Smithsonian: Marching on History

[dmr]

The other day while talking to my son about the police presence in the left's protests, and primarily last week during the WTO protests, I told him a horrible story about our history that my dad told to me when I was a girl. It is about protests by World War I vets on Washington DC, desperate from the Depression. I relayed this story in a post today, and found through davsand that the Smithsonian wrote an article on it. I found the article (in pdf format) and want to share it with those who are interested. I haven't finished reading the article, but my dad, who was there, told me that there were over 100 casualties, includig 2 babies.

American military armed against American citizens. It happened then, it happened at Kent State, and with rubber pellets and tear gas, it happened last week in Miami.
Marching On History

- snip -

What happened next is etched in the American memory:
for the first time in the nation’s history, tanks rolled
through the streets of the capital. MacArthur ordered his
men to clear the downtown of veterans, their numbers estimated
at around 8,000, and spectators who had been drawn
to the scene by radio reports. At 4:30 p.m., nearly 200
mounted cavalry, sabers drawn and pennants flying, wheeled
out of the Ellipse. At the head of this contingent rode their
executive officer, George S. Patton, followed by five tanks
and about 300 helmeted infantrymen, brandishing loaded rifles
with fixed bayonets. The cavalry drove most pedestrians
—curious onlookers, civil servants and members of the
Bonus Army, many with wives and children—off the streets.
Infantrymen wearing gas masks hurled hundreds of tear-gas
grenades at the dispersing crowd. The detonated grenades
set off dozens of fires: the flimsy shelters veterans had erected
near the armory went up in flames. Black clouds mingled
with tear gas.

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