WEBVTT 00:00.340 --> 00:04.220 Abby Yochelson: Good afternoon. I'm Abby Yochelson. 00:04.220 --> 00:07.220 00:07.220 --> 00:10.220 I'm one of the Reference Librarians in the Humanities 00:10.220 --> 00:13.220 and Social Sciences Division. 00:13.220 --> 00:16.220 And on behalf of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, 00:16.220 --> 00:19.220 I want to welcome you to our program this afternoon. 00:19.220 --> 00:22.220 This is part of an ongoing series of lectures and book talks that we give 00:22.220 --> 00:25.220 in addition to the services we provide 00:25.220 --> 00:28.220 over in the Main Reading Room, Local History and Genealogy 00:28.220 --> 00:31.220 and Microform Reading Rooms. 00:31.220 --> 00:34.220 So if you're new to the Library of Congress, if you've just come 00:34.220 --> 00:37.220 to this talk today, you can come and see us 00:37.220 --> 00:40.220 over in the Jefferson Building and see why these two authors spend 00:40.220 --> 00:43.220 so much time and have such a good time here 00:43.220 --> 00:46.220 at the Library of Congress. 00:46.220 --> 00:49.220 Our program is co-sponsored by the Veterans History Project 00:49.220 --> 00:52.220 and at the end of our session, we'll hear a word 00:52.220 --> 00:55.220 from those sponsors, as they say. 00:55.220 --> 00:58.220 You don't put on a program here at the Library of Congress without lots 00:58.220 --> 01:01.220 and lots of people getting involved and so I want to thank colleagues 01:01.220 --> 01:04.220 in my Division Rod Katz, Kathy Woodrell 01:04.220 --> 01:07.220 and Dave Kelly for their help. 01:07.220 --> 01:10.220 As well as Anneliesa Clump and Diane Kresh 01:10.220 --> 01:13.220 from the Veterans History Project and just scores of people 01:13.220 --> 01:16.220 in public affairs and from the multimedia group where the Web cast 01:16.220 --> 01:19.220 and graphics arts and retail sales 01:19.220 --> 01:22.220 and every other office you can imagine at the Library of Congress. 01:22.220 --> 01:25.220 Our speakers today, Tom Allen and Paul Dickson, are no strangers 01:25.220 --> 01:28.220 to the Library of Congress. 01:28.220 --> 01:31.220 I think any of you who work here may have spotted them in one 01:31.220 --> 01:34.220 of our many Reading Rooms at some point. 01:34.220 --> 01:37.220 They are both extraordinarily prolific writers and have done lots 01:37.220 --> 01:40.220 of research over the years, both here and at many, many, 01:40.220 --> 01:43.220 many other Libraries and Archives 01:43.220 --> 01:46.220 and Collections around the countries. 01:46.220 --> 01:49.220 The topic of today's program, this is The Bonus Army: An American Epic, 01:49.220 --> 01:52.220 is just the latest book in a series of lots and lots of writings 01:52.220 --> 01:55.220 that these two gentlemen have done. 01:55.220 --> 01:58.220 Tom Allen, I had, I kind of pegged him as a historian, 01:58.220 --> 02:01.220 kind of military history, intelligence kinds of topics. 02:01.220 --> 02:04.220 As I looked over some biographical information, 02:04.220 --> 02:07.220 I saw that the New York Public Library had given an award 02:07.220 --> 02:10.220 to George Washington Spy Masters, one of the best children's books 02:10.220 --> 02:16.070 in 2004, and the American Library Association declared Remember Pearl 02:16.070 --> 02:19.070 Harbor a Notable Book in 2001. 02:19.070 --> 02:23.700 Any of you visited the International Spy Museum, his book on -- 02:23.700 --> 02:26.740 the spy book; The Encyclopedia of Espionage, 02:26.740 --> 02:30.120 is kind of a basic source for that museum. 02:30.120 --> 02:33.120 And you may have seen him on the History Channel. 02:33.120 --> 02:36.250 He's been active on Secrets of The War, and actually frequently 02:36.250 --> 02:39.350 on television on the subjects of military history, 02:39.350 --> 02:42.350 intelligence, those kinds of things. 02:42.350 --> 02:45.350 So I thought yeah, I'm right, he's kind of a history sort of guy. 02:45.350 --> 02:48.350 And then I started reading the lists of articles he had written 02:48.350 --> 02:51.350 over the years: National Geographic, Smithsonian, Washingtonian, 02:51.350 --> 02:54.350 Washington Post, and there were those World War II articles again, 02:54.350 --> 02:57.350 lots and lots of them. 02:57.350 --> 03:00.350 And then I started seeing bird books, 03:00.350 --> 03:03.350 bird field guides, articles about China. 03:03.350 --> 03:06.350 Articles about the search for the giant squid, shark attacks 03:06.350 --> 03:09.350 and something or other about possession, 03:09.350 --> 03:14.100 the original exorcism case on which The Exorcist had been based. 03:14.100 --> 03:17.240 I thought, now this is a man with as wide-ranging interests 03:17.240 --> 03:20.240 as even Paul Dickson has. 03:20.240 --> 03:25.810 Tom's been a newspaper columnist, feature reporter 03:25.810 --> 03:28.810 for a number of newspapers. 03:28.810 --> 03:31.810 He served in the Navy for two years, was a Managing Editor 03:31.810 --> 03:34.810 at Chilton Books; I think Chilton, I think car repair manuals. 03:34.810 --> 03:37.810 Can you fix cars, too? And a Associate Chief 03:37.810 --> 03:40.810 03:40.810 --> 03:43.810 of the National Geographic Society Book Service. 03:43.810 --> 03:46.810 He's a founding member 03:46.810 --> 03:49.810 of the Writer's Center, located in Bethesda. 03:49.810 --> 03:52.810 And I've just learned, speaking to his wife just before this, 03:52.810 --> 03:55.810 that he's a favorite lecturer on National Geographic cruises, 03:55.810 --> 03:58.810 all those beautiful cruises you've seen around the world. 03:58.810 --> 04:01.810 Tom might be one the others. 04:01.810 --> 04:04.810 But I really think with all this background 04:04.810 --> 04:07.810 on espionage I think being a freelance writer is really the 04:07.810 --> 04:10.810 perfect cover for being a spy 04:10.810 --> 04:13.810 and I'm sure I'm not the first one who's probably accused you 04:13.810 --> 04:16.810 of knowing that. 04:16.810 --> 04:19.810 Now, Paul Dickson is especially well-known in the Humanities 04:19.810 --> 04:22.810 and Social Sciences Division for being our first lecturer 04:22.810 --> 04:25.810 in our annual Judith Austin Memorial Lecture Series. 04:25.810 --> 04:28.810 Paul was a very close friend and neighbor of Judy Austin's 04:28.810 --> 04:31.810 and kicked off that series in 1997 with, "Exploration and Exploitation 04:31.810 --> 04:34.810 at the Library of Congress: or how I mined LC's great riches 04:34.810 --> 04:37.810 for fun and profit." 04:37.810 --> 04:40.810 And I think since 1997, he's continued to mine and exploit us 04:40.810 --> 04:43.810 with many, many books and articles. 04:43.810 --> 04:46.810 I looked over my notes from my introduction from that lecture 04:46.810 --> 04:49.810 and I had as a prop to remember continuous feed paper 04:49.810 --> 04:52.810 from the computers. 04:52.810 --> 04:55.810 So I had a print tab of the list of books that just kind 04:55.810 --> 04:58.810 of fell down to the floor. 04:58.810 --> 05:01.810 So, 45 books of non-fiction and hundreds and hundreds of articles: 05:01.810 --> 05:04.810 Smithsonian, Esquire, The Nation, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, 05:04.810 --> 05:07.810 just about any newspaper or magazine you can think of, 05:07.810 --> 05:10.810 he's written for that. 05:10.810 --> 05:13.810 He's a graduate of Wesleyan University, also served in the Navy. 05:13.810 --> 05:16.810 Did you two meet there by any chance? 05:16.810 --> 05:19.810 No? And was a reporter for McGraw-Hill Publications, 05:19.810 --> 05:22.810 but since 1968, has been a freelance writer. 05:22.810 --> 05:25.810 Anyone who's ever seen one of Paul's business cards, it says that, 05:25.810 --> 05:28.810 "The writing is limited to subjects of interest, 05:28.810 --> 05:31.810 but the subjects are broader than you can ever remember." 05:31.810 --> 05:34.810 A lot of his books are on reference in the Main Reading Room because -- 05:34.810 --> 05:37.810 books about sleighing, books of toasts, joke treasuries, 05:37.810 --> 05:40.830 lots on kites and yo-yos, baseball, language, all kinds of subjects. 05:40.830 --> 05:43.830 So now he's kind of focused, he said, 05:43.830 --> 05:47.450 these days on 20th Century history, American language and baseball. 05:47.450 --> 05:50.930 So, the recent book before this one was Sputnick: 05:50.930 --> 05:55.200 The Shock of the Century, so we've got the 20th Century there. 05:55.200 --> 05:59.860 Language and baseball often mix in his books. 05:59.860 --> 06:02.860 The Hidden Language of Baseball, and the famous, 06:02.860 --> 06:05.860 The Dixon Baseball Dictionary is about to go into a third edition 06:05.860 --> 06:08.860 with the Oxford University Press. 06:08.860 --> 06:12.070 Paul has a great love for libraries and collections 06:12.070 --> 06:15.070 and he wrote a book called The Library in America: 06:15.070 --> 06:18.070 A celebration in words and pictures, 06:18.070 --> 06:21.070 and we return his appreciation very much. 06:21.070 --> 06:24.070 And all my colleagues and I when we get stumped 06:24.070 --> 06:27.070 on a question we often say, 06:27.070 --> 06:30.070 "Do you think Paul might know an answer to this? 06:30.070 --> 06:33.070 Do you think he might figure out something 06:33.070 --> 06:36.070 that could get us started?" 