The Forgotten Plot To Overthrow FDR and Install A Fascist Dictator

The Business Plot

(By Signal Corps Photographer — This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=810553)

On July 17, 1932, thousands of disgruntled World War I veterans descended on Washington, DC, to demand unpaid bonuses from the Herbert Hoover administration. This so-called Bonus Army was feeling the pinch of the economic downturn and wanted the money they felt was due to them. Unfortunately, the bonuses were slated to be paid “no earlier” than 1925 and “no later” than 1945. The World War I vets had another 12 years before the government was obligated to pay them.

The veterans were supported and encouraged by a divisive yet popular military figure named Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler of the Marine Corps. Butler appeared in DC to encourage the veterans not to give up on their quest to receive compensation. The appearance of Butler at the head of an army of combat veterans alarmed President Hoover, who ordered the veterans forcibly removed from the city. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sent in to destroy the camps of the squatters, and the veterans were dispersed.

The event drew a lot of attention for a number of reasons. It highlighted the desperate and disgruntled nature of the average American in 1932. It highlighted Hoover’s ultimate unpopularity, and it showed that there was a fear and an appetite for military leaders to rise up and take a stand on the issues…