American History Tellers - The Great Depression - Brother, Can You Spare a Dime | 2

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

Factories have shut down, banks have failed, and millions are out of work. As the Depression worsens, public opinion sours toward President Hoover.Hoover’s allies attempt to counter criticism of the President by galvanizing anti-foreigner attitudes. They devise a scheme to frighten immigrants from Mexico and other countries with the specter of mass immigration raids in the hopes they’ll leave the country on their own, as hundreds of thousands do.Meanwhile, an unemployed cannery worker from Portland, Oregon leads tens of thousands of World War I veterans on a march to Washington, D.C., to demand payment of wartime bonuses. A deadly showdown looms as this “Bonus Army” wears out its welcome in the capital.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's July 28th, 1932. You're breathing echoes behind your gas mask. This is your first deployment, and you're uneasy. You're not off in Europe fighting the Kaiser like your uncle did 15 years ago. You're in Washington, D.C. Smoke obscures most of your vision.

But for a second, you catch sight of the Capitol Dome. Ahead, a crowd of haggard men gathers inside a half-completed building on Pennsylvania Avenue. They all look tired and hungry. Someone yells down from the building's second floor, Put your rifles down or we'll knock them down! The man leans on a crutch at the edge of the building's exposed second floor. One of his legs is amputated at the knee. An American flag stretches from one wall to the other.

He begins yelling angrily as he hobbles down some stairs. William Hushka. His name was Hushka. He marched all the way here from St. Louis, and for what? To get killed in his own country, when all he did was ask for what was rightfully his. He reaches the bottom of the stairs. Your commander made it abundantly clear not to fire your gun unless somebody shoots at you first. It was bad enough, he said, that MacArthur was ordering you to march on the veterans at all, so the army needed to show more discipline than the police had earlier that morning. But it looks like that discipline's

already slipping. Two of your fellow soldiers are torching a plywood structure as a man and a woman, both sobbing, carry a small child away. The hobbling man approaches. You grip your rifle tighter. Stand back. Stand back. Stand back. He glances at your uniform. You're giving me orders, Private? I was a sergeant, and a sergeant in a real war. I wasn't terrorizing my own people, Private? I was a sergeant. And a sergeant in a real war. I wasn't terrorizing my own people, Private. Something whistles overhead and lands a hundred yards away with a rattle,

exploding into plumes of milky gas. The veteran in front of you starts coughing. Gasping people scatter in every direction. The one-legged veteran holds a handkerchief over his mouth, coughing, but still intent on you. You don't understand, do you, that we're just like you. We're wearing the same uniforms. We're all part

of the same country. But that country's now turning on all of us. With Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking.

And Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as a part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their ever-growing catalog. Explore themes of friendship, loss, and hope with Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Find what piques your imagination. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Now streaming. Welcome to sign up. Stream free on Freebie and Prime Video. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers.

Our history. Your story. This is the second episode of our six-part series on the Great Depression. After the stock market crashed in October 1929, an economic decline exploded into the worst financial calamity the world had ever seen. A year after the crash, factories shut down, banks failed, people lost their savings and their jobs. Throughout the country, people moved into Hoovervilles. In these shanty towns named to mock President Herbert Hoover, unemployed and houseless Americans built homes from scrap metal and discarded building supplies. It was a tenuous, unhealthy, and dirty existence, but it was the only option for thousands of people, and the sight of huge

lines waiting for soup and a loaf of bread quickly became one of the period's most enduring images. Nevertheless, President Hoover repeatedly refused to sign legislation meant to stimulate the economy or to provide direct financial relief to needy Americans. Instead, he continued to assert that the crisis was temporary and the government should keep its hands off the economy while business righted the ship. And even as public opinion began souring toward the president, Hoover didn't adapt his position. Instead, he lost patience with his critics. In a letter to his Secretary of Commerce in June 1930, the president bemoaned labor

coalitions were manipulating public opinion by imposing on a lot of ignorant people. He wanted his administration to push back as forcible as possible, to cite statistics about how his administration had already authorized public buildings, cooperated with state and local governments, and urged utilities, railroads, and other large businesses to help alleviate unemployment. We beg to call attention to the measures taken in this direction last December, Hoover stated, which you are apparently unfamiliar. familiar. It's a chilly afternoon in mid-October 1930. You stand on 54th Street, a few buildings away from the corner of Lexington, where you've been staked out for the past four nights. A breeze blows a few dead leaves past you, and you shiver. You blow on your fingers to warm your

hands, then take a deep breath. Two men in dapper clothes turn down 54th Street from Lex. You catch their eye. Apples! Fresh, juicy apples! Straight from Washington. Just a nickel to keep the doctor away. The men take a long look, but pass without stopping. You realize they're more interested in your figure than the apples. As a young woman who used to work in an office, it's embarrassing enough to stand out here with that sign behind you in big red letters, unemployed, buy apples, five cents each. You were the first woman in your family to work for herself. You started as a gal Friday in an important office and were picking up more responsibilities until the crash.