06:36.070 --> 06:39.070 So, he's a founding member and a past president 06:39.070 --> 06:42.070 of the Washington Independent Writers, a contributing editor 06:42.070 --> 06:45.070 of Washingtonian Magazine, and a consulting editor at Miriam Webster. 06:45.070 --> 06:48.070 Today is June 22, which is actually the 61st anniversary 06:48.070 --> 06:51.070 of the passage of the G.I. Bill of Rights. 06:51.070 --> 06:54.070 06:54.070 --> 06:57.070 And I really think that the Bill and the attitude and the appreciation 06:57.070 --> 07:00.070 and for our war veterans and really the treatment, 07:00.070 --> 07:03.070 how we treat war veterans in the latter part of the century, 07:03.070 --> 07:06.740 is a direct result of some very determined World War I veterans, 07:06.740 --> 07:09.740 who marched on Washington in 1932 07:09.740 --> 07:12.740 to demand the treatment that they deserve. 07:12.740 --> 07:15.970 So I give you Tom Allen and Paul Dickson speaking 07:15.970 --> 07:20.380 about the Bonus Army March, which has really been forgotten 07:20.380 --> 07:23.380 by a lot of people in history. 07:23.380 --> 07:26.380 It was amazing when I was setting up this program how many people said 07:26.380 --> 07:29.380 to me, "What's the bonus army? I've never heard of it." 07:29.380 --> 07:32.380 07:32.380 --> 07:35.880 So, I give you our speakers. [Applause]. 07:35.880 --> 07:38.380 07:38.380 --> 07:41.380 Paul Dickson: There are two reasons we're very happy to be here today, 07:41.380 --> 07:44.380 one is that anniversary of the G.I. 07:44.380 --> 07:47.380 Bill, which really we will get to in a minute. 07:47.380 --> 07:50.800 But it transformed this country, it transformed this country positively 07:50.800 --> 07:56.220 and it fed a whole generation of prosperity and of everything 07:56.220 --> 07:59.220 from biotech to aerospace was fed 07:59.220 --> 08:03.600 by that World War II generation getting an education and, sort of, 08:03.600 --> 08:09.280 recreating the nation as a prosperous progressive entity. 08:09.280 --> 08:14.100 We are also happy to be here because so much of the research we did 08:14.100 --> 08:17.330 for this book was here at the Library, ranging from rare books 08:17.330 --> 08:20.730 to the Main Reading Room, ranging from the many experts 08:20.730 --> 08:24.770 who helped us out of particular jams. 08:24.770 --> 08:28.140 And the way of, sort of, bringing this into focus, 08:28.140 --> 08:31.140 a book like this is totally -- 08:31.140 --> 08:35.190 it requires a great degree of character development. 08:35.190 --> 08:39.700 It thrives on powerful characters that keep the story going 08:39.700 --> 08:42.700 because if you're writing narrative non-fiction, 08:42.700 --> 08:46.170 you're character-dependent, you're event-dependent, but you've got 08:46.170 --> 08:49.170 to have, and they're interrelated, of course. 08:49.170 --> 08:52.450 Tom once made the point that a lot of books are ponds and you thrash 08:52.450 --> 08:55.450 around in the pond, then you get to the end and you sort of crawl 08:55.450 --> 08:58.450 out of the pond, but the best books are rivers and you come 08:58.450 --> 09:01.450 down the river and the river, sort of, carries the story along. 09:01.450 --> 09:04.450 Well, characters carry this story along. 09:04.450 --> 09:07.450 I'm just going to mention two before we get into, sort of, 09:07.450 --> 09:10.450 the nuts and bolts of this. 09:10.450 --> 09:13.450 But there are two characters that we never would have had 09:13.450 --> 09:16.450 without the Library, and one was -- in the final book, 09:16.450 --> 09:19.450 we'll get to the book in a minute, one of the -- 09:19.450 --> 09:22.450 We've had three very powerful women which was very unusual 09:22.450 --> 09:26.410 for stories set in 1932, and we've found a very rich woman who was 09:26.410 --> 09:30.300 in the book Evalyn Walsh Mclean and the Hope Diamond. 09:30.300 --> 09:33.300 We found a conservative woman named, 09:33.300 --> 09:36.750 a congresswoman named Edith Nourse Rogers was very powerful 09:36.750 --> 09:39.750 and very much a friend of the veteran. 09:39.750 --> 09:42.750 But the most extraordinary character we found was a woman named Cerilla 09:42.750 --> 09:45.750 Lamar [spelled phonetically]. 09:45.750 --> 09:48.750 She was a woman in Los Angeles and she was so determined 09:48.750 --> 09:53.570 to avenge what had happened to her family. 09:53.570 --> 09:58.980 She had lost her father, her brother and her husband in World War I. 09:58.980 --> 10:02.370 And after World War I, there was a tradition in America, 10:02.370 --> 10:06.920 which was fostered by Congress, that anyone who had lost a loved one, 10:06.920 --> 10:10.940 any woman who had lost a husband, a son, a father, whatever, 10:10.940 --> 10:14.820 was able to go back to France, at government expense, 10:14.820 --> 10:20.630 to visit the graveyards of the lost, of the person who had died. 10:20.630 --> 10:25.220 And in 1931 a white woman wrote a letter of anger to the President, 10:25.220 --> 10:29.000 President Herbert Hoover, saying that she was appalled by the fact 10:29.000 --> 10:32.250 that white and black women were put on the same boats going back 10:32.250 --> 10:36.840 and forth to France and in a sublime act of cowardice, Hoover said, 10:36.840 --> 10:39.840 "Yeah she's right, let's segregate them. 10:39.840 --> 10:42.840 Let's have black boats and white boats." 10:42.840 --> 10:45.840 And, of course, the black boats were less -- you could just imagine, 10:45.840 --> 10:48.840 but they were less well appointed than the white boats. 10:48.840 --> 10:51.840 And Cerilla Lamar -- this was the one thing that most motivated her, 10:51.840 --> 10:55.650 and so she becomes this powerful force by going from Los Angeles 10:55.650 --> 11:00.720 to New York, to Washington, in '32 she hops freight cars, 11:00.720 --> 11:04.050 she leaves with 60 bucks in her pocket, she's robbed, she's beaten, 11:04.050 --> 11:07.050 her wedding ring is stolen. 11:07.050 --> 11:10.050 She gets here and becomes one of the leaders in this story. 11:10.050 --> 11:13.050 That story, that was actually, that woman was found for us 11:13.050 --> 11:16.050 by Tom Man [spelled phonetically]. 11:16.050 --> 11:19.050 We were -- Tom was helping us find, dig through this stuff and all 11:19.050 --> 11:22.050 of a sudden one day Tom said, "You know, I found this interesting. 11:22.050 --> 11:25.050 Did you ever hear of this woman?" And I said, "No." 11:25.050 --> 11:28.050 11:28.050 --> 11:31.050 And Tom helped us dig that out. 11:31.050 --> 11:34.050 And the other guy -- and this is totally out of context here, 11:34.050 --> 11:37.050 but I think you'll get the point -- 11:37.050 --> 11:40.050 we'll knit this back together in one piece. 11:40.050 --> 11:43.050 The other guy that we really just fell in love 11:43.050 --> 11:46.050 with was a guy named Frank Gibson [spelled phonetically] 11:46.050 --> 11:49.050 and we found him through the Library. 11:49.050 --> 11:52.050 Again, he doesn't exist anywhere else, but we started to find him. 11:52.050 --> 11:55.050 We found little things that he had left here in the Library. 11:55.050 --> 11:58.050 Gibson was a World War I veteran. 11:58.050 --> 12:01.050 At the outset, beginning of World War II, he started working 12:01.050 --> 12:04.050 for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 12:04.050 --> 12:07.050 He got it into his head that we were doing terrible things 12:07.050 --> 12:10.050 to these veterans that were coming back. 12:10.050 --> 12:13.050 Right after they left, they were being terribly treated -- 12:13.050 --> 12:16.050 they were not being given -- put in the rehab programs, 12:16.050 --> 12:19.050 they were not being given any help. 12:19.050 --> 12:22.050 People who had lost two limbs were not being put in the system. 12:22.050 --> 12:25.050 It was horrible. 12:25.050 --> 12:28.050 And Sinclair [spelled phonetically] wrote and wrote 12:28.050 --> 12:31.050 and he published these things and his paper actually took 12:31.050 --> 12:34.050 out full-page ads in The Washington Post and The Evening Star. 12:34.050 --> 12:37.050 And then they took collections of Sinclair's articles 12:37.050 --> 12:40.050 and they mailed one to every senator and every member 12:40.050 --> 12:43.050 of the House of Representatives. 12:43.050 --> 12:46.050 They ended up mailing out two million copies of his articles. 12:46.050 --> 12:49.050 Well, Sinclair, if you read any normal history, Sinclair was the guy 12:49.050 --> 12:52.050 who basically starts rubbing America's nose in the fact 12:52.050 --> 12:55.050 that they were letting these veterans come back 12:55.050 --> 12:58.050 and not taking care of them. 12:58.050 --> 13:01.050 Tom Allen: Well, lots of times, it comes down to one person getting 13:01.050 --> 13:04.050 to be the person who changes history. 