The New Deal for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins

of New Deal Dissent

Stephen R. Ortiz

The Journal of Military History, Volume 70, Number 2, April 2006, pp. 415-438 (Article) Published by Society for Military History DOI: 10.1353/jmh.2006.0119

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The New Deal for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent

Stephen R. Ortiz*

Abstract This article examines the impact of military veterans on the New Deal era. In 1934 the passage of the Economy Act, which severely cut veteran benefits, triggered a wave of political mobilization that laid the foundations for organized New Deal dissent. The response of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) to the Economy Act situated the organization in the vanguard of New Deal Dissidents, including Huey P. Long, Father Charles E. Coughlin, and their supporters. In this coalition, military veterans expressed early and crucial voices of protest. And the politics of veterans pensions and benefits, in turn, profoundly shaped the New Deal era.

ILITARY veterans can pose signicant problems for democratic societies. Although governments and civilians typically venerate ex-soldiers for their wartime contributions, veterans postwar demands for pensions and special benets can make for an awkward relationship.
* I would like to thank Jeff Adler, Bob Zieger, Jennifer Keene, and Kurt Piehler for their helpful criticism and words of encouragement during the writing of this piece. I am also grateful to Bruce Vandervort and the Journals anonymous reviewers for providing very useful suggestions that enhanced this essay considerably. Last, special thanks to the staff and Institute of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and to Richard Kolb at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.

Stephen R. Ortiz is an Assistant Professor of History at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Florida and is currently revising his dissertation, Soldier-Citizens: The Veterans of Foreign Wars and Veteran Political Activism from the Bonus March to the GI Bill, for publication. Readers may contact Ortiz at <sortiz@po-box.esu.edu>.
The Journal of Military History 70 (April 2006): 41538 Society for Military History

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Indeed, by dening pensions and benets as earned compensation rather than governmental largesse, veterans and their organizations have come into frequent conict with their governments over the nature of military service and the requisites of citizenship.1 And, these intensely political conicts can have a wide-ranging historical impact. In the United States, the political battles over veterans special claims on the state have greatly inuenced the contours of both American partisan politics and state formation. Revolutionary War pensions, battles over the bloody shirt and Civil War pensions, the Bonus March of World War I veterans, and the passage of the G.I. Bill have located veterans at the heart of postrevolutionary political culture,2 Gilded Age partisan politics,3 Progressive Era institutional development,4 the upheaval of the Great Depression,5 and the postWorld War II state,6 respectively.
1. On this issue, see Eliot A. Cohen, Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985); and Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957). 2. For postrevolutionary veterans, see John P. Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999); and Leonard L. Richards, Shayss Rebellion: The American Revolutions Final Battle (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). 3. On Civil War pensions and politics, see Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 18651900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); and Mark W. Summers, Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 4. On Civil War veteran welfare and state-building during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, see Patrick J. Kelly, Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans Welfare State, 18601900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992); Ann Shola Orloff, The Politics of Pensions: A Comparative Analysis of Britain, Canada, and the United States, 18801940 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); and K. Walter Hickel, War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemens Dependents in the South, 19171921, Journal of American History 87 (March 2001): 136291, and Entitling Citizens: World War I, Progressivism, and the Origins of the American Welfare State, 19171928 (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1999). 5. On the Bonus March, see Roger Daniels, The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971); Donald J. Lisio, The President and Protest: Hoover, Conspiracy, and the Bonus Riot (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974); Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Lucy G. Barber, Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002); and Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York: Walker and Co., 2005). 6. On the G.I. Bill, see Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans during World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969); Michael J.

