In 1932, the Bonus Army–some 17,000 American WWI veterans and their families and supporters (about 43,000 in total)–gathered in Washington, DC to demand the bonuses they were promised by the government for their service in the war. The law creating the bonuses stipulated they couldn’t be redeemed until 1945, for which they’d earn the principal plus compound interest, but many of the veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression, and wanted the bonuses paid out in cash now.

After the protest, about 10,000 of them camped in “Hooverville” shantytowns in the city. An attempt to move up the date of the payout was defeated in Congress. Initial attempts to dispel the Bonus Army ended in violence and the camps unmoved. The shantytowns were controlled by the veterans, who made streets and sanitation facilities and held parades every day. Despite “Red Scare” rumors that went around the city, the protesters maintained good discipline.

President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to remove the Bonus protesters. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a force of infantry, cavalry, and tanks that approached the camps. The cavalry and tanks were commanded by Major George S. Patton. Civil service employees left work to watch from the streets. The Bonus Army thought the soldiers were marching to honor them and cheered. Patton ordered the cavalry to charge to cries of “Shame!” from onlookers. The infantry followed with fixed bayonets and tear gas to drive the protesters from the camp.

The protesters fled the first camp across the Anacostia River to their largest camp, at which point President Hoover ordered a halt to the attack. MacArthur ignored the order. Stating the Bonus Army wanted to overthrow the government, he ordered a fresh assault, resulting in 55 veterans being injured and another 135 arrested. The camps and all the veterans’ belongings were burned.

Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of MacArthur’s junior aides, disagreed the military should be used against fellow veterans. He later recalled, “The whole scene was pitiful. The veterans were ragged, ill-fed, and felt themselves badly abused. To suddenly see the whole encampment going up in flames just added to the pity.”

A second Bonus March in 1933 had a different result. Franklin Roosevelt, recently elected president, offered the veterans jobs in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Most took the jobs. Three years later, the Democrat-controlled Congress overrode FDR’s veto and paid out the bonus nine years early.

The Business Plot, or Wall Street Putsch, was an alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States and install a nationalist, business-friendly dictatorship. It involved prominent rich men, including Prescott Bush (George W. Bush’s grandfather), who controlled many of the country’s biggest corporations, including Chase Bank, General Motors, Standard Oil, Dupont, Heinz, and others.

They were unhappy with the election of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt as president in 1932. FDR was trying to get the New Deal passed and wanted to abandon the gold standard, which the rich saw as a road to inflation, undermine their wealth, and use it to subsidize the poor. “This is despotism, this is tyranny, this is the annihilation of liberty,” one senator lamented. The New Deal, they predicted, would lead to the country becoming bankrupt and adopting communism. Some on the Right believed Roosevelt was secretly a Jew bent on world domination.

The plotters promised $3 million and planned to build an army of 500,000 Great War veterans from American Legion branches. The plan was for this army to seize Washington (on the pretext of the president’s poor health) and install a popular military figure as the country’s new executor, while FDR remained a figurehead. They approached U.S. Marine Major Generator Smedley Butler, who’d fought in France, Latin America, and the Philippines. Butler was approached by American Legion leaders in on the plot. If he declined, apparently the plan was to approach U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur. Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander James E. Van Zandt later told the press he’d also been approached.

Butler immediately notified the government of the plot. Congress held hearings on it. The documents were sealed until only recently, some deleted (but inadvertently exposed and then published). You can read everything here. Congress found the plot to be “alarmingly true.” The committee declared it “received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

None of the alleged plotters were questioned by Congress (claiming it had no reason to based on “hearsay”), nor anybody formally charged. As the plot was uncovered while in the planning stage, it is difficult to say whether it might have gone from discussion to action. The press and numerous politicians considered it a “cocktail putsch,” something discussed but never seriously acted upon, though there was evidence it was actively being plotted. In 1936, William Dodd, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, which at the time was under Nazi rule, wrote a letter to FDR that stated: “A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime… A prominent executive of one of the largest corporations told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies.”

The Congressional committee would go on to become the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which later would not afford the same courtesy to suspected communists as it did to the Wall Street and corporate tycoons. Smedley Butler, meanwhile, would go on to pen his famous speech/short book, WAR IS A RACKET, in 1935.

As today is Halloween, I’d like to share with you something I watched that I found truly chilling. Marshall Curry’s powerful documentary, A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN, is just six minutes long. The film depicts a real event that happened in American history, a rally of 20,000 American fascists at Madison Square Garden in New York City on the eve of World War 2.

They were members of the Bund (“federation”), a fascist organization wrapped in the American flag. The main speaker is German immigrant Fritz Kuhn, who demands “our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it” in front of a massive painting of George Washington in the backdrop. The Americans give him the fascist salute. At the end, a woman sings “The Star Spangled Banner.”

When a protester rushes the stage, he’s beaten by brownshirts until police come and take him away, an incident that draws cheers from the crowd. Outside, protesters were being beaten and trampled by police.

Dorothy Thompson, a journalist married to Sinclair Lewis (who would write IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE), observed the rally. She wrote an article in the August 1941 issue of HARPERS, “Who Goes Nazi?”, in which she proposes a party game of guessing, among guests at a party, who would support the Nazis if they took over. She proposes that Nazism is not so much an ideology as a worldview that appeals to a certain psychology.

While this rally took place, Hitler was building his sixth concentration camp. Seven months later, World War 2 began.

Watch it here: