Montana labor news., 1932-07-28
THE WASHINGTON SCENE
(By ToDD.)

has gone home. The bonus army,
futile in all of its attempts to induce congress and the administration to
grant emergency relief to ex-service men remains in its camps in the
capital stubborny refusing to go back to starve in the thousand places
from which it rallied. President Hoover, venturing back to the White
House from his place of refuge o. the Rapidan, keeps the entire city
police force nervous, as he calls special guards to protect him against little
groups of weather-tanned men in worn blue shirts and overaIs who wear
bits of faded rayon, IN printed with the words Bonus Army" m their
chests. Along sidewalks burning with tropical heat the struggling vet
Grams go, waiting and watching for the next act in the drama of their
occupation of Washington.
"we will picket the White House again tomorrow" vas the announcement
from the Detroit Cleveland left-wfng regiment led by John Pace, a mem
Der of the Workers Ex-Servicemens League. eve will not apply for a
permit to parade. VIII start at 9 a. m. and keep going until 5 p m.
each day until Hoover permits us to present or bonus and general unem-
ployment relief petition to him."
There will be n 10 pcketng without a paradfng permit was the reply
of police officials.
Roy Robertson, leader of the California Ironsdes regiment which kept
up a moving picket line in front Of the capitol during the last four days
and nights of the session, has, temporarily att least gone into eclipse. His
command has renamed itself the Death March Bonus Army, and has de-
cided to carry o a campaign for the election of a nw congress which
will enact the bonus payment bill. Many of his supporters were deeply
disappointed at the tame and almost apologize ending of his fiery demon
stration before the House and Senate. There were charges that he had
been reached by flatterng poiticans-but n evidence in support of
mediatey from Robertson to Pace, and many of the conservative bonus
seekers wen back to the leadership of Walter Waters, who promised to
Waters made a hit with the bulk of the unthnkng veterans by inviting
Gen. smedley Butler to make a speech in the Anacostia camp. If Hoover
was to be roasted and ridiculed, the veterans felt that Smedley Butler would
do the job to their full satisfaction
Two blocks from the White House, at the front door of the Veterans
Bureau, army trucks waited to haul groups of veterans to the railway
station, where they were supposed to start for home o tickets bought
by the government and charged against their bonus accounts. Hundreds
tickets to distant points, or for cash allowance for gasoline for the cars
in which they were to drive away from the capital. But their friends
outside laughed. They explained that more than half of the applications
were "hokum for Hoover" The men were either going home as recruiting
agents, or they were drawing the subsistence and gasoline allowances,
prepared to go back to camp and finance a few square meals, and then
again apply for cash allowance for return home. Even some of the clerks
who made up the allowance slips laughed; they said it was a trick that
pleased the boys.
Rumors that Hoover a arranging to drive the veterans from their
camps, OF pretext of need of the government to use the property the
men occupy, persisted. Leaders and rank and file of the veterans scoffed
at the possibility that the army would be employed to evct them. They
said they would not 10Y They had n other homes now, and they
rather liked the homes they had built or fitted up here. They could not
believe that the administration would treat them harshy-so long as they
did not brighten the president by parading past his residence, waving
the Stars and Stripes.
In police court, Nathan Kali, who lost an arm in the Siberian expedition.
"a fined $5 for paradng without a permit and SIS for dsorderly conduct
when he picketed Hoover Saturday night.