But even after the crash, things didn't seem so bad. Work even picked up for a while. Your office was so busy sorting out clients' accounts in those first few months. But then it got quiet. Too quiet. They let you go in August. An older woman approaches from down the street. I'll take one.

Great, have your pick. She opens a small purse and takes out two quarters. It's so brave of you to do this for your family, sweetheart. Must not be easy for your husband to know you're out here. You're not married, and you don't have children. But she's got 50 cents in her hand. So you just smile. Take two if you want.

Oh, no need, dear. You keep the change. You're struck by the woman's generosity, but it's tinged with guilt for not telling her the truth. But that's what it takes to survive, you think. At least for another day. You gotta do what you gotta do. In the fall of 1930, apple growers in Washington state grew more fruit than they were able to sell. Faced with the need to move the produce, Joseph Sickert came up with a solution that would also

allow his International Apple Shippers Association to get some good press. Subsidized by a $10,000 donation from produce interests, Sickr arranged for unemployed people to buy a case of 72 apples for the price of $1.75. Vendors would then claim spots on New York street corners where they sell the apples at $0.05 apiece. A vendor who sold every apple in a carton could net $1.85 profit, the same as about $28 today. Apple selling stirred mixed emotions. Vendors were pleased to have the work, but selling on the street was far less dignified than the bank and factory and retail jobs many of the vendors once held. There were thousands of apples that Sickers Company needed to move, and thousands of

newly unemployed people took them up on the idea. At first, pushing apples was a successful escape from poverty, but by spring, there were simply too many vendors. They couldn't compete in a crowded marketplace. Meanwhile, supply diminished, so the association eventually had to raise wholesale prices. Soon, it just didn't make sense to remain an apple vendor at all. While vending was a short-term fix for many, in the long run, resentment among the unemployed was growing. Soon, the pain penetrated the cultural zeitgeist. By 1932, the sight of beggars asking for spare change was common. That same year, Lee Schubert produced the third iteration of his musical review, Americana. For the end of the show's first act, writer J.P. McAvoy wrote a satirical piece about bread lines.

It climaxed with the song, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime? The song was written by musician Jay Gorney and lyricist E.Y. Yip Harburg. The pair, so the story goes, wrote it after a panhandler asked them the titular question while they walked together through Central Park. Gorney and Harburg had already been tapped to write a song for Americana,

but they hadn't figured out the lyrics yet. But with Brother Can You Spare a Dime, they not only had a hit lyric, but a stirring lament about the working men who built the country getting tossed aside. The song quickly became a popular anthem. Recordings of it by Bing Crosby and Rudy Valli became huge hits. It was so popular that as President Hoover sought re-election in 1932, his allies had tried to ban radios from playing it. But the presidential election was still two years away. In the midterm election of November 1930, Democrats picked up 52 seats

and a one-vote majority in the House of Representatives. They also picked up eight seats in the Senate, though Republicans still controlled that body through Vice President Charles Curtis's ability to break ties. Still, it was obvious that Hoover was losing ground. In August of 1930, perhaps with the upcoming election on his mind, he established a new committee to focus on jobs, the President's Emergency Committee for Employment. Two months later, the President announced the committee's members. Hoover named Colonel Arthur H. Woods as the chair. Born in Boston, Woods attended Harvard, and after college, he briefly worked as a newspaper

reporter in New York and at his father's lumber business in Mexico for a few years. Then, when he returned to New York, Woods maneuvered himself into a job as head detective and deputy commissioner of the police department, where he stayed off and on until 1917. Once the U.S. entered World War I, Woods left the police department to serve as a military propagandist. Soon afterward, he met Hoover, who was then President Warren G. Harding's Commerce Secretary. In Woods, Hoover found a bureaucrat who was savvy in public relations. Woods was also cozy with big business. He was married to financier J.P. Morgan's niece. He also was a lieutenant of John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s and ran many of his business operations. Woods quickly became the point person for everyone

