Why the US Lost the Vietnam War

A Skeptics View of American History

Episode 19 The Real Blunders of the Vietnam War

Mark Stoler PhD

Film Review

In one of his better lectures, Stoler debunks a number of myths about the Vietnam War.

He traces the history of the war to the reversal of Franklin Roosevelt’s policy opposing continued French colonization of Indochina. With Truman’s initiation of the Cold War, the US sought to strengthen France’s suppression of colonial independence movements as a defense against communist expansion into Eastern Europe. Truman also saw Western control of Indochina as essential to guaranteeing US-occupied Japan’s access Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s rubber, oil and mineral resources in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 1954, a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu led the French military to withdraw from Vietnam. Under the 1954 Geneva Accord (which the US refused to sign), Laos and Cambodia were awarded independence, while Vietnam was temporarily split at 17th parallel (pending reunification elections in 1956). The southern Republic of Vietnam was ruled by a French puppet government under King Bao Dai, and the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam by Ho Chi Minh.

According to Stoler, the US government made their first major blunder in 1918, when President Woodrow Wilson refused to meet with Ho Chi Minh (seeking US support for Vietnam’s independence struggle) during the Versailles treaty negotiations. So he met with the Soviets. However the biggest biggest blunder was misperceiving the independence struggle (supported by the majority of both North and South Vietnames) ar in Vietnam as a Cold War proxy war sponsored by the Soviet Union and China. Stoler blames this mistake on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee and their successful purge of all major Asian experts from the US State Department.

Refusing to hold elections in 1956 (because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win), the Eisenhower administration replaced the king with a Vietnamese exile living in the US named Ngo Dinh Diem. They also massively ramped up military and economic aid to South Vietnam, emboldening Diem to begin a ruthless purge of Vietnam’s freedom fighters. Most went underground to join the Viet Minh (national independence cadres) Ho Chi Minh started in 1941. Calling themselves the National Liberation Front, they were known in the West as the Viet Cong.

Under Kennedy, the US responded to continuing Vietnamese unrest by sending in special forces (Green Berets) and allowing the CIA to assassinate Diem. The number of US “advisors” (to the South Vietnamese arm) in South Vietnam increased from 900 in 1961 to 17,000 in 1963.

By 1964, North Vietnam was on the verge of defeating the US puppet government in the South. Facing conservative hawk Barry Goldwater in the November election, President Lyndon Johnson (determined not to be blamed for losing Vietnam) increased troop numbers to 500,000.

This film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/real-blunders-vietnam-war

Word War II: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction

A Skeptic’s Guide to American History

Episode 19 Misconceptions and Myths About World War II

Mark Stoler PhD

Film Review

I found this lecture, in which Stoler purports to challenge prevailing myths about World War II, extremely disappointing. It’s been well-established since 1943 (when George Seldes published Facts and Fascism) that numerous Wall Street corporations funded the rearmament of the Third Reich, enabling Hitler to launch World War II. Charles Higham also covers this in depth in his 1983 book Trading with the Enemy.

Instead Stoler makes the blanket statement that war was inevitable because Hitler refused to be “appeased” by Britain’s appeasement strategy. This also turns out to be untrue, based on evidence Peter Padfield explores in his 2013 book  Hess, Hitler and Churchill: the real turning point of the Second World War. The book spells out how Hitler offered Britain a secret peace deal, in which which Germany would withdraw from Western Europe prior to invading the Soviet Union. And how Churchill rejected the offer.

Stoler does address the common myth that the US singlehandedly won World War II for the Allies. Although the US contributed two-thirds of the Allies’ munitions and military equipment, they only contributed 25% of the troops and suffered the lowest number of casualties (killed and wounded). US casualties totaled 418,500 and British 449,800. In contrast, Russian casualties were between 25 and 29 million. Russia also inflicted 93% of the casualties experienced by the German military.

However he disputes the so-called “conspiracy theory” that President Roosevelt had advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Robert Stinnett has clearly documented that US intelligence had decrypted various Japanese military and diplomatic cables delineating the the exact time and date of the Pearl attack and transmitted them not only to Roosevelt, but to key members of his cabinet and top military leaders, including US Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall.**

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*See also https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_Hitler.pdf)

**See https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/12/06/pearl-harbor-roosevelt-knew/

The film can be viewed free at Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/world-war-ii-misconceptions-and-myths

 

Did Roosevelt’s New Deal End the Great Depression?

