Evening star., 1932-08-17
Radicals and the B. E. F.

unless SOInSpoOy tuilio uP oNAA'AoAA-
evidence that the grand jury ought to
hear about, the official investigation
launched by the Attorney General into
the bonus rioting Of July % has come
to an end The grand jury has heard
all the available testimony concern
ing the riot and received the informa-
ton from practically every official in
Washington who had anything to do
with the events leading up to the call
ing of the troops. But the net result
of the investigation is that three men
are now held for trial, charged with
assaults with dangerous weapons, to Wit,
bricks and table leg.
After the rioting the grand jury was
asked to investigate the business from
all angles, and in his charge to that
body Justice Proctor took judicial
notice of the statements relating to the
activities of Communists, telling the
Jury that ut is reported that the mob
guilty of actual violence included a
few ex-servioe men anc was made
u0 mainly of Communists and other
disorderly elements. I hope that you
will find that it is so and that few
men who have worn the Nations uni
form engaged in this violent attack
upon law and order"
But the two men who were killed by
the police were veterans, and now it
develops that the only three men
against whom indictable evidence was
presented were veterans, one of them
the holder of D. s. c., and one of
them with a Jail record. AS for the
Communists, the worst that happened
to any Of them was when their avowed
lead, Who happens to have been an
ex-service man also, was arrested in
the roundup of alleged radicals on the
Saturday following the riot, held for
q few days for investigation and escort
Ell out Of town into Maryland and set
free.
b. an interesting coincidence speech
by Representative Royal c. Johnson of
South Dakota before the Wisconsin
American Legion was giver publication
on the same day that the grand jury re-
turned its indictments. In this speech
Mr. johnson related the dynamite epi-
sode"-possibly founded on the report
by the bonus marchers themselves that
they had found and destroyed few
sticks of dynamite Mr. johnson also
stated that the march was inspired by
Communists, who in several instances
sought to inflame the men to revolt.
The history of the whole bonus
march, when it is some day written,
will probably show that the idea of the
march originated, as Mr.. johnson says,
with the Communists. They planned
1t and were anxious to get all the credit
they could for planning it. But once
the idea was broadcast 1t took hold
and spread like wildfre-not among
Communists, but among several thou
sand ex-service men, out of work and
idle, who had been led to believe by
Representatives in the Congress of the
American people that the country
owed them debt, payable on demand
and that now was the time to make
the demand.
So they came One of their favorite
activities was throwing out suspected
''reds" from their camps. They doubt
less provided fruitful ground for the
sowing of all sorts of seeds Of radical
ism, but it is probable that the first
man who heaved brick at police
man and started the rioting knew less
about Communism than about the
theory of the fourth dimension.
The moral of this whole tale Of the
bonus marchers is not that the insti-
gators were Communists, but that 100
per cent Americans and ex-soldiers,
repeatedly told by gentlemen Who wish
to get their votes that their Govern
ment is denying them something that
is by rights their own, are apt to rise
UP and demand it. And when they did
there was, and there is always apt to
be, trouble.