A01=Harvey Ferguson
Author_Harvey Ferguson
Bonus Army
Category=JW
Communism
Douglas
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Franklin
Great Depression
Hooverville
Imperial Valley
labor strikes
MacArthur
migrant labor
police
Roosevelt
West Point
World War I
Product details
- ISBN 9780826365064
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 31 Oct 2023
- Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression, more than twenty thousand mostly homeless World War I veterans trekked to the nation's capital to petition Congress to grant them early payment of a promised bonus. The Hoover Administration and the local government urged Washington, DC, police chief Pelham Glassford to forcefully drive this "bonus army" out of the city. Instead, he defied both governments for months and found food and shelter for the veterans until Congress voted on their request.
Glassford's efforts to persuade federal and local officials to deal sympathetically with the protesters were ultimately in vain, but his proposed solutions, though disregarded by his supervisors, demonstrate that compassion and empathy could be more effective ways of dealing with radical protests than violent suppression.
Glassford's efforts to persuade federal and local officials to deal sympathetically with the protesters were ultimately in vain, but his proposed solutions, though disregarded by his supervisors, demonstrate that compassion and empathy could be more effective ways of dealing with radical protests than violent suppression.
Harvey Ferguson is an independent historian and the author of The Last Cavalryman: The Life of General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
