W.W. Waters

In 1932, an estimated fifteen to twenty-five thousand veterans of the First World War converged on Washington, D.C., to demand bonuses that had been promised to them by Congress. The bonuses were actually scheduled to be paid in 1945. But like much of the country, the veterans were unemployed and having a difficult time making ends meet. The bonus with interest would average a thousand dollars per recipient. This much money could go a long way in the 1930s.

The veterans called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), which was a parody of the U.S. American Expeditionary Force that had been sent to Europe during the First World War. The BEF was led by a former army medic named Walter Waters who had been laid off from a cannery several years before. Waters began...