"To Hell With Civil Law!"

The stews were thin, the rain cold, the sun hot and politics rampant in the camps of the Bonus Expeditionary Force at Washington last week. Time hung heavy on idle hands made restless by malnutrition. Four radical veterans were caught selling Communist propaganda, turned over to police. Two more were hustled out of the city by B. E. F. "military police" who manhandled their charges on the way. General Pelham Glassford, superintendent of the District of Columbia's police, having guaranteed equal rights for all, urged the assaulted Communists to bring charges against their assailants.

Within four days, leadership in the Bonus army changed three times. For the third time since he set out from Portland, Ore. two months ago as an unemployed cannery superintendent leading the B. E. F. nucleus, Walter W. Waters resigned his command. Infected by the parliamentary goings-on at Chicago, the idle veterans decided to hold a convention, elect a commander-in-chief. While this agitation was in the air, Commander Waters staged a coup d'etat. He and his erstwhile "staff" drove out to muddy Anacostia in the Waters "official car." Mounting a shack, he harangued his audience into re-electing him commander by acclaim. Then he returned to B. E. F. headquarters on 11th Street, Southeast, posted sentries as a precaution against a counter coup by his political enemies. That night Commander Waters' driver reported that the official car had been fired upon.

At this point the food supply reached lowest ebb. The Red Cross provided 9,000 Ib. of Farm Board flour, but that did not go far to fill the stomachs of nearly 20,000 men, among whom twelve cases of dysentery were discovered. General Pelham Glassford produced the last few dollars in the B. E. F. treasury and renounced his stewardship. George Alman, leader of the 500 Communist veterans, was heard to remark: "I know where there are warehouses bursting with food in this town. I'm going to march the boys down there and let them help themselves."

Thoroughly concerned, the Senate passed a resolution by Nebraska's Howell to provide transportation home for the B. E. F., the money to be deducted from the membership's adjusted service certificates when they come due in 1945. It was sent to the House. Oklahoma's Senator Thomas offered a resolution to appoint a joint Congressional committee to look after the B. E. F.'s welfare. New York's Copeland, "speaking as a medical man," urged the appropriation of $100,000 to get the B. E. F. out of Washington before it started a plague.

Commander Waters suddenly took an early page out of Benito Mussolini's book and, in the spirit of Il Duce's 1922 march on Rome, proclaimed himself the veterans' dictator. He conducted an election "so there wouldn't be any kicks," discharged disgruntled officers. His bronzed face and yellow hair glistened proudly as he strode out to the Anacostia camp next day in whipcord breeches and shiny riding boots. He summoned his men and began barking the new order of the day. There were to be daily drill periods henceforth.

"It will do you good." shouted he, "because you'll have something to do besides sitting around feeling sorry for yourselves. I believe it will make some other people worry. What will it look like to the people uptown to see 20,000 men doing squads right? And you're going to do it if I have to detail 500 military police to force you! This is war!

"I'll do what I want whether you like it or not and those that don't can get the hell out of the B. E. F. I'm going to be hardboiled! If any man in the B. E. F. refuses to carry out my orders he will be dragged out of Washington by the military police. To hell with civil law and General Glassford! I'm going to have my orders carried out!"

General Glassford, not a rich man, went down into his own pocket and bought the B. E. F. $773 worth of food. "I don't care what those boys say about me," said he. "They're just a little excited. But I can't sit by and see them starve. Why some of those fellows soldiered for me; they're my boys."

Curious onlookers and a special detail of police watched the B. E. F. drill, wondering if the new regime would stiffen or crack the B. E. F.'s morale, wondering why the men hung on anyhow, hoping for an impossible cash Bonus settlement from a Congress which had already denied it. Characteristic of the whole perverse, stolid affair was the new camp watchword: "Stick it out."

When Washington emptied for Independence Day, 5,000 veterans marched to the silent Capitol, demonstrated on its deserted steps.

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