put money into circulation ... payment of the Bonus now will ease the situation of hundreds of thousands of loyal Americans… ,”

Outside the Capitol was a new argument for immediate payment of the Bonus—eight thousand men, sitting on the steps, the lawns, the curbstones. The Senators were experiencing a new type of lobbying, not that of being entertained in some swank hotel where the business at hand is nonchalantly mentioned after a few drinks have been served, but that of being shown something of the poverty that had prompted the demand for the immediate payment of the Bonus. The shouts of the men outside the building occasionally echoed in the Senate Chamber. Eight thousand men, desperately concerned with the matter at hand, were waiting, a few hundred feet away. Their presence gave to every word that the Senators uttered an immediate vitalness. Some hundred of the B.E.F. were seated in the Senate galleries. They were the ones among the spectators that wore the clean but un-ironed shirts.

The debate blathered on through the long afternoon. Field kitchens had been wheeled to the square before the Capitol so that the men did not need to leave their vigil for lunch. The men grew restless. Some sour attempts at singing began spontaneously and threaded off into discord. Every man who came out from the Senate chamber was eagerly questioned.

“Who’s talkin’ now? What’s he sayin’?”“Bingham from Connecticut just got the floor.”“Gosh, some

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