The Skeptics Guide to American History

Episode 18 What Did Roosvelt’s New Deal Really Do?

Film Review

In this lecture, Stoler argues that contrary to popular perception, Franklin Roosevelt was a wealthy, aristocratic conservative in the traditional European sense (see Who Were the First Populists ). Stoler claims he is falsely credited with ending the Great Depression (according to Stoler, World War II ended it). Stoler blames this failure on FDR’s unwillingess to incur debt (as recommended by British economist John Maynard Keynes) to stimulate the US economy. I disagree. In my view, FDR’s failure stemmed from his unwillingness to instruct the US Treasury to create money to spend into the economy (instead of borrowing it), as occurred in Canada and New Zealand.*

When Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the US was experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history, with an unemployment rate of 25%. An estimated 40-60% of the US population earned below the marginal subsistence income of $2,000 a year. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt shut all the banks, Wall Street and the Chicago Board of Trade – to prevent investors from collapsing them by withdrawing all their money.

He then called a special session of Congress to pass a banking bill (written by the banks), to cut World War I veterans benefits, to reduce federal salaries and to enact a new tax on beer and wine.

During their first six weeks in session, Congress passed seven major New Deal bills to create jobs and help pump money into the US economy and to better regulate Wall Street to better protect it against future financial crashes. These include the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act (suspended US anti-trust laws to encourage price fixing and cartels and allowed for federal regulation of wages and prices), the Home Owners Loan Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps (creating 300,000 jobs for young men 17-28) and bills creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (to better regulate Wall Street), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which protects depositors’ saving if their bank fails) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).**

As a result of these measures, the US economy began to recover in 1934.

However in 1935, the recovery stalled as unemployment crept upward towards 1929 levels. In 1935-36, Roosevelt responded with the Second New Deal, which included legislation creating the Works Progress Administration (employing 8 million Americans – 1/3 of the jobless), Social Security and unemployment insurance, the National Labor Relations Board (guaranteeing US workers the right to collective bargaining), a rural electrical electrification program, as well as higher taxes on the weathy and greater regulator control over banks and utilities.

This new swathe of laws generated major claims from business that Roosevelt was a communist and socialist.*** Disturbed by these attacks, Roosevelt began to cut federal spending following his 1936 reelection. Around the same time, the Federal Reserve reduced the amount of money in circulation. These cutbacks totally wiped out the economic gains the US had made between 1933 and 1936, leading to a 33% drop in industrial production, a 35% drop in wages, a 13% drop in national income and an increase in unemployment to 18%.

The New Deal essentially ended in 1938 after 1) the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional and 2) Roosevelt lost the support of Congress. The Depression would only end in 1941, as military production ramped up following US entry into World War II.

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*Contrary to popular belief, most new money isn’t created by the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve (except in the case of Quantitative Easing, in which the Federal Reserve creates new money to buy back Treasury bonds from private banks). Most new money is created by private banks out of thin air when they make loans.

**The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation created by congressional charter on May 18, 1933, to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley (a region disproportionately affected by the Depression).

***Stoler makes no mention of assassination attempt against Roosevelt exposed by retired general Smedley Butler. See https://constantinereport.com/smedley-butler-and-the-fascist-plot-to-overthrow-fdr/

****By increasing the reserves required for private banks to create new money.

The film can be view free at Kanopy

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/what-did-roosevelts-new-deal-really-do

Hidden History: The Legacy of President Herbert Hoover

A Skeptics View of American History

Episode 17 Hoover and the Great Depression

Film Review

In this lecture, Stoler attempts to separate fact from mythology in evaluating the presidency of Herbert Hoover. The latter is commonly blamed for the deep economic depression Americans experienced during the 1930s.

