Bonus Army Invades Washington
With his stirring yet scholarly account of one of America's defining internal conflicts, the Bonus Army's contentious 1932 march on Washington, historian Edward Robb Ellis manages to capture the shared desperation of both the destitute veterans protesting for proper pay, and the depleted government struggling to balance promises with pragmatism. Ellis' deftly written analytical article entitled The Bonus Army Invades Washington manages to convey with astonishing clarity the unique confluence of historical circumstances which led to the Bonus Expeditionary Force's fateful demonstration at the nation's capitol. Utilizing a narrative tone which is at once casual and cerebral, Ellis leads his reader from the killing fields of World War I to the postwar partisanship that plagued Washington, D.C. In the 1930's, covering the collective concerns of an unsteady nation by delving into the personal experiences of the major figures involved. Throughout the article, Ellis harnesses a subtly acerbic yet witty tone to suggest his personal allegiance in the battle between the Bonus Army and the administration of Herbert Hoover, however, the inclusion of authorial opinion is made selectively and does not detract from the article's overall relevancy. The result is tremendously insightful analysis of a darker chapter in American history, one which pitted proud veterans of the Great War against the very government they fought so valiantly to defend on...
military members who fought for their country in WWI is central to Ellis' eventual argument that the Bonus Army was victimized by a nearly tyrannical application of government force. He begins The Bonus Army Invades Washington with the harrowing tale of Walter W. Waters, "a thirty-four-year-old veteran" of WWI who "as a sergeant attached to the 146th Field Artillery & #8230; had fought several battles in France" before derisively reminding the reader that while "American doughboys & #8230; were saving democracy at about $1 a day, shipyard workers and munitions makers on the prosperous home front were earning $90 a week and strutting around in silk shirts" (Ellis 295). The author pointedly remarks that for Waters, the eventual leader of Bonus Army's insurrection of protest, "glory lay behind him" and "the only thing he could call his own was a piece of paper known as an adjusted service credit certificate -- a soldier's bonus" (Ellis 295). By immediately establishing the stakes in this conflict, the financial ruin slowly spreading throughout the country like a cancer, the mounting sense of betrayal felt by WWI veterans returning to foreclosures and repossessions, Ellis provides the remainder of his article with the depth and weight the subject matter deserves.
The arrangement between the U.S. government and former WWI soldiers and sailors, which stated that "each veteran was credited…
