June 3rd, 2011
Texas congressman leads fight for veterans’ bonus

by BARTEE HAILE

The U.S. House passed Rep. Wright Patman’s bill on Jun. 6, 1932 providing cash compensation for veterans of the First World War, but the “bonus army” that had invaded Washington was in for a big and bloody disappointment.

With two terms in the Texas legislature under his belt, Patman won election in 1928 to the national House of Representatives from a district in the northeastern corner of the state that included his home county of Cass as well as Texarkana, Paris and Marshall.

The freshman congressman had been in office less than six months, when he introduced a bill mandating immediate payment of the so-called “adjusted service compensation” to the two million doughboys that fought in France. Why should the ex-soldiers, who risked their lives to “make the world safe for democracy,” have to wait until 1945 to collect the thousand-dollar IOU’s?

Patman pointed out that the railroads and war contractors had not been kept waiting. When they whined about the money allegedly lost due to wartime price controls, the Harding administration coughed up $3.5 billion, a giant giveaway which added 23,000 names to the millionaire roll.
Patman’s most obstinate opponent was Andrew W. Mellon, the fabulously wealthy financier serving his third successive president as treasury secretary. Appeals to reason and fair play had no effect on the tight-fisted tycoon, who insisted the bonus would knock the federal budget out of balance.

The Lone Star lawmaker retorted that Mellon had not shown such fiscal restraint, when he refunded $2 billion in corporate taxes. Special interests could always count on preferential treatment from the treasury watchdog, while “the veteran crying for bread today” had to be content with a “promise of cake in 1945.”

For nearly two years, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee refused to hold hearings on the bonus bill despite repeated pleas from Democratic leader John Nance Garner of Texas and four million petition signatures. When the bottleneck was finally broken, Patman watched helplessly as a gutted version of his brainchild sailed through the House and Senate.

President Hoover denounced the bonus as “a dole” and “a step toward government aid to those who can help themselves” before vetoing the measure. But both congressional chambers overrode the presidential veto in resounding fashion in February 1931.
Less than a month later, Patman renewed his fight for full and prompt payment. In his corner for this round was William Randolph Hearst, the powerful publisher whose big-city dailies championed the veterans’ cause.

As the debate in congress moved toward a dramatic conclusion in the summer of 1932, thousands of vets and their families converged on Washington. The “Bonus Expeditionary Force” took up temporary residence in a tar-paper shantytown and endured stifling heat and squalid conditions in order to make their presence felt.

Many congressmen resented the public pressure, and a few nervous Nellies actually feared for their lives. Patman was accused of mobilizing the mob, when in fact he cautioned against the occupation because “such a move would be damaging to our cause.”

After House passage of the Patman package on Jun. 6, tension mounted as the bonus army anxiously awaited the outcome in the Senate. Compromise was again the name of the game, and the piecemeal process produced a watered-down substitute that bore little resemblance to the original.

In the meantime, militant veterans moved into vacant government buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue. District of Columbia police turned the routine eviction of the squatters into a needless melee that sent two vets to the morgue and numerous combatants on both sides to the hospital.
President Hoover overreacted and ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to clear the capital. Tanks, horses, bayonets and tear gas were used to run defenseless men, women and children out of town, and their makeshift camp was burned to the ground.

Patman expected more compassion from Hoover’s successor in spite of his long-standing opposition to veterans compensation. But the Senate took Franklin D. Roosevelt at his word and ditched the bill forwarded by the House in 1934.

Patman tried again in ’35, and this time the bonus bill reached FDR’s desk. After he turned thumbs down, the House had no trouble overriding his veto but the Senate came up ten votes short.

More representatives and senators than ever followed Patman’s lead in 1936. Roosevelt answered with another veto, but congress would not be denied. The Texan’s seven-year struggle finally paid off for the veterans of a war that had been over for 18 years.

But Wright Patman was just getting started. He served 40 more years in the House of Representatives and died on the job in 1976 during his twenty-fourth term.

What better way to commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial than with “Secession & Civil War” from the “Best of This Week in Texas History” collection? Order today at twith.com or mail a check for $21.30 to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.