1932 Bonus Army, cover up?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

After having gone over the "Bonus Army" of 1932 in history class, I was doing some research online about it. It was a group of US veterans of the Great Imperialist War of 1914-1918 who marched on Washington DC to demand the social security they had been promised. They were met by the President Hoover and the U$ military who considered them a communist threat. Tanks, rifles, bayonets, the cavalry, and tear gas were all used against the demonstrators.

Now the official count is that 4 people were killed (2 infants), but then I ran across this website: http://veteransrightsnow.50megs.com/1932.html (http://veteransrightsnow.50megs.com/1932.html)which claims that thousands were killed. It seemed stretched at first and I asked myself if it was a work of historical fiction, but really is such a scenario implausible?

At least, it seems likely that many more people would have been killed in a situation with an armed force brutally driving thousands of people out of DC. I'm not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think we all know that the US government has done some shitty stuff so who's to say that they didn't kill dozens, hundreds, or even thousands more than they admit to, denying the extent to which such a repression would be brutal? It is the US government who set the precedent for states to cover up their repressions, à la Tienanmen Square protest.

[Comrade Che]

I always thought the "death count" was low.

[Random Precision]

It looks like a conspiracy website. I've never seen any evidence corroborating such a high death count.

[Dimentio]

If thousands would have been killed, we would have known it. How could they possible have covered that up?

If you believe it, why not travel to the Everglades and search for mass graves?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I didn't say I believed that account and I haven't found any other sources that make equal claims, but cops lie so I still think it's possible that a few deaths might have been covered up.

[Marx22]

If a few thousand people were missing, we'd know about it. Though who knows, maybe a few more deaths occured but covered up. Did your teacher, you, or anyone else mention this in class? Do you intend to bring this up next time your in class?

[Vendetta]

No. Simple.

[Black Dagger]

If thousands would have been killed, we would have known it. How could they possible have covered that up?



If a few thousand people were missing, we'd know about it. Though who knows, maybe a few more deaths occured but covered up. Did your teacher, you, or anyone else mention this in class? Do you intend to bring this up next time your in class?

Why? You say this as if genocide, mass-killings, massacres etc. do not have a history of being covered up. Whilst it is good to be sceptical about claims that lack evidence, i wouldn't reject an argument on the basis that 'we would know' if what it suggests is true or not because of the 'nature' of the events (death/human loss). That supposes 'truth' or knowledge about events/the past as if these things were just obvious, rather than things that require investigation.

If thousands of people were missing there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that 'we would just know' about it. History is not omnipresent - 'history' is necessarily limited by the work of historians and other writers of histories. The past is full of silences, that is part of what motivates some historians in their work... to fill these gaps in our perspective on the past with some kind of substance. But the silences themselves are the product of class society (through the lenses of hetero-patriarchy and white supremacy); so if instead of talking about some missing or murdered working class militants we were talking about thousands of missing or murdered rich white folks then yes i would find their deaths 'hard to cover up' or [for historians to] miss. The stories of the privileged are always with us.

[swampfox]

Wasn't the Bonus Army the one where Prescott Bush tried to get them together, or was that another story?

[PRC-UTE]

black dagger's absolutely correct. it would have been very easy to kill a lot of working class people at that time and get away with it. There was no internet.

[which doctor]

Regardless of whether or not thousands were killed, there is a cover-up regarding the Bonus Army and it's representation in US History books. As with all history, particularly working-class activism, the Bonus Army has been subjected to an extensive white-washing and disinformation campaign. I've noticed the Bonus Army does get a small mention in US History books at high school and middle school level, but their description of the event is at best, overly simplistic, and at worst, terribly misleading. Textbooks typically portray the Bonus marchers as selfish for demanding what was due to them in the midst of the Great Depression. Furthermore, textbooks present Hoover as a competent president who was able to, rather peacefully, end the Bonus Army and "solve" the problem.

[redSHARP]

i put the count a little below 50.

[Dimentio]

The massacre in the swamps ought to have produced a mass grave.

[Black Dagger]

The massacre in the swamps ought to have produced a mass grave.

Why?

That is a totally arbitrary condition.

[Communist Theory]

The bodies are in my backyard.
Wanna see 'em?

[OneNamedNameLess]

The thing is though bd, the murder of thousands of demonstrators would impinge on the lives of thousands of others such as family members, friends, neighbours and so on. If so many were killed, surely there would have been some sort of response from the public. I know this is just an assumption but even at that time the USA could not have evaded outrage and reaction over an incident such as this on their own soil.

[which doctor]

The massacre in the swamps ought to have produced a mass grave.
Ever heard of alligators?

[mykittyhasaboner]

^^For real. The everglades is the worst place to dig mass graves, because you simply can't dig (unless you don't mind knee-high water) it would be very difficult. If they actually did murder these people in the everglades, their corpses would have simply been left there for animals and the heat to take away.

No graves, no evidence. Still I'm skeptical of the whole thing actually taking place, though it wouldn't surprise me if it did.