who had a scheme to get the country out of its employment mess. When he introduced the particulars of the commission to the country in a full-page piece for the New York Times, he underscored the administration's belief that direct relief, what some called handouts or charity, would be a last resort. The key, stressed Woods, had to be cooperation at all levels of society. He wrote, Personally, I have no fears as to that end. We are going to win just as we always have when facing crises such as the one we're now passing through. With the government, the state and local authorities, businesses and industry, the splendid labor organizations, the great relief organizations, all working hand in hand, we cannot lose. It is simply a matter of cooperation by everybody

concerned. That December, Hoover also selected a new labor secretary after his previous one was elected to the U.S. Senate. Hoover chose William N. Doak, a former railway worker and vice president of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen for the position. Together, Woods and Doak would define the administration's policies to fight unemployment on a national level, while local leaders developed their own strategies. In Southern California, an ambitious and controversial plan was formed to get neighbors helping neighbors in a time of need. It would end up tearing thousands of families apart. For years, American Scandal has taken you deep inside the biggest controversies and shocking events in U.S. history. And now you can listen to exclusive seasons on Wondery+.

Go beyond the headlines with jaw-dropping stories and immersive reporting that unveils the complex truth behind these scandals. In our exclusive season, The Hare Krishna Murders, dive into the twisted world of a rogue sect of Hare Krishnas. When devotees mysteriously disappear, the trail leads to a dark web of deceit, greed, and even murder. Or explore the sordid tale of Enron as we reveal the shocking depths of corporate fraud that led to one of the biggest bankruptcies in American history. From political conspiracies to corporate corruption, these in-depth investigations will keep you on the edge of your seat. the biggest bankruptcies in American history, from political conspiracies to corporate corruption. These in-depth investigations will keep you on the edge of your seat. Experience American scandal like never before, with exclusive seasons that you won't find anywhere else.

And on Wondery+, you can binge entire new seasons before they're publicly available. Start your free trial of Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify to start listening today and uncover the real story behind America's most notorious scandals. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true

stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey, and the ideas that transform the way we live our lives. In our latest series, a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe. But ambition eventually curdles into desperation, and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything to get ahead.

Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Imagine it's a sunny February afternoon in 1931 in a crowded plaza near downtown Los Angeles known as La Placita. Last month, a new employment committee started in the city, and you're here to do your part. You're looking for someone to help you paint your house. It's not a big job, but maybe it'll make a difference to someone. While you look around, the sound of mariachi music blends

with the voices of people arguing about politics. Kids screech and giggle as they run around. Vendors tout tempting snacks with enthusiastic yells. But suddenly, the plaza quiets. Men, white men, surround the plaza. Some of them seem to have batons and guns. They're blocking the exits. There are hundreds of people here. All of them are being stopped as they attempt to exit. At least, everyone who looks like you. You see a white family walk right past one of the men, without as they attempt to exit. At least everyone who looks like you. You see a white family walk right past one of the men, without him even taking a glance.

But the next moment, he stops a Chinese couple. Then you, Bureau of Immigration, are you a citizen? Yes, yes sir. Can you prove it? Excuse me? Prove it? Yes, can you prove you're a citizen? I am.

I've lived in Los Angeles my entire life. Why should I believe you? You could be lying to me. If you don't have proof, you're just going to need to come with me. You try to argue, but he's having none of it, and you have nothing on you to prove your citizenship. Why would you? Sure, your parents are from Mexico, but they came here before you were born. You were born not just two miles away from the spot where you now stand. This is a mistake, but you don't know how you'll sort it out. Rage like the one in L.A. were the brainchild of a man named Charles P. Weisel. Weisel saw an opportunity when Herbert Hoover announced his president's emergency committee on employment.