13:04.050 --> 13:07.050 And in the case of the G.I. 13:07.050 --> 13:10.050 Bill it was a Marine named Bill Smith [spelled phonetically] 13:10.050 --> 13:13.050 who had been badly wounded in Guadalcanal, 13:13.050 --> 13:16.050 and came back to the United States and was unable to -- 13:16.050 --> 13:19.050 there was no chance of getting a job back, he was too badly wounded. 13:19.050 --> 13:22.050 He had a couple of bucks of mustering-out pay. 13:22.050 --> 13:25.050 Essentially he was dumped on the streets. 13:25.050 --> 13:28.050 His family had to go on relief and get help from fellow, 13:28.050 --> 13:31.050 from sympathizers in the neighborhood to keep them eating 13:31.050 --> 13:34.050 and keeping a roof over their head and this was a guy 13:34.050 --> 13:37.050 who had been wounded in Guadalcanal. 13:37.050 --> 13:40.050 The Hearst newspapers, which were following 13:40.050 --> 13:43.680 up on what Sinclair was doing, took this Marine and made him 13:43.680 --> 13:49.580 into the image of what we were doing to our veterans at that time. 13:49.580 --> 13:58.720 By 1944, the Congress had 243 bills that had something to do 13:58.720 --> 14:03.090 with taking care of veterans and they ranged 14:03.090 --> 14:07.330 from doing exactly what had been done in World War I: 14:07.330 --> 14:11.050 giving them 60 bucks and telling them to go on their way, 14:11.050 --> 14:14.150 all the way over to some procedures that people were coming up with 14:14.150 --> 14:17.710 about the idea of education. 14:17.710 --> 14:21.790 Into Washington one day comes the National Commander 14:21.790 --> 14:24.790 of the American Legion. 14:24.790 --> 14:27.790 The American Legion decided that there must be some way 14:27.790 --> 14:30.790 that these bills could be consolidated 14:30.790 --> 14:33.790 and something could be done instead of having a jungle of bills 14:33.790 --> 14:36.790 to be going through when every congressman was trying to hop 14:36.790 --> 14:40.540 on the veterans' bandwagon, finally in '44. 14:40.540 --> 14:47.660 And the head of the American Legion, who himself was a veteran 14:47.660 --> 14:54.620 of World War I, went to the Mayflower Hotel, took out a piece 14:54.620 --> 14:59.560 of paper, hotel stationary, and wrote down the G.I. 14:59.560 --> 15:02.560 Bill of Rights. 15:02.560 --> 15:05.560 He felt that there ought to be a comparison between our basic Bill 15:05.560 --> 15:08.560 of Rights and Bill of Rights that should be the rights 15:08.560 --> 15:11.560 of the returning veteran. 15:11.560 --> 15:14.930 And the rights were education, housing, and some kind of subsidy 15:14.930 --> 15:18.190 for possibly starting a small business. 15:18.190 --> 15:25.540 The G.I. Bill that came on Mayflower stationary then goes before a 15:25.540 --> 15:28.540 Congressional committee. 15:28.540 --> 15:31.540 And they start hammering and hacking at it. 15:31.540 --> 15:35.370 President Roosevelt was no that interested in the G.I. 15:35.370 --> 15:40.150 Bill. When I was doing research in the Presidential Library 15:40.150 --> 15:45.500 in Hyde Park, I asked for the information on G.I. 15:45.500 --> 15:48.500 Bill thinking, "Well, it will probably fill 15:48.500 --> 15:51.500 about this much of the table I'm at." 15:51.500 --> 15:54.500 And one thin folder came out and it had 15:54.500 --> 15:57.500 about four pieces of paper in it. 15:57.500 --> 16:00.620 And it really consisted of the pieces of paper that had to do 16:00.620 --> 16:03.620 with who was going to be invited to the signing 16:03.620 --> 16:06.620 of the ceremony of the G.I. 16:06.620 --> 16:09.620 Bill. There was nothing that was being done 16:09.620 --> 16:12.620 in the White House for the G.I. 16:12.620 --> 16:15.620 Bill at that time; it was focused in the Congress. 16:15.620 --> 16:18.620 And one of the things that was happening 16:18.620 --> 16:21.620 in the Congress was something that had happened 16:21.620 --> 16:24.620 in the years following World War I. 16:24.620 --> 16:27.620 All of a sudden, race is in the picture. 16:27.620 --> 16:30.620 There were 400,000 black soldiers in World War I and there was an issue 16:30.620 --> 16:33.620 about whether they were going to get the same treatment 16:33.620 --> 16:36.620 from the Congress in World War I. 16:36.620 --> 16:39.620 There were something like 3 or 4 million black soldiers 16:39.620 --> 16:43.300 and black servicemen in World War II and now the issue came up again 16:43.300 --> 16:47.330 in Congress as Congress starts to grapple with the G.I. 16:47.330 --> 16:50.520 Bill. Paul Dickson: The guy that told me -- 16:50.520 --> 16:57.180 while this is happening, this is in June of 1944. 16:57.180 --> 17:00.260 It's also -- the D-Day invasion is taking place. 17:00.260 --> 17:03.800 So a lot of this is not -- this is playing out outside the front pages 17:03.800 --> 17:07.270 or even the back pages of the newspapers. 17:07.270 --> 17:10.270 There is a man named Rankin, 17:10.270 --> 17:13.270 who was absolutely dedicated segregationalist, 17:13.270 --> 17:16.760 a few other things, including, clearly, anti-Semitic, 17:16.760 --> 17:19.760 but he is going to bottle up the G.I. 17:19.760 --> 17:23.840 Bill. He is going to force it so that it's not passed in '44. 17:23.840 --> 17:26.910 And his allies, he's allied in some of the people that he brings out. 17:26.910 --> 17:29.910 There's also the other group that's opposed to the G.I. 17:29.910 --> 17:32.910 Bill are the leaders of some 17:32.910 --> 17:35.910 of the most powerful universities in the country. 17:35.910 --> 17:38.910 Conan [spelled phonetically] 17:38.910 --> 17:41.910 of Harvard is diametrically opposed to the G.I. 17:41.910 --> 17:44.910 Bill. Tom Allen: Hutchins. Paul Dickson: Hutchins. 17:44.910 --> 17:47.910 17:47.910 --> 17:50.910 Robert Maynard Hutchins of Chicago. 17:50.910 --> 17:53.910 They're afraid -- Hutchins believes that the only reason 17:53.910 --> 17:56.910 that you can get to college, or should be able to go to college, 17:56.910 --> 17:59.910 is from heredity or social standing. 17:59.910 --> 18:02.910 He writes a article, a devastating article, in Colliers magazine, 18:02.910 --> 18:05.910 saying this is the worst form of welfare, we'll destroy the colleges, 18:05.910 --> 18:08.910 we'll turn them into educational hobo jungles. 18:08.910 --> 18:11.910 Conan is even more adamant about keeping these guys out. 18:11.910 --> 18:14.910 The elite colleges, almost to a singularity, 18:14.910 --> 18:17.910 with one notable exception being Yale, and a couple others 18:17.910 --> 18:20.910 that are notable exceptions, but there is this group that sides 18:20.910 --> 18:23.910 with the segregationists and we have Conan of Harvard actually citing 18:23.910 --> 18:27.660 in order to postpone or push back the educational portion of the G.I. 18:27.660 --> 18:32.740 Bill aside, citing states rights along with -- 18:32.740 --> 18:35.840 so this is terribly controversial. And the whole G.I. 18:35.840 --> 18:38.840 18:38.840 --> 18:41.840 Bill, as the Normandy invasion is in its second week 18:41.840 --> 18:44.840 of the D-Day invasion, there's this extraordinary moment 18:44.840 --> 18:48.160 when there's a tie, appears to be a tie going down in the Committee 18:48.160 --> 18:51.160 that is going to do this and an amazing man, 18:51.160 --> 18:55.670 that Tom'll tell you about, his name is Frank Gibson, 18:55.670 --> 18:58.670 is at the center of all this. 18:58.670 --> 19:01.670 Tom Allen: Well what happens is that Rankin, who has -- 19:01.670 --> 19:04.670 Oone of the things that Rankin doesn't want is 19:04.670 --> 19:07.670 that there is a proposal in the G.I. 19:07.670 --> 19:12.480 Bill that anyone who cannot get a job is going to be able to get, 19:12.480 --> 19:18.430 for 54 weeks, is going to get 20 dollars a week, the 54-20 club, 19:18.430 --> 19:21.880 as it got to be known later. 19:21.880 --> 19:26.350 Rankin doesn't want that money to go out interracially 19:26.350 --> 19:30.690 because it will attack the two-tier economic system in the south, 19:30.690 --> 19:33.730 where the only way you can keep the poor whites happy is 19:33.730 --> 19:36.730 to have poor blacks making even less money. 19:36.730 --> 19:42.760 And he says that this'll result in all of the Negroes in Mississippi, 19:42.760 --> 19:45.760 who were veterans, not getting a job. 19:45.760 --> 19:48.760 So he's bottling that up. 19:48.760 --> 19:51.870 Meanwhile, Roosevelt, who has been remaining aloof from this, 19:51.870 --> 19:56.230 has come out with the idea giving money to colleges, 19:56.230 --> 20:00.810 not to individuals, for payment. 20:00.810 --> 20:04.030 In other words, someone says, "I want to go to Harvard," 20:04.030 --> 20:07.470 you don't give the money to him, you give the money to Harvard. 20:07.470 --> 20:10.470 And that was where Roosevelt was. 20:10.470 --> 20:13.520 Well, everything, finally, is getting iced down, and as Paul said, 20:13.520 --> 20:18.340 in the Committee, which is trying to settle the matter 20:18.340 --> 20:21.340 between the Senate and the House. 