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Surprisingly, however, scholars have devoted little attention to the politics of veteran pensions during the presidential administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt (193345).7 His unprecedented time in office was immediately preceded by the Bonus March, the 1932 occupation of the nations capital by 40,000 World War I veterans demanding cash payment on certicates known as the Bonus. For this reason, New Deal scholars tend to contrast FDRs treatment of veterans with his predecessors rough handling of the Bonus Marchers, thereby portraying an amicable relationship consummated in 1944 by the passage of the G.I. Bill, legislation that gave returning World War II veterans social and economic entitlements of unparalleled proportions.8 Work on the Bonus March takes note of FDRs opposition to the soldiers bonus, but the congressional override of his Bonus Bill veto in 1936 stands out only as an awkward political moment on the road to the G.I. Bill dnouement.9 Yet, it was FDRs relief and recovery programthe New Deal itselfthat brought the volatile issues of veteran pensions and benets to the forefront of the eras politics. In 1933, when Great War veterans cast a dark shadow over European politics by playing instrumental roles in the rise of the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany, these issues assumed an air of palpable menace.10 On 9 March 1933, as the Roosevelt administration initiated the New Deal in a urry of legislative activity known as the Hundred Days, veteran politics exploded into view once again. The Bill To Maintain the Credit of the United States Government, passed on 20 March, became the second piece of legislation pushed through the 73d Congress. More
Bennett, When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington: Brasseys, 1996); and Mark D. van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again: Americas World War II Veterans Come Home (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001). 7. For the best treatment, see William P. Dillingham, Federal Aid to Veterans, 19171941 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1952); William Pencak, For God and Country: The American Legion, 19191941 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989); and Thomas A. Rumer, The American Legion: An Official History, 19191989 (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1990). 8. A select list of New Deal political narratives includes Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 195760); William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 19321940 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The New Deal Years, 19331937 (New York: Random House, 1979); and David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 19291945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 9. See note 5 for work on the Bonus March. 10. For two comparative studies of Great War veterans, see Stephen R. Ward, ed., The War Generation: Veterans of the First World War (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1975); and Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 19141939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
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popularly known as the Economy Act, this bill drastically cut federal expenditures through a 400-million-dollar reduction in veteran pensions and benets.11 The retrenchment of the Economy Act triggered a rapid political mobilization by military veterans against New Deal policy. Although obscured by the long shadows of the Bonus March, this political uprising by veterans laid the foundations for organized New Deal dissent. One organization, in particular, served as a crucial meeting ground for veterans critical of the New Deal: the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). Initially, the VFW offered FDR enthusiastic support. After passage of the Economy Act, however, the VFW denounced the Roosevelt administration for reconguring the federal governments responsibilities for military veterans. In doing so, VFW officials and members chastised FDR for not acting more decidedly in the favor of ordinary citizens and decried the continuing inuence of Big Business and Wall Street on the political economy. Indeed, the VFWs erce response to the Economy Act situated the organization in the vanguard of New Deal Dissidents, a group which would include Huey P. Long, Father Charles E. Coughlin, and their reported millions of supporters.12 By 1935, the forces of the VFW and the New Deal Dissidents decisively converged in the struggle to pass the Bonus Bill, a coalition that raised the specter of a new party consisting of Long and Coughlin supporters, buttressed by the veteran vote. Thus, with the Economy Act as the catalyst, the VFW became one of the original voices of protest against the New Deal.13
11. The Economy Act remains one of the most under-examined pieces of New Deal legislation. For the best discussion of the centrality of scal conservatism to FDR and the rst stages of the New Deal, see Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973), 23754, 44853; James E. Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days: Struggles for the Early New Deal (New York: Garland Publishing, 1981); and Julian Zelizer, The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal: Fiscal Conservatism and the Roosevelt Administration, 19331938, Presidential Studies Quarterly 30, no. 2 (2000): 33158. 12. I employ this phrase borrowing heavily from the discussion of dissident ideology in Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), especially 14368. Other terms such as progressives, insurgents, native radicals, and populists lack the specicity, both historical and historiographical, of New Deal Dissidents. For more on New Deal Dissidents, see also Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt, vol. 3; David H. Bennett, Demagogues in the Depression: American Radicals and the Union Party, 19321936 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1969); and David Horowitz, Beyond Left and Right: Insurgency and the Establishment (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). 13. For the literature on the VFW, see Mary Katherine Goldsmith, The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States: The History of a Veterans Organization, Its Function in Assisting Veterans, Inuencing National Legislation, and Interpreting and Promoting Americanism, 18991948 (M.A. thesis, University of Kansas City, 1963); Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr., VFW: Our First Century, 18991999 (Lenexa, Kans.: Addax Publishing Group, 1999); and Stephen R. Ortiz, Soldier-Citizens: The Veter-