At the beginning of 1931, the city of Los Angeles established the Citizens Committee on Coordination of Unemployment Relief. To lead the committee, city leaders tapped Weisel. Weisel took to the work quickly. Announcing the committee to the press, he urged every civic group, charity, business, and home in the city to find work that needed to be done. Whether a minor household repair or the installation of new equipment in a workshop, Weisel stressed it was crucial for local voters to find work their neighbors could do. It wasn't a coincidence that Weisel used the word voters. In fact, he made it clear that Angelenos should give preference to employing the city's residents

and to give their first consideration to local people. What Weisel didn't announce as loudly was that shortly after taking his post, he reached out to Colonel Woods in D.C. with a plan to target Los Angeles' significant Mexican immigrant community. It was this plan that led to a series of high-profile raids by immigration agents around Los Angeles in the first half of 1931. During the crackdown in La Placita, 400 people were stopped and questioned. Only a dozen or so were actually arrested and deported, but the raid accomplished what Weisel told Woods and others he wanted,

to make the migrant community fear that raids could happen anywhere at any time. Targeting immigrants wasn't a new strategy. Early in the economic crisis, President Hoover urged his State Department to cut back on issuing visas to people it thought would later need public assistance. In reality, this kept out most immigrants, including Jewish refugees fleeing the rise of Nazism in Europe, whose assets had been seized by the German government. This restrictive immigration policy dovetailed with protectionist tariffs on foreign imports

that Hoover championed. But even before Hoover's presidency, anti-immigrant sentiment was growing. This sentiment gained renewed fervor in the wake of the stock market crash, and it was stoked by the new addition to Hoover's administration, Labor Secretary William Doak. At this time, the Bureau of Immigration was part of the Department of Labor, and so Doak had the final authority on immigration enforcement in the country, and he made no secret of his anti-immigrant position. He believed that any job that employed immigrants should instead be given to unemployed

U.S. citizens. Two days after the Los Angeles Times announced Beisel's appointment as chair of the city's Unemployment Relief Committee, he wired Colonel Woods, the recently appointed head of the President's Employment Commission, to find out how local law enforcement could help expel immigrants. Weisel knew about Secretary Doak's position, and he told Woods that police and sheriff's deputies might be able to help overburden federal immigration agents based in Los Angeles. Woods told Weisel to contact Doak directly. In a telegram he sent to Labor Secretary, Weisel described how an influx of agents from other cities might scare many thousand alien deportables out of this district. He called it the result desired. Weisel wasn't interested so much in the numbers of arrests or deportations from the raids.

Instead, he wanted to create a climate of fear for immigrants that would make remaining in Los Angeles untenable. To accomplish that, he publicized the anti-immigrant drive through press releases and photos. In D.C., Doak approved the plan and instructed the Immigration Bureau to send a special investigator backed by several agents from other parts of the country to support Weisel's effort. Later that January, newspapers began to carry the news that a deportation drive was coming. Weisel told the newspapers that the drive would remove an enormous number of illegal aliens. In follow-up stories, he urged illegal immigrants in the U.S. to leave peacefully so the immigration agents on their way to California wouldn't have to deport them. It was largely a theatrical threat, but it was effective. Soon special repatriation trains

began running between Los Angeles and the border cities in Arizona and Texas. The Mexican government even helped offer pay for its citizens to return to the country. However, the mood shifted as newspapers reported that immigrants would be forcibly removed. Rafael de la Colina, Mexico's consul in Los Angeles, reached out to allies at the city's Chamber of Commerce to find out more about Vizel's plan. By April, Colina reported that as many as 10,000 Mexicans were leaving Southern California for Mexico every month. The deportation scheme was meant to target unemployment, but the departure of so many people to Mexico started to adversely impact businesses in LA. A Merchants Association reported that businesses that relied on Mexican workers and consumers had lost 20 to 50 percent

of their revenue. Labor shortages on farms also threatened citrus, walnut, and other crop harvests. And the government wasn't just forcing immigrants out. They were still keeping them from coming in. By spring 1931, the administration touted that it had blocked more than 100,000 potential immigrants from securing visas. Doak proudly claimed that these efforts were protecting American citizens struggling to find work, and he articulated his position in a statement to newspapers. Some may say to deport these people is inhuman, but my answer is that the government should protect its own citizens against illegal invaders. This I propose to do with every weapon in my power. Law is law, and I intend to enforce it as long as I hold my office.

Migrants from all over the world were affected. Mexican immigrants drew the most scrutiny, but Chinese laborers, Japanese migrants, and arrested gangsters and criminals with connections to Italy and other European countries were all threatened with deportation. Federal agents started staking out the entrances to churches, dance halls, and shops where they expected to find immigrants. They would wait until an event ended, then demand proof from those leaving that they were legally allowed to be in the country. This unprecedented crackdown generated palpable terror. Neighborhoods that were normally lively and boisterous became ghost towns. People fearful of being swept up in raids avoided leaving their homes. But in late April 1931, challenges to the administration's immigration push started to appear.