20:21.340 --> 20:24.620 The House and Senate have already, essentially, passed legislation, 20:24.620 --> 20:27.620 but now they have to rationalize it. 20:27.620 --> 20:31.660 And in this Committee, where it's been rationalized, it's tied. 20:31.660 --> 20:36.140 A Committee member from Georgia, Frank Gibson, 20:36.140 --> 20:39.880 tells Rankin in a routine way, "Look, I have to go to my district 20:39.880 --> 20:42.880 when I know the vote's going to be taken. 20:42.880 --> 20:45.880 Please take my proxy vote. 20:45.880 --> 20:49.410 I'm for taking this bill, as it is, out of Committee." 20:49.410 --> 20:52.410 So Gibson goes off to Georgia. 20:52.410 --> 20:56.550 Rankin double-crosses him by calling for the vote 20:56.550 --> 21:00.750 at 10 o'clock the following morning on a certain day, 21:00.750 --> 21:04.150 knowing that the man who was probably going 21:04.150 --> 21:08.120 to change the whole issue is somewhere 21:08.120 --> 21:11.120 in Georgia and can't be found. Well, people try to find Gibson. 21:11.120 --> 21:14.120 21:14.120 --> 21:17.120 They put out notices on the radios in Georgia. 21:17.120 --> 21:20.120 The Georgia State Police are alerted to try to find his car. 21:20.120 --> 21:23.120 They don't know where he is in his District. 21:23.120 --> 21:26.120 He comes home late one night and he hears his phone ringing. 21:26.120 --> 21:29.120 He goes inside and it's someone saying, "There's a plane waiting 21:29.120 --> 21:32.120 for you at Waycross, Georgia, an Army plane that's going to take you 21:32.120 --> 21:35.120 to Washington for the big vote the next morning." 21:35.120 --> 21:38.940 They get a high-speed caravan goes to Waycross, Georgia 21:38.940 --> 21:42.590 and the plane is malfunctioning and won't take off. 21:42.590 --> 21:46.060 They find out there's a flight out of Jacksonville, Florida, 21:46.060 --> 21:49.060 a commercial flight, they hold the commercial flight. 21:49.060 --> 21:52.060 They get him down there. 21:52.060 --> 21:55.430 He makes it to the Congress and is able to vote 21:55.430 --> 21:58.430 and he tells the other members of the Committee, 21:58.430 --> 22:01.430 "If anybody votes against the G.I. 22:01.430 --> 22:04.430 Bill, I'm going to go outside and tell everybody that you've got guys 22:04.430 --> 22:07.430 on this Committee who are against the veterans." 22:07.430 --> 22:10.430 Well, it comes out of Committee. It passes the House. 22:10.430 --> 22:13.430 22:13.430 --> 22:16.430 I mean, everybody loves it. It's unanimous. 22:16.430 --> 22:19.430 22:19.430 --> 22:22.430 Roosevelt, whom we'll talk about a little bit later 22:22.430 --> 22:25.430 and his attitude towards veterans of a previous war, signs it. 22:25.430 --> 22:28.430 And, as I said, the only issue for Roosevelt is who's going to be 22:28.430 --> 22:31.430 in the room taking credit for the fact that the G.I. 22:31.430 --> 22:34.430 Bill has been passed. And it's passed on this day in 1944. 22:34.430 --> 22:37.430 22:37.430 --> 22:40.430 Female Speaker: [Inaudible] Tom Allen: Oh. 22:40.430 --> 22:43.430 Sorry. Paul Dickson: Oh, sure. Please. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't... 22:43.430 --> 22:46.430 22:46.430 --> 22:49.430 Female Speaker: [Inaudible]. 22:49.430 --> 22:52.430 Tom Allen: Should we start at the beginning? 22:52.430 --> 22:55.930 Paul Dickson: Yeah. [Inaudible]. 22:55.930 --> 22:59.240 22:59.240 --> 23:02.240 That worked out beautifully, because now we can go back 23:02.240 --> 23:05.240 to the beginning of the story. It's like a built-in flashback. 23:05.240 --> 23:08.240 23:08.240 --> 23:11.240 We'd like to talk about the Bonus -- because today, of course, 23:11.240 --> 23:14.240 is the day that we celebrate the passage of the G.I. 23:14.240 --> 23:17.790 Bill. But we'd really like to go back for just a good part 23:17.790 --> 23:20.790 of the rest of our time before questions and really talk 23:20.790 --> 23:24.670 about what happened in 1932 with the Bonus Army 23:24.670 --> 23:27.670 and what was really at stake here. 23:27.670 --> 23:31.400 When World War I was fought -- and again, the issues are the same. 23:31.400 --> 23:34.400 There's going to be the issues of race 23:34.400 --> 23:37.400 and how do you actually treat people when they come back from war. 23:37.400 --> 23:40.700 At the end of World War I, it was clear that the guys who had fought 23:40.700 --> 23:46.310 in the war were terribly treated financially, as well as other ways. 23:46.310 --> 23:51.290 The base salary for a soldier in World War I was a dollar a day, 23:51.290 --> 23:54.290 or a dollar and a quarter for overseas service. 23:54.290 --> 23:57.290 And out of that dollar you had to pay for your uniforms 23:57.290 --> 24:00.290 and you also had to, you're expected, there was huge pressure, 24:00.290 --> 24:06.130 to give money from that dollar to Liberty Bonds. 24:06.130 --> 24:09.130 So, the privates were actually financing the war. 24:09.130 --> 24:14.170 At the same time, a shipyard worker would be getting 15-16 dollars a day 24:14.170 --> 24:17.170 and he gets to sleep in a warm bed, et cetera. 24:17.170 --> 24:20.170 And so, immediately following the war, there was a great movement 24:20.170 --> 24:24.580 in the country supported pretty broadly to give these guys a bonus. 24:24.580 --> 24:28.670 The idea was to give them a dollar a day for every day they had served. 24:28.670 --> 24:33.070 So if they had served 311 days, they got 311 dollars, 24:33.070 --> 24:36.470 plus a little bit more if they were overseas, plus some interest. 24:36.470 --> 24:43.490 But the final bonus was under 1,000 dollars in virtually every case. 24:43.490 --> 24:46.590 Immediately, it became a political football. 24:46.590 --> 24:49.590 There were strong opponents to it. 24:49.590 --> 24:52.590 On one level, some of the richest people 24:52.590 --> 24:55.590 in America were virulently opposed -- 24:55.590 --> 24:58.590 the very people who had gotten huge war reparations, 24:58.590 --> 25:01.590 the large companies, Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, 25:01.590 --> 25:04.640 was one of the spearheads against it, saying we couldn't afford 25:04.640 --> 25:07.640 to give these guys this bonus. And it keeps getting batted around. 25:07.640 --> 25:10.640 25:10.640 --> 25:15.210 And one of the reasons it's - The overt reason is economic. 25:15.210 --> 25:18.210 The covert reason is racial. 25:18.210 --> 25:21.850 The idea was, again, the same thing that happened in World War II, 25:21.850 --> 25:24.910 was that there were so many blacks who had fought in World War I, 25:24.910 --> 25:27.910 many of whom who had fought under the -- 25:27.910 --> 25:30.910 the combat troops who had fought under the French flag, 25:30.910 --> 25:33.910 so they weren't that obvious, from the newspapers, 25:33.910 --> 25:36.910 they were put under the French colonial flags. 25:36.910 --> 25:39.910 But they come back with bushels full of credigear [spelled phonetically] 25:39.910 --> 25:43.960 and it was -- they conducted themselves 25:43.960 --> 25:46.960 as everybody expected they would. Well, I mean, they did fine. 25:46.960 --> 25:49.960 25:49.960 --> 25:52.960 What happened after the War was -- 25:52.960 --> 25:55.960 the fear, again, was interrupting the two-tier system in the South. 25:55.960 --> 25:59.140 If you gave the people at the very lowest level 5, 600 dollars, 25:59.140 --> 26:02.140 enough to buy a car and a down payment on a house, 26:02.140 --> 26:06.100 that would blow away the structure that was keeping them in place. 26:06.100 --> 26:10.150 And of course in doing so, in keeping the blacks under control, 26:10.150 --> 26:14.150 you were keeping the poor whites and the whites who'd fought in the war 26:14.150 --> 26:18.620 and deserved the bonus, they were being kept under the gun as well. 26:18.620 --> 26:21.620 Finally the bonus is passed... 26:21.620 --> 26:24.930 Tom Allen: Yeah, in 1924, Congress finally comes 26:24.930 --> 26:27.930 up with a way to do it. 26:27.930 --> 26:30.930 And the phrase that's used today, but wasn't used then, 26:30.930 --> 26:33.930 is you kick the can down the road. 26:33.930 --> 26:36.930 And what Congress came up with is, yes, we will pay a bonus 26:36.930 --> 26:40.760 to all the veterans of World War I. 26:40.760 --> 26:43.760 A dollar for every day here, a dollar and a quarter 26:43.760 --> 26:49.470 for everyday overseas, but they can't get it until 1945. 26:49.470 --> 26:52.330 [Laughter]. 26:52.330 --> 26:56.480 Well, that reaction was about the same on the part of the vets. 26:56.480 --> 26:59.480 The idea was that they had come out for the bonus, 26:59.480 --> 27:02.480 but they hadn't come out with any money. 27:02.480 --> 27:05.480 So, the vets started calling it a "Tombstone Bonus," 27:05.480 --> 27:08.480 because it would be paid off if you died 27:08.480 --> 27:12.500 and your next-of-kin would get whatever was due you. 27:12.500 --> 27:18.900 So, in the '20s, it became a kind of simmering issue, 27:18.900 --> 27:23.040 but not much happened until the Depression. 