I was very surprised to learn that prior to his election in 1928, Hoover was considered to be a progressive humanitarian, based on his work in international relief programs. As Secretary of Commerce in Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic administration, he embraced the progressive ideal of using business-government cooperation to abolish poverty. He first came to public attention for organizing food relief to Belgium during World War I and to Central and Western Europe following the war.

Stoler lists a number of economic causes for the Great Depression (aka The Banker-Engineered Deflationary Crisis of 1927-40), but fails to mention the most important: namely the deliberate contraction of the money supply by private banks.*.

Stoler enumerates a number of New Deal  programs started by Hoover but mistakenly credited to Roosevelt. These include the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. the Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Act (providing loans to states to help them create jobs), the Federal Farm Board (created to buy surplus crops from farmers) and the 1932 Glass-Steagall Banking Act. The latter allowed banks to offer commercial paper* and mortgage contracts as collateral on federal loans.

According to Stoler, Hoover’s biggest mistake was ordering the Army attack on the Bonus Army protest in Washington (see The US Government Assault on World War I Veterans and Their Families)

His second biggest mistake was his passage of the Smith-Hawley Act, which significantly reduced international trade through punitive tariffs.

Hoover’s policies, as would Roosevelt’s, would prove ineffective in ending the Great Depression. As Stoler points out in a later lecture on FDR, only US entry into World War I would end the Depression. Yet, owing to Roosevelt’s far greater political experience (the US presidency was Hoover’s first elected office), the former would be revered for failed New Deal policies – while the latter would be demonized.

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*During the early 20th century, as now, private banks created the vast majority of the money in circulation. Carroll Quigley outlines their role in triggering the Great Depression in his masterpiece Tragedy and Hope. See The Real Vampires: An Insider’s View of Banks

**Bank commercial paper is an unsecured form of promissory note that pays a fixed rate of interest

The film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/hoover-and-great-depression-revisited

Plutocracy V: America’s Brutal Treatment of Its Working Class

Plutocracy V: Subterranean Fire

Directed by Scott Noble (2017)

Film Review

This documentary provides a comprehensive labor history of the United States, involving the most violent history of union repression in the world.

Largely owing to inhuman pay and working conditions, American workers first attempted to organization soon after the birth of large scale industrialization in the US. Prior to the passage of Roosevelt’s National Labor Relations Act, most worker strikes were suppressed violently by the National Guard, the US Army or private armies hired by factory owners.

The initial era of radical unionizing (1870-1914) abated with World War I and brutal government repression via the Red Scare and Palmer Raids. (1) Despite massive profits Wall Street businesses amassed during the so-called “Roaring” Twenties, more than 60% of US families were earning less than $2,000 a year (with $2,500 the minimum income necessary for a family four).

With the 1929 Wall Street crash came the Great Depression. Unemployment surged to 25% and skyrocketing poverty led to a resurgence in union organizing and strikes. Pay cuts and worsening working conditions would give rise to the “sit down” strike, in which striking workers occupied their factories. Loathe to damage their valuable machinery, employers refrained from launching violent attacks on sit down strikes. In this way workers at many companies (including GM, Chrysler and Ford) won the right to form unions.

In 1935, John L Lewis formed the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), which unlike the American Federation Labor (which only represented skilled workers), represented all industrial workers regardless of sex, race or national origin.

The same year Roosevelt, courting the union vote in the 1936 election, introduced the National Labor Relations Act. The Act gave all Americans (except for domestic and agricultural workers) the right to unionize.

A typical politician, following reelection, Roosevelt ordered the FBI to “monitor” radical unions and other groups, including the CIO, United Auto Workers, United Mine Workers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP).

With the approach of World War II, federal forces of repression overtly suppressed union organizing, via the Smith Act (2), and the formation (in 1938) of the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In 1939, the US Supreme Court would declare sit-down strikes illegal.

Following World War II, the 1947 Taft Hartley Act (4) would deal the single biggest blow to trade unionism in the US. This law. combined with fanatical anti-communist hysteria promoted by HUAC (3), the CIA, the US State Department and the mainstream media would lead to top down trade union organizing that discouraged strike action in favor of a bloated trade union bureaucracy and sweetheart (5) deals with management.

The end result would be one of the lowest levels of union representation in the developed world.