In one high-profile case, Guido Serio, an Italian communist, gave a speech in Pennsylvania and was arrested on charges of advocating violence in order to be deported. The ACLU took up Serio's case. His lawyer, William J. Donovan, a prominent Republican and an assistant attorney general for President Calvin Coolidge, claimed Serio's arrest was unconstitutional and deportation back to Italy, where he faced execution by the fascist government he opposed, was a death sentence. During the trial, he presented a commitment from the Soviet Union to pay for Serio to be sent there instead of Italy. The judge in the case

recommended that solution, but Doak in D.C. refused, stalling in court for a year before finally relenting and allowing Serio to travel to the Soviet Union. Another case involved Lillian Larsh, a mother of four who had been born in the United States, but when she married a Canadian, as a woman, Larsh lost her citizenship. After her husband William died, she and her youngest daughter, who had been born in the U.S., were deported. If Lillian L'Arche had been the foreigner and her husband the citizen, this deportation wouldn't have happened. Moreover, these gender-based rules had been revoked before L'Arche's case arose, but Doak's office refused to apply the new rules to her.

Larch's case wasn't unique, but it generated enough public outrage that New York Congressman Samuel Dickstein used it to denounce the Labor Department's deportation mania as lawless and anachronistic. More criticism appeared all summer. Prominent Los Angelinos hinted at the coordination between Weisel, Woods, and Doak, and decried the campaign's precisely timed psychological strokes. But the most notable scrutiny came out of D.C. The Wickersham Commission, set by President Hoover to investigate law enforcement, found that when it came to immigration, there was poor administration and great disregard for the fundamental rights secured by the Constitution to all persons, including even aliens. The commission's report described federal agents' use of coercion and questionable

methods and immigration proceedings that took place outside the normal legal system. In response, the commission recommended better training of immigration agents and that an open, independent board of judges oversee immigration proceedings. But even before the report was made public, Doak was denouncing his detractors as un-American. He tried to quash the report and continued to defend his immigration and unemployment strategies even as the economy continued to struggle. The Hoover administration continued to focus on perceived threats from foreigners inside and outside the country.

But a new challenge came from the American citizens who had given to this country the most. Veterans. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10

that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific Island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. How did Birkenstocks go from a German cobbler's passion project 250 years ago to the Barbie Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. and more in The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boys. This is Nick. This is Jack. And we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast. We've identified the most viral products of all time and their wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with. Stay for the business insights that are going to blow up your group chat. Jack, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers, best-selling video game of all time. How'd they do it?

Nintendo never fires anyone. Ever. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Imagine it's late April 1932. It's a typical gloomy and wet spring day in Portland, Oregon, as you and your fellow veteran Walt trudge east. You've got nothing to do today, again. And Walt wanted to see how the boys that couldn't afford a hotel were doing in the gulch. Walking over the Burnside Bridge, you turn north at Grand. You think you're really going to go through with it, Walt? Marching all the way to Washington, demanding our bonuses? Well, why not?

What other choice do we have? Wilma and I can't feed our kids on packing fruit only half the year, standing in shop windows at Meyer and Frank to demonstrate razors and cigarette rolling machines and whatever else. Besides, the government owes us. We won that war for them. That we did. But I can't do it alone. To win this war, we're going to need to find an army of our own. You reach the edge of Sullivan's Gulch and walk a mile or so east of the Willamette River. Beneath you spreads a city of tents. Campfire smoke hangs between the canyon walls. Everything seems splattered with mud, including the faces you see as you approach,

telling you of both misery and brotherhood. It reminds you of the Argonne for a moment. You stop and turn to Walt. Here's your army. One of the darkest moments in the Great Depression began with tremendous hope. It might even have begun with one person's dream. Born in eastern Oregon and raised in Idaho, Walter W. Waters thought he would be a teacher when he grew up. Instead, he left school, joined the Idaho National Guard, and served on the U.S.-Mexico border,

assisting attempts to capture revolutionary Mexican General Pancho Villa after Villa's incursion to New Mexico. Five weeks after he returned from the border, the U.S. entered the World War. Waters joined the Army and shipped to France, where he fought as part of an artillery company. After his discharge, Waters tried a variety of occupations. First, he opened a general store. Then he started a Chevrolet dealership in southern Oregon, and a second one in Indiana. There, he met and married Wilma Albertson. In 1928, Walt and Wilma moved to the Pacific Northwest, where they worked as itinerant fruit canners. Eventually, a stable job as supervisor opened up at a cannery in Wenatchee, Washington.