27:23.040 --> 27:28.570 And when the Depression hits, and millions of people were out of work, 27:28.570 --> 27:34.550 many of them, of course, veterans of World War I, the idea starts to grow 27:34.550 --> 27:40.870 that maybe they could start to pay the bonus now instead of 1945. 27:40.870 --> 27:46.720 In 1928, Wright Patman, who was himself a veteran of World War I, 27:46.720 --> 27:50.210 a populous from Texas comes into the Congress. 27:50.210 --> 27:55.430 And in 1932, he comes up with the idea of a bill 27:55.430 --> 27:58.850 for immediate payment of the bonus. 27:58.850 --> 28:02.990 And the bill is bottled up in Committee. 28:02.990 --> 28:05.990 It's never going to reach the floor 28:05.990 --> 28:09.060 because nobody is supporting the idea in Congress at that time. 28:09.060 --> 28:12.060 There isn't enough money. 28:12.060 --> 28:15.060 President Hoover says, "We can pay off our war debts 28:15.060 --> 28:18.240 and we can give a lot of money to subsidizing Baltimore 28:18.240 --> 28:21.240 and Ohio Railroad, among other things." 28:21.240 --> 28:24.870 But there isn't enough money for the veterans. 28:24.870 --> 28:27.980 So, it's bottled up in Committee and it's going to die there. 28:27.980 --> 28:32.750 But out in Portland, Oregon, a veteran reads a little piece 28:32.750 --> 28:35.750 in The Portland Oregonian that tells 28:35.750 --> 28:42.150 about the Wright Patman Bill being boxed up in Congress 28:42.150 --> 28:46.730 and he gets the idea -- He also has heard about lobbying and he's heard 28:46.730 --> 28:53.850 about Mahatma Gandhi's peaceful confrontation of authority. 28:53.850 --> 28:56.850 And he starts putting this through his head and he starts talking 28:56.850 --> 28:59.850 to some other veterans in Portland, Oregon. 28:59.850 --> 29:02.850 His name is Walter Waters. 29:02.850 --> 29:05.850 Paul Dickson: Waters, first, is thwarted. 29:05.850 --> 29:08.850 I mean, he can't get anybody interested. 29:08.850 --> 29:11.850 But he finally keeps -- he won't shut up. 29:11.850 --> 29:14.850 He finally keeps talking and saying, "We got to go to Washington. 29:14.850 --> 29:17.850 We got to lobby. 29:17.850 --> 29:20.850 We got to be like DuPont or U.S. Steel or any of the big companies 29:20.850 --> 29:23.850 that got reparations after the war. 29:23.850 --> 29:26.850 We're going to go there and become lobbyists. 29:26.850 --> 29:29.850 And we're going to see our Congressmen and we're going 29:29.850 --> 29:32.850 to make sure they get this bill out of Committee, 29:32.850 --> 29:35.850 onto the floor and get it passed." 29:35.850 --> 29:38.850 And he finally, finally in May of that year, 29:38.850 --> 29:41.850 finally gets about 300 guys together, they have a borrowed drum. 29:41.850 --> 29:44.850 They go down to the railhead, the rail yards in Portland 29:44.850 --> 29:47.850 with a couple, I don't know, maybe 100 bucks and this borrowed drum, 29:47.850 --> 29:50.850 and a few of them have, sort of, 29:50.850 --> 29:53.850 a fantasy that they're going to change the world. 29:53.850 --> 29:56.850 And they get on the trains and the conductors 29:56.850 --> 29:59.850 and the railroad detectives 29:59.850 --> 30:02.850 at that time were mostly World War I veterans. 30:02.850 --> 30:05.850 Even though the people who ran the railroads didn't want 30:05.850 --> 30:08.850 to have anything to do with these guys, the conductors 30:08.850 --> 30:11.850 and the other people were winking them aboard these freight trains. 30:11.850 --> 30:14.850 And it wasn't pleasant. 30:14.850 --> 30:17.850 Some of the trains had been carrying cattle and, you know, 30:17.850 --> 30:20.850 it hadn't been cleaned out since carrying cattle. 30:20.850 --> 30:23.850 It was pretty gruesome. 30:23.850 --> 30:26.850 But these guys start across the country and what happens is, 30:26.850 --> 30:29.850 the country is so desperate for an upbeat story; there are millions 30:29.850 --> 30:32.850 of people wandering the country homeless in '32. 30:32.850 --> 30:35.850 Their banks are closing. Farms are being foreclosed. 30:35.850 --> 30:38.850 30:38.850 --> 30:41.850 Families are just wandering aimlessly through the country. 30:41.850 --> 30:44.850 All of a sudden these guys -- 30:44.850 --> 30:47.850 Finally, there are guys coming across the country with a purpose. 30:47.850 --> 30:50.850 These guys are different and who falls in love with them 30:50.850 --> 30:53.850 but the local papers and the wire services and the newsreel people 30:53.850 --> 30:56.850 and the radio and you've got the radio all over the country. 30:56.850 --> 30:59.850 And all of a sudden, there's an incendiary kind of thing 30:59.850 --> 31:02.850 as they move and there's all these adventures, which are in the book, 31:02.850 --> 31:05.850 and they're stopped, and there're confrontations, 31:05.850 --> 31:08.850 et cetera, et cetera. 31:08.850 --> 31:11.850 But as this Portland core is moving across the country, 31:11.850 --> 31:14.850 other groups are coming out of every corner of the country. 31:14.850 --> 31:17.850 They're coming out of New England, they're coming out of New Mexico 31:17.850 --> 31:20.850 and Nevada, they're coming out of Southern, 31:20.850 --> 31:23.850 huge group out of Southern California. 31:23.850 --> 31:26.850 They start moving towards Washington, so by the time Waters 31:26.850 --> 31:29.850 and his group get here, there are already people here. 31:29.850 --> 31:32.850 And there's already, within hours of him getting here, 31:32.850 --> 31:35.850 there are 10,000 people in Washington 31:35.850 --> 31:38.850 who are demanding their bonus. 31:38.850 --> 31:41.850 Tom Allen: The guy who is suddenly confronted 31:41.850 --> 31:44.850 with this is the Chief of Police. His name is Pelham Glassford. 31:44.850 --> 31:47.850 31:47.850 --> 31:50.850 He was a Brigadier General in World War I, 31:50.850 --> 31:53.850 the youngest brigadier general in the American Army. 31:53.850 --> 31:56.850 He has intense sympathy for the men who are starting to pour 31:56.850 --> 31:59.850 into Washington, many of them bringing their wives and kids 31:59.850 --> 32:02.850 because there isn't any other place for them to go. 32:02.850 --> 32:05.850 So, he finds a few abandoned buildings and puts them in 32:05.850 --> 32:08.850 and he starts talking to Waters. 32:08.850 --> 32:11.850 And he says, "How many people will be here by the end of the month?" 32:11.850 --> 32:14.850 This is in May. 32:14.850 --> 32:17.850 And Waters says, "20,000," taking a stab at what turned 32:17.850 --> 32:20.850 out to be a pretty accurate figure. 32:20.850 --> 32:23.850 Glassford goes out to Anacostia, the flats across the Anacostia River, 32:23.850 --> 32:26.850 and lays out an army camp. 32:26.850 --> 32:29.850 He starts getting contributions of lumber and some food. 32:29.850 --> 32:32.850 He spends about 700 dollars out of his own money in the Commissary 32:32.850 --> 32:35.850 across at Fort Myer and gets enough food to start feeding them. 32:35.850 --> 32:38.850 And the people in Washington just reach out to these guys. 32:38.850 --> 32:41.850 They really feel that they are a living testimony 32:41.850 --> 32:44.850 that maybe there's a way out of the Depression. 32:44.850 --> 32:47.850 So, out in Anacostia, a shantytown -- 32:47.850 --> 32:52.970 by the way that's when the song is popular is coming at that time -- 32:52.970 --> 32:57.650 a shantytown starts up in Anacostia. 32:57.650 --> 33:00.870 It's the largest Hooverville in the United States. 33:00.870 --> 33:05.030 Places like this all over the United States got that name, Hooverville. 33:05.030 --> 33:10.550 When about 4 or 5 or 6,000 of the vets are first here, 33:10.550 --> 33:13.750 Glassford faces the three commissioners 33:13.750 --> 33:16.750 who are running the town. 33:16.750 --> 33:19.750 Of course, at that time, three presidentially-appointed, 33:19.750 --> 33:22.750 Congressionally-approved commissioners are running the 33:22.750 --> 33:25.750 District, not a mayor. 33:25.750 --> 33:28.750 And one of them, who is in charge of the police department, 33:28.750 --> 33:31.750 confronts Glassford and says, "We don't want these guys here. 33:31.750 --> 33:34.750 We've got problems enough. 33:34.750 --> 33:37.750 We want them out and what you're doing is encouraging them to stay." 33:37.750 --> 33:42.000 And he, himself, his name is Crosby was a General in World War I also, 33:42.000 --> 33:45.360 and he says to Waters, and Waters recorded in his diary 33:45.360 --> 33:48.670 which we were fortunate enough to get at another library, 33:48.670 --> 33:52.350 and he says, "Is that an order?" 33:52.350 --> 33:55.350 And he says, "You know what an order is." 33:55.350 --> 33:58.350 And he says, "Yeah, I know what an order is. 33:58.350 --> 34:01.350 Is that an order?" And Crosby walks off. 34:01.350 --> 34:04.350 34:04.350 --> 34:07.350 So Glassford then gets the responsibility of taking all 34:07.350 --> 34:10.350 of these veterans, doing something with them, 34:10.350 --> 34:14.500 keeping them from doing something to the city and he comes up with a plan 34:14.500 --> 34:19.430 which is to cooperate with them and set up some kind of relationship 34:19.430 --> 34:22.430 with Waters, who becomes the head 34:22.430 --> 34:26.330 of the Bonus Army that's now pouring into Washington. 