Free American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA : When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor Page A

bombs hanging from their belts. MacArthur, in full dress uniform, sat in one of two staff cars bringing up the rear. It was the end of the workday, and as they neared the bonus forts in the evacuation zone thousands of office workers filled the streets. At first both the veterans and the civilians, on the north side of the avenue across from the roped-off forts, thought the military display was a parade and started to applaud. Then the cavalry, led by Major George S. Patton, wheeled into the crowd.
    The civilians scattered one way and the veterans another as cavalrymen swung the flats of their sabers. Some were ridden down and trampled, including Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut. Spectators and veterans began to boo and jeer the troops. At the buildings they were supposed to be evacuating, veterans now formed a line and raised flags. The cavalry focused on them, driving at the points in the line where the flags were waving.
    Behind the cavalry, the infantrymen put on gas masks and policemen tied handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. Then the soldiers entered the gaping buildings and threw tear gas bombs to clear the rooms. Gasping for breath, veterans and their wives streamed out clutching their children and what possessions they could carry. The troops drove them in the direction of the 11th Street Bridge and Camp Marks across the river, the cavalrymen hurrying them along. “It was like sons attacking their fathers,” one of the marchers recalled.
    MacArthur paused on the north side of the river while his forces ate at a field kitchen and darkness fell across the capital. Hoover sent explicit orders that they were not to cross the river, but MacArthur ignored this; he was, he said, too busy to be bothered by “people coming down and pretending to bring orders.” At 9:22, he led a column of infantry toward the bridge. The cavalry followed.
    The veterans had already started to evacuate their makeshift shelters, but some families still remained when the foot soldiers arrived, hurling tear gas bombs and driving the residents toward the edges of the camp. A seven-year-old boy was trying to save his pet rabbit when a soldier laced into him, shouting, “Get out of here, you little son of a bitch!” and stabbed his bayonet into the boy’s leg. Ambulances sped to carry away the casualties. Two infants died, apparently from the tear gas. At 10:14 the troops doused the tents and shacks with gasoline and started torching them. Patton’s cavalry moved into the camp at 11:15 to finish them off. By midnight the glow of flames could be seen from the White House, where Hoover was just learning that MacArthur had ignored his orders.
    As the Bonus Army scattered toward the city limits and into the countryside, the White House began the job of blaming the marchers. Hoover claimed most of the “real veterans” had gone home when they were offered travel loans and that “a considerable part of those remaining are not veterans; many are Communists and persons with criminal records.” He blamed them for leading the others into “violence which no government can tolerate.” He repeated the charge in a September letter while releasing a U.S. Bureau of Investigation report on the events on July 28. It referred to “the extraordinary proportion of criminal, communist, and non-veteran elements amongst the marchers.” MacArthur, meanwhile, had already said that only one in ten of the ousted men were “real” war veterans.
    In fact, a Veterans Administration survey of the bonus marchers showed that 94 percent of them had army or navy records, that 67 percent had served overseas, and that 20 percent were disabled.
    Editorial pages around the country supported Hoover in calling out the army. The New York Times charged the bonus marchers with “defying decency,” with “insolent lawlessness,” and with insubordination “almost amounting to insurrection.” The Boston Herald called the march a holdup by “the undeserving,”