FDR - Jean Edward Smith [178]
Campaign finances were a problem initially, but as Roosevelt developed momentum the money poured in. The Democrats, who began the race still in the hole after 1928, raised a total of $2.4 million versus the Republicans’ $2.6 million.18* Expenditures followed roughly the same ratio, with both parties spending slightly more than they took in. Radio was the largest cost item. An hour of prime-time broadcasting over the combined CBS and NBC networks in 1932 cost $35,000.19 The Republicans spent $551,972 for airtime; the Democrats $343,415. Reflecting the nation’s depressed economy, the 1932 campaign was the least expensive in the twentieth century. The final figures filed by each party indicate that the Democrats and Republicans spent an average of thirteen cents for each vote cast.20 In 2004, the two major parties spent $547,966,644 and 115 million voters went to the polls; that translates into $4.76 per vote.
Events broke for Roosevelt. Throughout the late spring and early summer of 1932, unemployed veterans from World War I flocked to Washington to petition Congress for early payment of wartime bonuses that were due in 1945.21 They set up a shantytown on the banks of the Anacostia River in southeast Washington and, when space there ran out, occupied several vacant government buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue. At its height, the Bonus Army, as it was called, numbered more than 20,000. When the Senate rejected their petition, most went home, but many others, homeless and jobless, remained in the capital.
Washington officials coped as best they could. Police Chief Pelham Glassford did his utmost to provide tents and bedding for the veterans, furnished medicine, and assisted with food and sanitation. Maintaining order was never a problem. The men were camped illegally, but Glassford (who had been the youngest brigadier general with the AEF in France) chose to treat them simply as old soldiers who had fallen on hard times. He resisted efforts to use force to dislodge them.22
Hoover did not share Glassford’s equanimity. The specter of Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace soon dominated administration thinking. The president refused to meet with the leaders of the Bonus Army, ordered the gates to the White House chained shut, and reinforced the guard to contain any demonstration. Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley, convinced that the nation faced a Communist uprising of vast proportions, lamented that the veterans had been so orderly and longed for an incident that might justify the imposition of martial law.23
On July 28, under prodding from the White House, the District of Columbia commissioners ordered Glassford to clear the abandoned buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue in which the veterans were squatting. Brief resistance followed, shots rang out, two veterans were killed, and Hurley had his incident. The commissioners asked the White House for federal troops to maintain order. Hoover passed the request to Hurley, who ordered Army chief of staff General Douglas MacArthur to take the appropriate action.24 That was at 2:55 P.M. Within the hour troopers from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, led by their forty-seven-year-old executive officer, Major George S. Patton, clattered across Memorial Bridge into Washington. They were joined by elements of the 16th Infantry from Fort Washington, supported by tanks and machine guns.25 MacArthur, who normally wore mufti to the War Department, changed into Class A uniform (replete with Sam Browne belt, medals, and decorations) and took command. At his side was his aide-de-camp and military secretary, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, also in Class A.*
By five o’clock Army units had surrounded