34:26.330 --> 34:31.900 Paul Dickson: Waters and Glassford are phenomenal two characters 34:31.900 --> 34:36.280 in a book that's loaded with famous people: MacArthur, Eisenhower, 34:36.280 --> 34:39.810 et cetera, et cetera, two Hoovers. 34:39.810 --> 34:42.810 These two guys are the dominant factors. 34:42.810 --> 34:45.810 And one of the things about Waters that's fascinating is, 34:45.810 --> 34:48.810 we found this out after the book was written, 34:48.810 --> 34:51.810 but Frank Capra's whole concept of the one guy who can come 34:51.810 --> 34:54.810 to Washington and change the world is based on his fascination 34:54.810 --> 34:57.840 with Waters, a guy that emerges as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 34:57.840 --> 35:01.880 et cetera, et cetera, the guy that comes out of the woodwork, 35:01.880 --> 35:06.990 fosters a change in society then disappears, 35:06.990 --> 35:10.390 slides back into the woodwork. 35:10.390 --> 35:14.360 And Glassford is -- it's almost hard to figure 35:14.360 --> 35:17.760 out why this guy is a bigger figure in American history. 35:17.760 --> 35:20.760 He's a painter. 35:20.760 --> 35:23.760 His first time he's ever listed in The Washington Post is 35:23.760 --> 35:26.760 as a tapestry artist at the exhibit of the Corcoran. 35:26.760 --> 35:30.210 If you Google him, you'll find him as a famous watercolorist, 35:30.210 --> 35:33.210 but he's got this presence. 35:33.210 --> 35:36.210 He never gets in a squad car; he rides around town 35:36.210 --> 35:39.210 on a blue Harley Davidson. 35:39.210 --> 35:42.210 He stops and talks to homeless people. 35:42.210 --> 35:45.210 He talks to everybody. 35:45.210 --> 35:48.210 And he's loved, everybody just loves this guy. 35:48.210 --> 35:51.210 He's almost like a movie actor playing the role of a cop. 35:51.210 --> 35:54.210 He just sells himself as this. 35:54.210 --> 35:57.210 And so the two guys basically keep control of the city 35:57.210 --> 36:00.210 and as this is happening the papers love this. 36:00.210 --> 36:03.210 This is an amazing story. 36:03.210 --> 36:06.210 And all of a sudden writers, John Dos Passos and Sinclair Lewis 36:06.210 --> 36:09.210 and everybody you can imagine are showing 36:09.210 --> 36:12.210 up in Washington to write about this. 36:12.210 --> 36:15.210 And as it emerges, it becomes almost like a, 36:15.210 --> 36:18.210 somebody once called it a World's Fair of the Poor. 36:18.210 --> 36:21.210 The Anacostia waterfront, you've got flagpole sitters 36:21.210 --> 36:24.210 and guys burying themselves alive and music everywhere 36:24.210 --> 36:27.210 and then the city is just all -- 36:27.210 --> 36:30.210 we have a map that we've done where we've found all these little camps, 36:30.210 --> 36:33.210 28 camps throughout the city, Haynes Point, 36:33.210 --> 36:36.210 all the way up in the northeast, all the way up in the northwest, 36:36.210 --> 36:39.210 down by the Lincoln Memorial. 36:39.210 --> 36:42.210 Some of them were housed in Jimmy Lake's Burlesque, you know, 36:42.210 --> 36:45.210 strip joint on 14th Street. I mean, they were everywhere. 36:45.210 --> 36:48.210 36:48.210 --> 36:51.210 And as the summer goes on, the numbers keep increasing. 36:51.210 --> 36:54.210 The numbers keep going up and they're getting up towards 45,000. 36:54.210 --> 36:58.870 And in the middle of all this a guy named Roy Wilkins, who has decided 36:58.870 --> 37:01.960 that the NAACP magazine, The Crisis, has become, 37:01.960 --> 37:04.960 he calls it, he says it's... Tom Allen: Ebony Tower. 37:04.960 --> 37:07.960 37:07.960 --> 37:10.960 Paul Dickson: Ebony Tower. Two Ebony Tower. 37:10.960 --> 37:13.960 37:13.960 --> 37:16.960 There's not enough real reporting. He gets on a train and comes down 37:16.960 --> 37:19.960 37:19.960 --> 37:22.960 and realizes there's no Jim Crow here 37:22.960 --> 37:25.960 because when they deprive both the blacks and the whites, 37:25.960 --> 37:28.960 they basically formed a union, 37:28.960 --> 37:31.960 so the Mississippi delegation is integrated. 37:31.960 --> 37:34.960 And Wilkins comes in and he says, "You see black feet 37:34.960 --> 37:37.960 and white feet sticking out from the same pup tent. 37:37.960 --> 37:40.960 The music..." 37:40.960 --> 37:43.960 Wilkins has this thing where one minute, 37:43.960 --> 37:46.960 there'll be a white guy playing "Shanty" and "Old Shantytown" 37:46.960 --> 37:49.960 and then he comes back and at the same piano, 37:49.960 --> 37:52.960 there'd be a black guy playing "St. Louis Blues." 37:52.960 --> 37:55.960 So it was this moment of -- and of course Wilkins sees it as the model 37:55.960 --> 37:58.960 for the future of an integrated America. 37:58.960 --> 38:01.960 So there's this thing going on that's huge. 38:01.960 --> 38:04.960 The numbers are huge and the vitality in a very, 38:04.960 --> 38:07.960 very bad year of this thing is very much alive. 38:07.960 --> 38:10.960 And then... 38:10.960 --> 38:13.960 Tom Allen: One of the phenomena we came across, 38:13.960 --> 38:16.960 besides the racial aspect of it, was these men are very formal. 38:16.960 --> 38:19.960 They wear white shirts. 38:19.960 --> 38:22.960 How they keep them clean, I don't know. 38:22.960 --> 38:25.960 There's mud out in Anacostia. 38:25.960 --> 38:28.960 They put on their white shirts and they go into the halls of Congress 38:28.960 --> 38:31.960 and they go and they tell Congressmen, 38:31.960 --> 38:34.960 "We got to get this bill on the floor. 38:34.960 --> 38:37.960 We can't have it killed." 38:37.960 --> 38:40.960 They manage to get the bill out on the floor 38:40.960 --> 38:43.960 through their absolute lobbying. 38:43.960 --> 38:46.960 It comes out on the floor and the House votes to give them the bonus. 38:46.960 --> 38:49.960 And now there's a real crisis in town because Hoover, 38:49.960 --> 38:52.960 President Hoover, has been against the bonus from the very beginning, 38:52.960 --> 38:55.960 but it's actually passed the House, 38:55.960 --> 38:58.960 now what's going to happen in the Senate? 38:58.960 --> 39:01.960 And then there's another area of concern and that is the Army Chief 39:01.960 --> 39:04.960 of Staff, Douglas MacArthur, the youngest Army Chief of Staff, 39:04.960 --> 39:07.960 has been getting reports from the military intelligence division 39:07.960 --> 39:10.960 about the possibility of radicals and people who want 39:10.960 --> 39:13.960 to overthrow the government arriving in the nation's capital. 39:13.960 --> 39:16.960 They infiltrate the Bonus Army and they come back 39:16.960 --> 39:19.960 with hair-raising reports about the fact 39:19.960 --> 39:22.960 that there are terrible potential rebellious people here. 39:22.960 --> 39:25.960 The Army had made a little study. 39:25.960 --> 39:28.960 We found one document that showed exactly 39:28.960 --> 39:31.960 where the government was on this. 39:31.960 --> 39:34.960 They had studied the problems in Germany when the German veterans 39:34.960 --> 39:37.960 of World War I rebelled against the system. 39:37.960 --> 39:40.960 And the Army, the German Army had to go and take care of it. 39:40.960 --> 39:43.960 The German Army used machine guns, tear gas, tanks, 39:43.960 --> 39:46.960 even a couple of airplanes in the cities 39:46.960 --> 39:49.960 where there had been insurrections in Germany. 39:49.960 --> 39:52.960 The U.S. Army prepared a little document saying 39:52.960 --> 39:55.960 "If it happens here, we've got a model." 39:55.960 --> 39:58.960 What the Germans did in the German cities. 39:58.960 --> 40:02.030 So, while MacArthur is starting to wonder about this, 40:02.030 --> 40:05.720 his principal aide is Major Dwight D. Eisenhower. 40:05.720 --> 40:12.260 And Eisenhower is detached from what's going on at this point. 40:12.260 --> 40:15.260 Though MacArthur is starting to see these reports. 40:15.260 --> 40:18.260 And many of the reports -- incidentally we used the Freedom 40:18.260 --> 40:23.850 of Information Act to get some of these 1932 reports -- 40:23.850 --> 40:29.220 the reports say that we observed Negroes and people 40:29.220 --> 40:32.220 with Jewish features at many of these meetings. 40:32.220 --> 40:35.880 And that's a sure sign that there's going to be trouble. 40:35.880 --> 40:41.810 So MacArthur starts secret riot training at Fort Myer. 40:41.810 --> 40:46.990 The horses are run up against people screaming, yelling, 40:46.990 --> 40:50.470 hitting cans so that the horses can be acclimated 40:50.470 --> 40:53.470 to the possibility of a riot. 40:53.470 --> 40:56.470 They also start making secret plans to bring tanks 40:56.470 --> 40:59.470 into the District and to alert Army units. 40:59.470 --> 41:02.470 Now, nothing has happened. 41:02.470 --> 41:05.550 In fact, this is the lowest crime rate, in the summer of '32, 41:05.550 --> 41:08.550 that Washington has ever seen 41:08.550 --> 41:12.070 and Glassford has got things under control. 