On Veterans’ Day this past Monday, Malibu author Glen Craney found himself thinking about returned service men suffering from the trauma of war, many of whom were homeless and destitute.
But rather than returning Iraq war vets, Craney had in mind veterans of another army.
In his new historical novel, “The Yanks Are Starving,” Craney tells a tale based on the true story of the Bonus Army—a group of 20,000 World War I veterans who in 1932 camped outside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., desperately requesting early payment of cash bonuses due in 1945.
The situation quickly spiraled out of control, though, and presidential orders to clear the protesters resulted in members of the Bonus Army being fired upon by enlisted troops from the same U.S. army they previously served.
“Americans seem to have short memories,” Craney said. “When I tell people about the Bonus Army, they are fascinated and no one seems to have heard of it. Yet you had American veterans being fired on by other American forces.”
Craney’s novel, narrated by Bonus Army veteran Walter W. Waters, focuses on eight real-life characters who ended up as part of the Bonus Army ‘occupation’ of Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1932, from their green recruit days at West Point Military Academy, to the World War I battle lines of France, to their desperate stand at the height of the Depression.
An estimated 20,000 troops arrived in Washington that summer, along with their families and children, hopping trains and arranging whatever transportation they could.
“It was a very tense time for the country,” Craney said. “Hoover was surrounded by hard-liners in Congress who insisted that the president couldn’t bust the federal budget just to take care of these ‘moochers.’ The Democrats in Congress had already passed a bill to provide these veterans with bonuses, but the money wasn’t scheduled to be released for another few years. The Bonus Army vets were so destitute and sick, they argued that they wouldn’t be alive to see their bonuses in time—more than 12 years after they had served.”
After six weeks of futile protesting, the situation spun out of control. On July 28, 1932, 600 cavalry and infantry under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and Major Dwight D. Eisenhower marched at the president’s command into a tent city outside the capitol where the Bonus Army was staying. They cleared the protesters at bayonet point, then set fire to the tent city—and shots were fired. Several protesters died, including children.
The incident drew headlines, as the nation associated Hoover with sending federal troops against sick, hungry and homeless veterans and their families.
Craney first came upon the story of the Bonus Army while in Washington, where he worked in the Washington press corps and wrote for the Congressional Quarterly. He kept thinking, “I gotta do this,” until he discovered that the private papers of Pelham Glassford, a 17-year-old recruit who fought in World War I and was later Washington’s district police chief, had been donated to UCLA. The research was at Craney’s fingertips and he dove in.
“My mentor was Harry Essex, a professor and legendary writer at UCLA who urged me to write this story,” Craney said. “I thought it would make a great movie.”
The incident proved a debacle for Hoover and his party. The next November, an outraged electorate voted Hoover out of office, to be replaced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Republicans lost many seats in Congress.
“The Bonus Army was a real grassroots movement,” Craney said. “The veterans who survived the ordeal finally got their bonuses about four years later, and Congress learned the hard way what happens when you fail to take care of your fighting men and women.”