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A drive for reductions in federal expenditures began in the waning months of the Herbert C. Hoover administration (192933). In November 1932, Hoover proposed budget cuts of 500 to 700 million dollars to remedy the burgeoning federal budget decits caused by the Great Depression.14 The Joint Congressional Committee on Veteran Affairs met throughout the winter of 193233 to investigate the feasibility of the plan of the National Economy League (NEL) to cut veteran benets by nearly 50 percent, over 400 million dollars. Led by Archibald Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the NEL dedicated its efforts toward the continued pursuit of scal conservatism, a pursuit that included opposition to the World War I soldiers bonus and to the supposedly wasteful extravagance of veteran benets. Unsurprisingly, the Hoover administration, Congress, and the NEL encountered stiff resistance from veterans organizations bent on halting any legislation detrimental to veterans compensation.15 The VFW, joined by the American Legion, quickly mobilized to counter plans for reductions in veteran benets. VFW legislative representatives lobbied Congress intensively, attended the joint committees meetings, and testied against the proposed reductions. In February 1933, VFW National Legislative Vice Chairman L. S. Ray refuted the anti-veteran testimony of the National Economy League, United States Chamber of Commerce, and National Association of Manufacturers before the committee. The veteran organizations determined lobbying appeared to work; no legislation resulted from the committees work. However, Foreign Service, the VFWs monthly publication, warned that while the NEL plan stood defeated and discredited, the cause of the veteran is by no means out of danger. On the contrary, organized veterandom must continue to follow the VFW in combating the activities of those who would pounce upon the issue of economy as a means of wiping out existing veteran legislation. VFW Commander-in-Chief Admiral R. E. Coontz called the VFW legislative committee very successful in ghting off legislation inimical to the VFW and said the committee would keep it up until March 4, the date of Roosevelts inauguration.

ans of Foreign Wars and Veteran Political Activism from the Bonus March to the GI Bill (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 2004). 14. New York Times, 20 November 1932; and Freidel, Launching the New Deal, 51. 15. For reporting on the Joint Committee, see Washington Post, 7, 9, 2122 December 1932, and 4, 5, 10, 12 January 1933; Foreign Service, February 1933, 45, 1011, 25, and March 1933, 10; Pencak, For God and Country, 17075; and Rumer, The American Legion, 196201.

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Coontz hoped that in the coming Congress every question regarding veterans will be considered with the care is due it [sic].16 Coontz and the VFW clearly believed the incoming administration and Congress would handle the issue of veteran benets differently. Indeed, the March issue of Foreign Service ran a glowing article on Roosevelt, entitled Franklin D.the Fighter. This positive treatment detailed FDRs actions as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the World War and attempted to convince VFW members of FDRs frustrated intentions to enlist in the Navy. The article claimed that except for the scourge of inuenza . . . he would now be eligible to membership in the VFW. Following this logic, the article urged VFW members regardless of political differences to hail Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . as a comrade a comrade in spirit truly! The article highlighted the following statement from FDR, laying out the differences between Roosevelt and Hoover in sharp relief: I shall ceaselessly endeavor to bring government back to a more intimate understanding of and relation to human problems.17 The optimism accompanying the beginning of Roosevelts presidency pervaded the VFW. In the rst weeks of March 1933, VFW posts poured congratulatory telegrams and letters into the White House. Post 2235, Neponset, Massachusetts, wrote Roosevelt with barely contained zeal, Its zero hour. We are ready to go over the top with you and drive old man depression out of his trenches by X-mas. Raymond Price, the commander of Post 518 in Camden, New Jersey, thanked Roosevelt, noting, It is gratifying to know we have at last a president that all the people can look to for leadership. The prayers of the American people have been answered. Comrade W. E. Dowling of Post 1941, Irvington, New Jersey, offered Roosevelt a less-giddy welcome and enunciated a common veteran understanding of the 1932 election. Dowling wrote, The War Veterans who secured your election beg to have you beware of the Republican treachery.18 The VFW soon realized that treachery had come to pass, but not of the Republican variety. Indeed, 20 March 1933 marks the beginning of organized New Deal dissent. Less than two weeks after his inauguration, FDRs signing of the Economy Act forced the VFW to reevaluate its condence in the Roosevelt administration. Unknown to the VFW, Roosevelt
16. Foreign Service, February 1933, 4; and Washington Post, 412 January 1933. Coontz in Foreign Service, March 1933, 31. 17. Foreign Service, March 1933, 7, 26. 18. VFW Post 2235, Neponset, Mass., to FDR, 3 March 1933; Raymond G. Price, Corp. Matthews-Purnell Post 518, Camden, N.J., to FDR, 10 March 1933; and Comrade W. E. Dowling of Corp. John McGotty Post 1941, Irvington, N.J., to FDR, 18 February 1933, in Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19331936, Presidents Personal File (PPF) 87, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.