41:12.070 --> 41:15.070 Now that the House has passed it, 41:15.070 --> 41:18.350 it looks like something successful is going to come of it, 41:18.350 --> 41:22.950 but now it's in front of the Senate and things don't look good. 41:22.950 --> 41:27.220 The Senate goes into a long session lasting into the night. 41:27.220 --> 41:28.570 41:28.570 --> 41:33.330 Paul Dickson: By this time, also, the night of the Senate vote, 41:33.330 --> 41:37.180 the veterans have piled around the Hill, around the Capitol -- 41:37.180 --> 41:40.900 the picture that's on the poster that was distributed for this event. 41:40.900 --> 41:43.900 They're actually sleeping on the ground in front of the Capitol. 41:43.900 --> 41:46.900 That's the night of the Senate vote. The Senate defeats the bonus. 41:46.900 --> 41:50.010 41:50.010 --> 41:53.010 The senators get out of the building through the tunnels, 41:53.010 --> 41:59.110 which we all know and love, and they -- and it's up to Waters. 41:59.110 --> 42:03.870 Word comes out, Waters is literally out on the front porch of the Senate 42:03.870 --> 42:06.870 with at least 10,000 people around him. 42:06.870 --> 42:10.260 He's got to announce that the Senate has defeated the bill 42:10.260 --> 42:13.260 and he can immediately feel this, sort of, 42:13.260 --> 42:16.260 anger and resentment building. 42:16.260 --> 42:20.910 And one of the many reporters that hung with Waters and hung 42:20.910 --> 42:25.160 on his every word was Elsie Robinson and was with the Hearst paper 42:25.160 --> 42:30.450 and Elsie leans over to Waters and whispers something in his ear 42:30.450 --> 42:33.740 and then Waters yells out, "Sing America, Sing America." 42:33.740 --> 42:36.740 And they all, this angry, sort of, mob, 42:36.740 --> 42:39.740 which has really felt they've been cheated 42:39.740 --> 42:43.680 out of their bonus once again, one by one, it's almost like something 42:43.680 --> 42:46.680 out of a Hollywood musical or something, 42:46.680 --> 42:49.680 one by one the first guys start singing "America" then more come on 42:49.680 --> 42:52.680 and then more and they're all finally singing America. 42:52.680 --> 42:55.680 And then after this is over, they sing it twice, 42:55.680 --> 42:59.170 they start singing these virulently anti-Hoover songs 42:59.170 --> 43:02.170 which are a little bit bawdy, but they -- 43:02.170 --> 43:05.170 Basically the crowd is caught under control, they all drift back 43:05.170 --> 43:08.170 across the 11th Street Bridge to Anacostia 43:08.170 --> 43:11.170 and the other camps around the city. 43:11.170 --> 43:14.170 Everybody, the whole city breathes this huge collective sigh of relief. 43:14.170 --> 43:17.170 It's over. These guys are going to go home. 43:17.170 --> 43:20.170 43:20.170 --> 43:23.170 The Senate and the House believe they are going to go home, 43:23.170 --> 43:26.170 but what's the fallacy in all this, and Glassford understands it, 43:26.170 --> 43:29.170 most of these people don't have a home 43:29.170 --> 43:32.170 to go to, let along anything else. 43:32.170 --> 43:35.170 And Waters at this point does an amazing thing. 43:35.170 --> 43:38.170 Tom Allen: He's become pretty savvy. 43:38.170 --> 43:41.170 He calls a press conference and he says, "We're not going home. 43:41.170 --> 43:44.170 We're going to stay here 'til 1945." [Laughter] "If that's necessary." 43:44.170 --> 43:47.170 43:47.170 --> 43:50.170 Well, even Glassford now is getting a little edgy. 43:50.170 --> 43:53.170 The summer has been getting hotter. 43:53.170 --> 43:56.170 There are sanitary problems over in Anacostia. 43:56.170 --> 43:59.170 There is fear of disease spreading. 43:59.170 --> 44:02.170 But the biggest fear of all is now that Congress is out of town and now 44:02.170 --> 44:05.170 that there's a presidential election coming up, 44:05.170 --> 44:08.170 one in which Hoover has been re-nominated 44:08.170 --> 44:11.170 and Franklin D. Roosevelt has been nominated by the Democrats, 44:11.170 --> 44:14.170 then the real target is going to be the White House. 44:14.170 --> 44:18.020 So, for the first time in recorded time, they locked the gates 44:18.020 --> 44:22.680 to the White House and they put special Secret Service people 44:22.680 --> 44:26.080 on the area all around the White House. 44:26.080 --> 44:29.080 Glassford assigns police there. 44:29.080 --> 44:32.080 He's afraid that there's really going to be an attack 44:32.080 --> 44:35.080 on the White House, which never materializes, 44:35.080 --> 44:38.180 but that fear starts another series of events into action, 44:38.180 --> 44:41.690 in which the commissioners start to feel 44:41.690 --> 44:45.510 "We've got to get these guys out." 44:45.510 --> 44:48.510 And they approach -- there were some meetings. 44:48.510 --> 44:53.230 They approach Waters through Glassford and they set a date 44:53.230 --> 45:00.370 for the removal of the veterans who are camped in the visible area 45:00.370 --> 45:03.370 between the White House and Capitol Hill. 45:03.370 --> 45:07.260 There are buildings that have been half-demolished to make way 45:07.260 --> 45:10.260 for what will become the Federal Triangle. 45:10.260 --> 45:14.830 And they are stuffed full of veterans and their families. 45:14.830 --> 45:18.280 So Hoover, through the commissioners, 45:18.280 --> 45:21.280 says, "They must be evicted." And he gives the job to Glassford. 45:21.280 --> 45:24.280 45:24.280 --> 45:27.710 Glassford and Waters get together and they work out an orderly way 45:27.710 --> 45:30.710 to evacuate those buildings. 45:30.710 --> 45:34.910 And the unspoken reason for it is they're going to remove 45:34.910 --> 45:38.950 from public sight a constant reminder 45:38.950 --> 45:41.950 of what the Depression is all about 45:41.950 --> 45:46.240 and that it's affecting Hoover's potential presidential campaign. 45:46.240 --> 45:49.240 But all they want to do is get them out of the center of Washington. 45:49.240 --> 45:52.240 There's no mention of Anacostia. And then the day comes. 45:52.240 --> 45:55.240 45:55.240 --> 45:58.240 Paul Dickson: The day is July 28, 1932. 45:58.240 --> 46:01.240 The day starts out orderly. 46:01.240 --> 46:04.240 They start evacuating these men and families, most of whom are literally 46:04.240 --> 46:07.240 at the base of the Hill, literally a strong, you know, 46:07.240 --> 46:10.240 wood-shot from there with a golf ball. 46:10.240 --> 46:13.240 But they're literally down there and they start moving them out. 46:13.240 --> 46:16.240 The area's cordoned off. 46:16.240 --> 46:19.240 There's a couple of moments of anger and violence. 46:19.240 --> 46:22.240 A couple bricks are thrown. 46:22.240 --> 46:25.240 Glassford has his badge ripped off by one of the Bonus guys. 46:25.240 --> 46:28.240 There's a lot of anger because they feel they've been betrayed, 46:28.240 --> 46:31.240 double-crossed, they're being thrown out. 46:31.240 --> 46:34.240 Because Glassford, in fact, 46:34.240 --> 46:37.240 had given them these buildings to begin with. 46:37.240 --> 46:40.240 They were not squatters as some of the press said; 46:40.240 --> 46:43.240 they were legitimately there. 46:43.240 --> 46:46.240 Waters said, "You can use these buildings." 46:46.240 --> 46:49.240 So, they were not squatters. 46:49.240 --> 46:52.240 So what happens is, they finally, Waters said, "Let's take a break 46:52.240 --> 46:55.240 for lunch," comes back after lunch, 46:55.240 --> 46:58.240 there's another fracas, but this one turns sour. 46:58.240 --> 47:01.240 A rogue cop, actually two rogue cops, get in a tousle with a couple 47:01.240 --> 47:04.240 of the veterans and angry words are spoken, some bricks are thrown. 47:04.240 --> 47:07.240 But two guys are shot and one dies on the spot; he's shot in the back. 47:07.240 --> 47:10.240 The other's shot and will die a few days later. 47:10.240 --> 47:13.240 Looks like the whole thing's going to explode in violence. 47:13.240 --> 47:16.240 Of course, these guys are unarmed 47:16.240 --> 47:19.240 so there's a limit to how much violence. 47:19.240 --> 47:22.240 Waters, I mean, Glassford again says, "We've got it under control. 47:22.240 --> 47:25.240 We've got in under control." He brings them back. 47:25.240 --> 47:28.240 47:28.240 --> 47:31.240 They start taking the wounded guy off and they're going 47:31.240 --> 47:34.240 to bring it back under control 47:34.240 --> 47:37.240 and then what happens is there's a turncoat, there's an informer 47:37.240 --> 47:40.240 in Glassford's ranks at that time. Tom Allen: He's been hired. 47:40.240 --> 47:43.240 47:43.240 --> 47:46.240 He's a lieutenant in the municipal police, but his real job is 47:46.240 --> 47:49.240 to tell the commissioners what's going on. 47:49.240 --> 47:52.240 Now he slips away, goes to the commissioners 47:52.240 --> 47:55.240 and he says, "It's out of control." 