Waters was successful enough in Wenatchee that he and Wilma bought a car and a house. Soon, they had two children. They even saved some money. But then in December 1930, the cannery closed. To survive, Waters dipped into his nest egg. When that ran out, he pawned his watch. Then Wilma pawned hers. I sold everything we had, and still there was no job, Waters told a newspaper reporter. So there's nothing left but to set up an organized movement to appeal to Uncle Sam for the bonus he owes us.

Waters moved to Portland. There he found a room at the low-rent Earl Hotel, where he befriended a number of other tenants over games of pinochle. Their conversation frequently turned to the cash bonus veterans had been promised in 1924. Congress had overridden then-President Coolidge's veto to pass a bill granting veterans up to $1,000, nearly $15,000 in today's terms, for their service in the war. However, the government wouldn't pay the bonus until 1945. That may as well have been eternity for the veterans, and Waters repeatedly said as much.

He and other veterans had suffered intense trauma fighting the war. Now they felt like they were simply being discarded by their country. Disabled and sickened by the machine guns and fetid conditions of the conflict's trench warfare, many returning veterans missed out on the rush of the roaring 20s. For them, employment opportunities were scant even before the stock market crash. Wilma eventually came to Portland to join Walter after he found another cannery job, but that fizzled also, and the two struggled to make ends meet. Walter began talking about demanding his bonus be paid early. And in Washington, D.C., a Texas congressman named Wright Patman was working on a bill that,

if passed, would grant veterans their bonuses early. He first introduced it in 1929, but it didn't make it out of committee. Two years later, he tried again. That time it passed, but President Hoover vetoed it. As Waters faltered in Portland, he wondered whether Congressman Patman could be convinced to try it again. Waters began speaking to small groups of veterans about the bonus. Many agreed that it should be paid immediately. Their anger was raw, and Waters, a gifted public speaker, was able to stoke it. Why not march on Washington, one of his friends at the Earl Hotel joked.

Instead of dismissing him, though, Waters realized this might be his only option. He started sharing this idea with other veterans he was meeting, and soon he had persuaded nearly 300 people to march with him all the way to the nation's capital. The group left Portland on May 12th. They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force, or BEF. The name was a play on American expeditionary forces, their deployment during the World War. Carrying American flags, singing songs, bugling and hoisting posters, wearing medals and other decorations, they traveled nearly 300 miles a day. Some packed into old cars, other hopped rail box cars, some hitchhiked. Occasionally, sympathetic truck drivers picked

them up. Newspaper reporters quickly caught wind of their journey and spread news of the pilgrimage. Other veterans started expeditions of their own, causing the march to swell as different contingents met up. Everywhere the march went, support followed. Mothers of soldiers brought cups of coffee. Mayors organized food drives and hosted parades. In Indiana, after Baltimore and Ohio railroad officials refused to move trains at the border where the marchers were camped, Governor Harry Leslie ordered the National Guard to send trucks to bring the marchers across his state. And on May 29, 1932, Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was known then, 16 truckloads of marchers arrived in Washington, D.C.

What had begun as a few hundred Portlanders had grown into an army of thousands. They arrived in torn, soiled, and sometimes ill-fitting uniforms, worn over amputated limbs and emaciated bodies. As they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, the veterans smiled and waved at onlookers. Waters had gone ahead of the group to smooth their arrival with the local police superintendent, Pelham Glassford, and to meet with Congressman Patman. Superintendent Glassford told Waters the Army could only stay for 48 hours. After that, they may have to leave.

Waters knew what to say in reply. We will camp in Washington until the bonus is paid. Camp they did. The BEF settled in parks all the way from the Capitol to the White House along Pennsylvania Avenue. Some occupied vacant buildings. There were so many people that the BEF built a massive, sprawling tent city on a floodplain next to the Anacostia River. Dwarfing even the largest Hooverville, the camp was well organized and teeming with activity. It was filled with American flags, signs announcing various state regiments, and protest placards with slogans like, Everyone benefited from the war but those who won it. And I voted for Hoover

too. Remember November. Waters recognized that his message could be muddled if it wasn't properly managed. If the marchers wanted to convince Congress to take up Patman's bill again, they needed to be disciplined. So to tame the army, Waters and other leaders of the group established strict rules. No drinking, no panhandling, and crucially, no radicalism. They developed a military-style hierarchy to run the camp, topped by Waters and two other Portlanders, as well as a fourth man from Salt Lake City. They set up a headquarters and a mess, and they established cooking details to make meals for the army in huge cookpots.