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(1) The Red Scare was a campaign of anti-radical hysteria launched under Woodrow Wilson. Its goal was to promote the irrational fear that a Bolshevik revolution was imminent in the US. The Palmer Raids were a series of raids the Wilson administration conducted between November 1919 and January 1920 under to arrest suspected leftists, mostly Italian immigrants and Eastern European immigrants, and deport them (without trial).

(2) Passed in 1940, the Smith Act set down criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the US government. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional (for violating the First Amendment) in 1957.

(3) The Taft Hartley Act banned wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, closed shops, union donations for political purposes and the election of communists and other radicals to union leadership. It also permitted states to pass Right To Work laws (under right to laws, there is a ban on union contracts forcing non-union members to contribute to the costs of union representation).

(4) Although Hollywood celebrities received the most publicity when they were subpoenaed for being suspected communists, most of the individuals summoned before HUAC were union organizers.

(5) A sweetheart contract is a contractual agreement inappropriately advantages some parties over others. The term was coined in the 1940s to describe corrupt labor contracts unduly favorable to the employer. They usually involved some kind of kickback or special treatment for the labor negotiator.

 

Solving the Covid Economic Crisis: Taking a Page Out of History

Brother Can You Spare a Billion?

Directed by Eric Strange (2000)

Film Review

This biographical documentary, narrated by Walter Cronkite, concerns the head of Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), Houston banker Jesse H Jones. The RFC was a national bank owned and operated by the US government (in contrast to the Federal Reserve, which is privately owned). Under the leadership of Jones, the RFC became the “bank of last resort,” lending money to struggling farmers, small businesses and homeowners when private banks refused to give them loans. HR 6422, a bill introduced by Illinois Representative Danny K Davis in March 2020, seeks to address the COVID economic crisis with a National Infrastructure Bank along the lines of the RFC.  (See HR 6422)

Jones, the son of a Tennessee tobacco farmer, left school after eighth grade to help his father. At 19, he moved to Houston to help run his uncle’s lumber yard. When his uncle died four years later, he became the executor of his uncle’s million dollar estate. He used this capital to leverage millions in bank loans to build a chain of lumber yards and over the years, a chain of Houston hotels and skyscrapers. He also ran a Houston bank and was part owner of the city’s major newspaper.

The major cause of the Great Depression that started in 1929 was a contraction in the global money supply, owing to private banks’ extreme reluctance to issue new loans. Then, as now, the vast majority of money (everything but notes and coins) was created by private banks when they issued loans.*

In desperation, President Herbert Hoover created the RFC in 1932, which initially only issued loans to banks (to encourage them to increase their lending) and railroads (1/3 of railroads were already bankrupt and 2/3 on the verge). For ideological reasons, Hoover vetoed a bill Congress passed to allow the RFC to also issue loans to farmers and businesses.

Jones, who first joined the RFC board under Hoover, became its chair following Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933. The former Houston banker persuaded Roosevelt to expand lending to businesses and farmers, in addition to banks, railroads, mortgage associations, numerous federal infrastructure projects (eg extending power lines to rural American and building aqueduct supplying water to California and to assist struggling states with relief efforts. Putting more money into circulation generated rapid recovery in numerous sectors of the economy.

Rather than fund the RFC via taxation or increasing government debt, the RFC was capitalized via bonds issued to the general public by the US Treasury. It was then given the same power as private banks to create the vast majority of money it lent out.

With the US entry into World War II, the RFC would finance the massive build-up necessary in armaments manufacture. It would be abolished in 1957.

For more information about the bill that would create a National Infrastructure Bank to fulfill the same role as the RFC, contact the Coalition for a $4 Trillion Infrastructure bank at NIB Coalition

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*FDR wasn’t the first president to create a national bank. He was following the example of Alexander Hamilton, John Qunicy Adams and Abraham Lincoln.

**See In Memorium: Monetary Reform Hero Stephen Zarlinga

Hidden History: US Empire Building in China and the South Pacific

The Coming War on China

Directed by John Pilger (2016)

Film Review

Two things I’ve learned over the years about John Pilger films are 1) there’s virtually no link between the film’s title and its content 2) they all include include considerable hidden history not taught in public schools. .