47:55.240 --> 47:58.240 So, there is a plan to defend the city against insurrection, 47:58.240 --> 48:01.240 it's called the White Plan. 48:01.240 --> 48:04.240 And there are elements of it that MacArthur is setting up; 48:04.240 --> 48:07.240 he's going to trigger it. 48:07.240 --> 48:10.240 So he says, "Okay, it's time to defend the city 48:10.240 --> 48:13.240 with the United States Army." 48:13.240 --> 48:16.240 He's gotten authorization through the Secretary of War, 48:16.240 --> 48:19.240 but it's unclear, exactly, what the extent of the authorization is 48:19.240 --> 48:22.240 because the war plan calls 48:22.240 --> 48:25.240 for a military take-over of the government. 48:25.240 --> 48:28.240 In other words, there has 48:28.240 --> 48:31.240 to be a martial law invoked by the president. 48:31.240 --> 48:36.490 The president is off in the shadows, so they kind of bring 48:36.490 --> 48:40.670 in martial law, but it's not officially declared. 48:40.670 --> 48:45.530 They pick up the phone and call Fort Myer and the man at the other end 48:45.530 --> 48:48.530 of the phone who picks it up is George Patton. 48:48.530 --> 48:53.360 Patton is the Executive Officer for one of the cavalry units 48:53.360 --> 48:57.180 in Fort Myer and he's ready to go. 48:57.180 --> 49:01.090 So, the cavalry unit, sabers flashing, 49:01.090 --> 49:04.750 come across the Memorial Bridge and get to the Ellipse, 49:04.750 --> 49:07.930 where the troops are going to be assembled. 49:07.930 --> 49:14.050 Meanwhile, there are troops coming up in a boat from Fort Washington, 49:14.050 --> 49:20.450 lower in the Potomac, and there are infantrymen. 49:20.450 --> 49:25.950 There are thousands of tear gas grenades that have been assembled. 49:25.950 --> 49:28.950 They're brought to the Ellipse. 49:28.950 --> 49:32.290 Six tanks are put on trucks and brought on by 49:32.290 --> 49:35.390 and no one has said a word of this to Glassford. 49:35.390 --> 49:39.210 Glassford hears that something is happening. 49:39.210 --> 49:43.140 He gets on his motorcycle and goes up to the Ellipse 49:43.140 --> 49:46.710 and confronts MacArthur, whom he really likes. 49:46.710 --> 49:50.350 He's an old Army man and they knew each other in France 49:50.350 --> 49:53.350 and he says, "What's going on?" 49:53.350 --> 49:56.350 And MacArthur says, "I'm going to break back the Bonus Army." 49:56.350 --> 50:01.500 And at that point, tanks start coming down Pennsylvania Avenue 50:01.500 --> 50:04.500 and troops start coming down Pennsylvania Avenue. 50:04.500 --> 50:07.500 These are infantry men with fixed bayonets 50:07.500 --> 50:10.500 and their cartridges in their rifles. 50:10.500 --> 50:13.500 And there's also some trucks that have machine guns 50:13.500 --> 50:16.500 that are off to the side. 50:16.500 --> 50:19.500 I mean, they're ready for a real confrontation with thousands 50:19.500 --> 50:22.500 of unarmed men and their women and children. 50:22.500 --> 50:25.500 And that's what Washington faces that afternoon. 50:25.500 --> 50:28.500 Nobody quite knows what's going on. Some kids think it's a parade. 50:28.500 --> 50:31.500 50:31.500 --> 50:34.500 Some people actually applaud the troops as they come 50:34.500 --> 50:37.500 down Pennsylvania Avenue. 50:37.500 --> 50:40.500 Paul Dickson: By the time the evacuation of downtown is all over, 50:40.500 --> 50:43.500 they've fired about a thousand tear gas canisters. 50:43.500 --> 50:46.500 Many federal workers are getting out of work; they come and some 50:46.500 --> 50:49.500 of them are swept away in buses and driven out to the Midwest. 50:49.500 --> 50:52.500 Kids -- We had interviewed one guy who was seven-years-old, 50:52.500 --> 50:55.900 was gassed coming out of a hardware store with his father. 50:55.900 --> 50:58.900 A whole city is turned over 50:58.900 --> 51:02.310 and all the camps are burned on Pennsylvania Avenue. 51:02.310 --> 51:05.310 They're burned. They're on fire. 51:05.310 --> 51:08.310 51:08.310 --> 51:11.310 And it looks like it's been accomplished; that Hoover's goal 51:11.310 --> 51:14.310 of clearing downtown has been accomplished. 51:14.310 --> 51:17.310 It's been a mess. 51:17.310 --> 51:20.310 A lot of people, civilians, are hurt in the process and, again, 51:20.310 --> 51:23.310 many people are put in jail and incarcerated or driven away. 51:23.310 --> 51:26.310 And then, finally, they break for dinner and MacArthur is poised 51:26.310 --> 51:29.310 at the 11th Street Bridge, right at the 11th Street Bridge. 51:29.310 --> 51:32.310 There are clear orders, there are clear orders that he is not 51:32.310 --> 51:35.310 to cross the 11th Street Bridge, which at that time was a drawbridge. 51:35.310 --> 51:38.310 So, tactically, what they've done is driven all the guys back 51:38.310 --> 51:41.310 across the 11th Street Bridge into Anacostia into these other camps. 51:41.310 --> 51:44.310 They want to control them; all they have 51:44.310 --> 51:47.310 to do is lift the drawbridge and, except for, you know, 51:47.310 --> 51:50.310 raising it higher the next morning's commuters, 51:50.310 --> 51:53.310 I mean they've got them, they're over there. 51:53.310 --> 51:56.310 They're stuck. 51:56.310 --> 51:59.310 But rather than do that, MacArthur chooses 51:59.310 --> 52:02.310 to disobey Herbert Hoover's written orders 52:02.310 --> 52:05.310 and crosses the bridge and burns them out. 52:05.310 --> 52:08.310 And allows, only because one newspaperman said, allowed people 52:08.310 --> 52:11.310 to get out with a few possessions, 52:11.310 --> 52:14.310 but he was determined to burn them out. 52:14.310 --> 52:17.310 Eisenhower reminds him that he's disobeying an order. 52:17.310 --> 52:20.310 Other people remind him. 52:20.310 --> 52:23.310 But he says, "I'm at war, I have no time for written orders." 52:23.310 --> 52:26.310 So MacArthur goes over, then at midnight declares 52:26.310 --> 52:29.310 in a midnight press conference that Hoover's a man of great genius 52:29.310 --> 52:32.310 and great courage for breaking the back of this insurrection. 52:32.310 --> 52:35.310 Franklin D. Roosevelt wakes up the next morning in Hyde Park 52:35.310 --> 52:38.310 and the windows are open and he opens his New York Times 52:38.310 --> 52:41.310 and there are the pictures of the whole camps being burned out 52:41.310 --> 52:44.310 and soldiers holding torches to the houses or shacks. 52:44.310 --> 52:47.310 Roosevelt declares to an aide that he's won the election. 52:47.310 --> 52:50.310 He doesn't even have to run against Hoover at this point. 52:50.310 --> 52:53.310 So that's the -- How much time do we have? 52:53.310 --> 52:59.510 Tom Allen: Yeah, we'll do a quickie and that is that in '33, mostly, 52:59.510 --> 53:02.510 if it's ever treated at all, the Bonus Army is treated 53:02.510 --> 53:05.510 as the incident we just described. It's all over that evening. 53:05.510 --> 53:08.510 53:08.510 --> 53:11.510 But in '33, they come back again because now Roosevelt is President 53:11.510 --> 53:14.510 and the New Deal is in force and they're going 53:14.510 --> 53:17.510 to get their bonus, only they don't. 53:17.510 --> 53:20.570 And Roosevelt is as passionately against the bonus as Hoover was. 53:20.570 --> 53:23.570 And this happens again in '34 and in '35. 53:23.570 --> 53:27.690 Paul Dickson: And a number of them are finally sent off by the New Deal 53:27.690 --> 53:32.160 to work camps in Florida and the Carolinas to work at a dollar a day. 53:32.160 --> 53:35.570 They have to get them out of town because now the eye-sore 53:35.570 --> 53:39.130 that Hoover was suffering with these guys now is Roosevelt's thing 53:39.130 --> 53:42.130 and Roosevelt's coming up on his second election. 53:42.130 --> 53:46.470 So they ship them all out of here through an extraordinary sequence 53:46.470 --> 53:49.560 of events which are maybe the most melodramatic part of the book. 53:49.560 --> 53:52.580 About 300 of them are killed in a hurricane 53:52.580 --> 53:55.580 and the hurricane is laid at the feet. 53:55.580 --> 53:58.740 And the fact that they were left there without a way to get out, 53:58.740 --> 54:02.530 no train to get them out or evacuate them from the Florida Keys, 54:02.530 --> 54:06.270 is basically felt to be a threat to the New Deal 54:06.270 --> 54:09.790 and is also what finally gets them -- For the third time, 54:09.790 --> 54:14.150 they finally override Roosevelt's third veto 54:14.150 --> 54:17.150 and they finally pass the bonus 54:17.150 --> 54:20.150 and they finally get the bonus and everybody's happy. 54:20.150 --> 54:23.150 And that becomes really the precursor for the G.I. 54:23.150 --> 54:26.150 Bill because they begin to realize what happened to the guys 54:26.150 --> 54:29.150 who got the bonus was that they were immediately propelled 54:29.150 --> 54:32.150 into the middle class. 54:32.150 --> 54:35.150 They really got to be -- they got to buy the house. 54:35.150 --> 54:38.150 They finally got, and there's this mini-bump, 54:38.150 --> 54:41.150 in the middle of the Depression, of prosperity. 54:41.150 --> 54:44.150 And it was self-evident to everybody after that. 54:44.150 --> 54:47.150 You've got to care of these guys and when you do take care of them, 54:47.150 --> 54:50.150 the net result is that society is sustained. 54:50.150 --> 54:53.650 You get a punch in the economy through it. 54:53.650 --> 55:05.150 55:05.150 --> 55:10.150