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The Bonus Army was the popular name of an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Its organizers called it the Bonus Expeditionary Force to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media called it the Bonus March. It was led by Walter W. Waters, a former army sergeant. Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each service certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment plus compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time, visited their camp to back the effort and encourage them.〔Schmidt, Hans, ''Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History'' (U. Press of Kentucky 1987) pp. 218-219. ISBN 978-0-8131-0957-2 (paper)〕 On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the army to clear the veterans' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded the infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned. A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt administration was defused in May with an offer of jobs for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home.〔"'Take Job in the Forest or Go Home' Is Alternative Given to Bonus Boys", ''Middlesboro (KY) Daily News'', May 17, 1933, p1; "Bonus Marchers Weaken; Accept Jobs in Ax Corps", ''Milwaukee Journal'', May 20, 1933, p1〕 In 1936, Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto and paid the veterans their bonus nine years early. ==Background== In 1781, most of the Continental Army was demobilized. Two years later, hundreds of Pennsylvania war veterans marched on Philadelphia, then the nation's capital, surrounded the State House where the U.S. Congress was in session, and demanded back pay. Congress fled to Princeton, New Jersey, and several weeks later, the U.S. Army expelled the war veterans from Philadelphia. In response to that experience, the federal district is now directly governed by the U.S. Congress,〔U.S. Constitution, Article I. Section 8. Clause 17)〕 now known as Washington, D.C., was excluded from the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act which forbade the use of the U.S. military for domestic police activity. The practice of war-time military bonuses began in 1776, as payment for the difference between what a soldier earned and what he could have earned had he not enlisted.〔The practice derived from British legislation passed in the 1592-93 session of Parliament that provided medical care and maintenance for disabled veterans and bonuses for serving soldiers. Similar legislation for disabled veterans only was later progressively passed by English North American colonies beginning with Virginia in 1624. In August 1776, Congress adopted the first National pension law providing half pay for life for disabled veterans. Considerable pressure was applied to expand benefits to match the British system for serving soldiers and sailors but had little support from the colonial government until mass desertions at Valley Forge which threatened the existence of the Continental Army led George Washington to become a strong advocate. Congress progressively passed legislation from 1788 covering pensions and bonuses, eventually extending eligibility to widows in 1836. Before World War I, the soldiers' military service bonus (adjusted for rank) was land and money — a Continental Army private received and $80.00 (2012: $2,105) at war's end, while a Maj. Gen. received . In 1855, Congress increased the land-grant minimum to , and reduced the eligibility requirements to fourteen days of military service, or one battle; moreover, the bonus also applied to veterans of any Indian war. The provision of land eventually became a major political issue, particularly in Tennessee where almost 40% of arable land had been given to veterans as part of their bonus. By 1860, had been issued and lack of available arable land led to its abandonment and replacement with a cash system.〕 Breaking with tradition, the veterans of the Spanish–American War did not receive a bonus and, after World War I, their not receiving a military service bonus became a political matter when WWI veterans received only a $60 bonus. The American Legion, created in 1919, led a political movement for an additional bonus.〔 On May 15, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge vetoed a bill granting bonuses to veterans of World War I, saying: "patriotism... bought and paid for is not patriotism." Congress overrode his veto a few days later,〔David Greenberg, ''Calvin Coolidge'' (NY: Henry Holt, 2006), 78-9〕 enacting the World War Adjusted Compensation Act. Each veteran was to receive a dollar for each day of domestic service, up to a maximum of $500, and $1.25 for each day of overseas service, up to a maximum of $625 (2010: $7,899). Amounts of $50 or less were immediately paid. All other amounts were issued as Certificates of Service maturing in 20 years.〔Dickson and Allen, 29〕 3,662,374 military service certificates were issued, with a face value of $3.638,000,000 (2010: $43.7 billion). Congress established a trust fund to receive 20 annual payments of $112 million that, with interest, would finance the 1945 disbursement of the $3.638 billion due the veterans. Meanwhile, veterans could borrow up to 22.5% of the certificate's face value from the fund; but in 1931, because of the Great Depression, Congress increased the maximum value of such loans to 50% of the certificate's face value.〔Dickson and Allen, 37-8〕 Although there was congressional support for the immediate redemption of the military service certificates, President Hoover and Republican congressmen opposed such action; they reasoned that the government would have to increase taxes to cover the costs of the payout, and thus any potential recovery would be slowed.〔Dickson and Allen, 34〕 The Veterans of Foreign Wars continued to press the federal government to allow the early redemption of military service certificates.〔Stephen R. Ortiz, "The 'New Deal' for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of the New Deal," ''Journal of Military History'', vol. 70 (2006), 434-5〕 The first march of the unemployed was "Coxey's Army" in 1894, when armies of men from various regions streamed to Washington as a "living petition" to demand that the federal government create jobs by investing in public infrastructure projects (Donald L. McMurry, "Coxey's Army", 1930). In January 1932, a march of 25,000 unemployed Pennsylvanians, dubbed "Cox's Army", had marched on Washington, D.C, the largest demonstration to date in the nation's capital, setting a precedent for future marches by the unemployed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bonus Army」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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