The main focus of this documentary is US empire building in the Pacific and its disastrous effect on US-China relations.

A good third of the film concerns the US annexation of the Marshall islands following World War II, followed by the cynical US government decisions to use residents (referred to as “savages” in classified documents) as radiation guinea pigs in atmospheric nuclear tests. .

After bombing some of the islands daily for 12 years, residents were forcibly returned to Rongelap despite dangerously high water and soil radiation levels. The US government then subjected them to repeated scans and blood tests to assess their response to the irradiated food they were eating.

As more and more developed cancer and produced offspring with birth defects, they begged the US government to move them. When the Americans declined, they appealed to Greenpeace International, which deployed the Rainbow Warrior to move them to an uncontaminated island in 1985.

The Marshall Islands are also home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site. The latter forms part of a ring of strategic nuclear bases surrounding and aimed at China. This “noose” includes bases in Okinawa Japan (which are strongly opposed by local residents), South Korea, the Philippines and Australia.

Much of the film concerns the US occupation of China prior to the 1949 revolution (which I was totally unaware of), in large part to protect a thriving opium trade that was second only to slavery in providing capital wealth to the US corporate elite.*

The film also totally debunks common myths the US government promotes to justify their encirclement of China.

Myth 1: China aims to replace the US as the primary global empire.

Fact check: China has no interest in “converting” foreigners to their way of life as the US does. They simply refuse to be economically or politically controlled by US interests, like so-called US allies are. In Western Europe, for example, countries with nominal independence are forbidden to pursue foreign policy contrary to US interests.

Myth 2: Mao was an implacable enemy of the West.

Fact check: Mao Zedong secretly sought to establish diplomatic relations with Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. After State Department officials who delivered Mao’s messages were fired as traitors, there was no on left in the State Department who could speak Mandarin.

Myth 3: China has a capitalist economy.

Fact check: China has a free market economy. According to Pilger, they reject the “capitalist” label because their billionaires aren’t permitted to influence or control  government operations as happens in the US.

*Roosevelt derived his wealth from his maternal grandfather Warren Delano, dubbed the US opium king. Former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles derived his wealth from his great grandfather’s opium smuggling. All the Eastern Ivy League universities were founded with opium money.

 

 

Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066

Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066

Directed by Jon Osaki (2018)

Film Review

This documentary traces the US government internment of 120,000 West Coast Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

The film begins by describing the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banning Chinese immigrants, which led West Coast farmers to turn to Japanese immigrants as their primary source of cheap labor. Many Japanese would save enough money to purchase their own land in California’s Central Valley, regarded as worthless desert by Caucasian farmers because it was hard to irrigate.

Concerned about a potential Central Valley takeover by Japanese farmers, in 1924 their Caucasian neighbors successfully lobbied Congress to ban all Asian immigration.

Anti-Japanese feeling intensified following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, aggravated by the mainstream media dissemination of rumors about Japanese saboteurs collaborating via shortwave  with Japanese bombers and submarines off the coast of California.

Despite a two-year investigation by the Office of Naval Intelligence that failed to identify a single case of Japanese sabotage, the War Department heavily lobbied Roosevelt to intern Japanese American citizens as a “genetic” enemy of the US. California Attorney General (later Supreme Court Chief Justice) Earl Warren also made it a major issue in his 1942 campaign for governor.

Despite strong opposition from the Justice Department, the War Department prevailed and in February 1942 Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. The latter ordered all Japanese Americans living in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona to be stripped of their lands and imprisoned in internment camps. Congress subsequently validated the Executive Order with Public Law 503.

Three Japanese-Americans challenged the public law in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, SCOTUS upheld their internment. The decision would be overturned in 1983, based on documents in the US Archives revealing the US government had altered, suppressed, and destroyed evidence in laying out the case before the Court.

Japanese Americans would remain in internment camps until March 1946.

The film can be viewed free until June 1st, either at New Day Films or via Kanopy (by anyone with a public library card). Type “Kanopy” and the name of your library into your search engine.