The Oregon delegation was split into 40-person contingents, led by three officers each. Buglers played taps at 11 each night and reveille at 6 every morning. A military police force enforced the camp's rules. Meanwhile, back in Portland, Wilma Waters grew impatient waiting for her husband. It was clear from newspaper reports, phone calls, and letters that the march wouldn't be over quickly. With her cannery wages and the few bucks she'd earned by demonstrating cigarette rolling machines and department store windows, Wilma began her own journey. She started out hitchhiking across the United States and quickly discovered that she was far from alone. In addition

to still more thousands of veterans crossing the country to join the Bonus Army, tens of thousands of veterans' wives, mothers, and children also converged on Washington. The encampment on the Anacostia grew to 43,000 people. They marched around the Capitol building and crowded its steps. Soon, the House of Representatives agreed to take up Patman's bill, passing it 211 to 176. It still needed Senate approval, though. After two days of debate, with crowds surrounding the Senate, the body rejected Patman's bill, 62 votes to 18. Marchers were stunned, but instead of exploding in rage, they dispersed back to their encampments. Hoover thought the bill's failure meant the end of the episode. He urged Congress to find the money to buy bus and train tickets to send the marchers back home.

Congress did appropriate the money, but few veterans accepted the tickets. Instead, the BEF remained in its encampment. However, discontent grew. Food ran low and people started to get sick. Infighting began, and Waters was voted out and then back into leadership. He became angrier and more dictatorial. He also grew more combative with the police. And all the while, the BEF continued to march on the Capitol. Finally, on the morning of July 28th, Washington police surrounded the marchers with orders to evict them from abandoned buildings on the pretense that the Treasury Department, which owned the buildings, planned to reclaim them. When the veterans refused to vacate, police tried to forcefully evict them.

Word spread among the thousands of veterans camped elsewhere, and soon they came to their fellow marchers' aid. A standoff began. Someone threw a brick, and the situation ignited. Police and veterans fought in the abandoned buildings and streets. The police swung batons. The bonus marchers armed themselves with bits of scrap iron and concrete. Suddenly, six gunshots rang out. William Hushka, a Lithuanian-born veteran who joined the march in St. Louis, was killed instantly. He would later be buried with full honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Another, Eric Carlson of Oakland, died later of his wounds. Two police officers also reportedly died of injuries suffered in the fighting. The melee was justification enough for Herbert Hoover to order the military to evict the Bonus

Army from its encampment. He summoned the Army Chief of Staff, a young General Douglas MacArthur, to clear their marchers. MacArthur, who had rised to prominence during World War II, commanded cavalry, tanks, and a thousand foot soldiers wearing gas masks and carrying bayonet-tipped rifles. MacArthur's second-in-command was Dwight D. Eisenhower, then a colonel, and leading the cavalry was then-Major George Patton. Using tear gas and sabers, troops pushed the Bonus Army veterans out of the encampments, crushing their makeshift houses and setting fire to them as they did. By nightfall, the encampment was in cinders and the Bonus Army in disarray.

Bernard Mayer, a 12-week-old baby, died after inhaling tear gas. In the weeks that followed, Walter Waters and another Portlander, George Kleinholz, tried to transform the BEF into a political organization. But the Bones Army was defeated that night. Waters channeled the pain and resentment of a generation into a peaceful but angry political movement. Now there was a body count. But the veterans wouldn't be the only victims of the violence in Washington. A torrent of dissatisfied voters will direct their ire at industrialists, at financiers, and at President Hoover. On the next episode of American History Tellers, as Hoover presides over the worst market crash

in history, the 1932 election is the Democrats to lose. A New York governor distantly related to a past president sweeps into office promising a seismic shift in the size and scope of the federal government. And a flurry of new government programs begin, putting thousands back to work while reshaping the American political landscape. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're listening on a smartphone, tap or swipe over the cover art of this podcast. You'll find the episode notes, including some details you may have missed. One of the best ways to show your appreciation is to give us a five-star rating and leave a review. You can also find us and me on Twitter and Facebook. Follow the show at A.H. Tellers.

And I'm at Lindsey A. Graham. And thank you. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Bill Lasher. Edited by Dorian Marina. Edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman. Produced by George Lavender.

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