The Bonus Army by Paul Dickson

Author:Paul Dickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802719362
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Members of the 1933 bonus march were housed by the government in tents at Fort Hunt in Virginia near Mount Vernon. They were well fed, provided with unlimited amounts of coffee, and were honored with a visit from the new First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt; but they got no further than their predecessors in gaining the bonus. (Authors’ collection)

Howe asked Mrs. Roosevelt to take him for a drive into the Virginia countryside. He directed her to a road that led to Fort Hunt.

“Louis! What is this place and what are we going to do here?” she asked.

“This is where the Bonus Army is quartered,” he answered, “and you are going in there and talk to those men, get their gripes, if any, make a tour of the camp and tell them that Franklin sent you out to see about them. Don’t forget that—be sure to tell them that Franklin sent you. Inspect their quarters and get the complete story.”

“But, Louis, what are you going to do?”

“Me? I’m going to take a nap,” he said, curling up in the seat of her red roadster.

Stepping onto the muddy road, Mrs. Roosevelt made her debut as an active-duty First Lady.36

Mrs. Roosevelt did what Howe told her, adding her own touches, as she would do throughout her career as First Lady. She made a little speech about her own work as a volunteer in the war, had coffee with the men, and led them in a wartime favorite, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a’Winding.” There was not much to the visit itself, but it produced a grace note that summed up President Roosevelt’s masterful handling of the veterans. He did not back the bonus. He was still holding firm about the cut in veterans’ benefits. Yet, at no cost to the budget, he had won them over. As a vet said as Mrs. Roosevelt was leaving, “Hoover sent the army. Roosevelt sent his wife.”37

Roosevelt found a way to give something to the 1933 bonus marchers while still opposing the bonus. He issued an executive order that authorized the enrollment of about 25,000 veterans of the Great War and the Spanish-American War in the CCC, waiving age and marital restrictions. There were gripes— “Not for me. It’s like selling yourself into slavery,” one vet said. And many cheered when a VEF leader shouted, “To hell with reforestation!”38 But more than 2,500 signed up immediately, crowding around tables set up for their enlistment into the Tree Army. About 700 veterans turned down the CCC job offer but accepted free transportation home, paid for out of the same French reception fund that had financed the Fort Hunt encampment.39

In the wake of the march came a sinister and mysterious event. Eddie Gosnell died early on Memorial Day, and members of the right-wing group charged that suspicious circumstances surrounded his death. Washington police said that Gosnell’s death was a suicide by self-administered poison in a furnished room he had rented sometime before. But two veterans said that just before he

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