The Psychobabble Theory of Assassination

Age of Assassins: The Loners, Idealists and Fanatics Who Conspired to Change the World

Faber and Faber (2013)

Book Review

In essence this book is an encyclopedia of modern day assassinations. In addition to providing comprehensive details of more than a dozen political murders, Newton proposes a general theory of what motivates assassins. In my view, this aspect of the book is a total failure. Mainly because it largely omits compelling evidence of US intelligence/military complicity in the assassinations of Malcolm X, JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon and the attempted assassinations of Reagan, Ford, George Wallace and John Paul II.

I also have a problem with Newton’s assertion that the era of assassinations began with the Lincoln assassination. Assassination via poisoning dates back to Roman times at least.

According to Newton, the Lincoln assassination inspired the Russian Nihilist movement and their numerous assassination attempts (which were ultimately successful) against czar Alexander II.

The Nihilists, in turn, inspired the Irish nationalists and the “propaganda of the deed” (see Why Social Studies Never Made Sense in School: The History of Anarchism ) tendency of the anarchist movement. The result would be a wave of attempted and completed assassinations across Europe and in the US.

The book contains a long section on the life of US anarchist Emma Goldman and the attempted assassination oshe plotted with her lover Alexander Berkman on Henry Clay Frick (hired by Carnegie to break the steel workers union) s. Although she would later renounce violence, her huge public following (according to Newton) would inspire Leon Czolgosz to assassinate president William McKinley.

The book devotes a long chapter to the rise of Serbian nationalism, the Black Hand and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the purported cause of World War I. It devotes numerous pages to the Armenian genocide by Ottoman rulers and several assassination attempts against Roosevelt and Truman.

I found the later chapters, beginning with the assassination of John Kennedy, a big disappointment. In my view, this section of the book is pure pop psychology and psychobabble.

Newton identifies three primary motives for assassination:

1) A desire to end the suffering engendered by capitalist greed.

2) The drive for violent retribution in reaction to other killings.

3) A desire to smash the state and other authoritarian structures.

This leaves out all the lone nut assassinations – in which misfits try to murder prominent political figures for no apparent reason at all. Except for the JFK assassination (Newton acknowledges Oswald had accomplices* ). Newton seems to be a strong supporter of the lone nut theory of assassination. He blames the rise of lone nut assassins on deep seated decay and alienation in US society, which he believes is aggravated by the motion picture industry.

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*Based on an acoustical recording obtained from a Dallas police microphone, the 1978 House Committee on assassinations ascertain that Oswald had to have at least one accomplice. See  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKassassinationsC.htm

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The US Government Assault on World War I Veterans and Their Families

The March of the Bonus Army

PBS (2013)

Film Review

This documentary concerns the brutal 1932 massacre of World War I veterans and their families by Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton.

Owing to insufficient volunteers (the army paid $1.25 a day), the US government was forced to initiate a draft when they first entered World War I in April 1917. When the war ended, veterans agitated for lost wages, leading Congress to authorize payment of a $1.25 bonus, to be paid in 1938.

With the 1929 Depression, unemployment rates for veterans were especially high, and an ex-GI from Portland organized a veterans march on Washington to demand immediate payment of their bonus.

After dozens of veterans occupied every Congressman’s office, the House passed the Bonus Bill.

As the Senate took up the bill, the veterans and their families set up an enormous tent and shack city in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington DC. They passed the time preparing communal meals, boxing, making music, preparing and visiting a library set up by the Salvation Army. One of the most remarkable features of the Anacostia tent city was the natural integration of black and white veterans in all aspects of daily life. During the war, black troops weren’t allowed to fight alongside white Americans, leading 100,000 African Americans to fight under the French flag.

The the Senate overwhelming defeated the Bonus Bill, Congress adjourned and Hoover ordered the evacuation of the 45,000 Bonus Army veterans from downtown Washington DC. After a battle broke out between city police and veterans, Hoover ordered and attack by 400 infantry, accompanied by tanks and armored vehicles to attack. General MacArthur ignored his order not to cross the Anacostia River, and he and his men burned the shacks and tents filled with the wives and children of Bonus Army members.

Congress ultimately passed the Bonus Bill in 1933. I was very surprised to learn that Roosevelt vetoed it and that the House and Senate overrode his veto.