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and his appointee as Budget Director, Lewis Douglas, also had been working throughout the interregnum on legislation to balance the budget through sharp reductions in veteran benets. Only the worsening banking crisis derailed FDRs plans to offer the bill as the administrations rst piece of legislation. Introduced on 9 March 1933, and steamrolled through an acquiescent Congress, the Economy Act gave the Chief Executive discretionary powers over veteran benets. By delegating those powers to Budget Director Douglas, a decorated World War veteran and strong proponent of scal austerity, FDR attempted simultaneously to remove veteran benets from congressional oversight and to distance himself from this politically sensitive issue.19 FDR, however, failed at both. Instead, the Roosevelt administration provoked a confrontation with disgruntled veterans and a bipartisan coalition of congressional dissenters vowing to repeal the bill. The VFW mobilized immediately against the Economy Act. VFW national officers and posts throughout the nation vehemently protested passage of the bill and the new regulations. VFW officials and members, once warm to the administration, disparaged the New Deal in blistering attacks. Aghast at the drastic cuts in disability pensions460 million dollars in cuts almost precisely as proposed by the NELand new stringent guidelines for proving service-related disabilities, the VFW assaulted the plan in no uncertain terms. The VFWs leadership began the offensive against the Economy Act. Foreign Service editorialized, the so-called economy bill virtually destroys the basic structure of veteran legislation created during the past fteen years. In an editorial titled Blood Money, the VFW national leadership explained the veteran case against the Economy Act. The VFW leadership argued that veterans would have gladly agreed to cuts in benets for the sake of economy if Congress had rst considered wiping out useless bureaus and commissions, putting a stop to huge subsidies, and striking at the root of the tremendous extravagance created by a bureaucratic government. But Congresss Economy Act considered only economies in veteran benets, thus reecting the agenda of Big Business. The editorial continued, The obvious fact that the Economy Bill reects the very language that featured the propaganda of the National Economy League indicates that this new legislation achieves the objectives of those who found it protable to sponsor and nance that organizationthose who control the wealth of the nation.20
19. On the fundamental scal conservatism of FDR, Douglass instructions to work on cuts in veteran benets, and the importance of balancing the budget to the early New Deal, see Freidel, Launching the New Deal, 23754; and Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, 6874. 20. Foreign Service, April 1933, 4.
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Fig. 1. Some Call This Economy, Foreign Service, April 1933. Reprinted by permission of the VFW.

The VFWs critique of the Economy Act folded into a larger indictment of the political and economic system. Cuts in benets alone would have touched off heated criticism, but the VFW argument against the reductions enumerated in the Economy Act employed veteran understandings of the World War, the causes of the Depression, and the prevailing political economy. Veterans widely considered corporate avarice and greed, the concentration of wealth, and the corruption of the political system by Wall Street and Big Business to be the causes of both the Great War and the Depression. Thus, the VFW leadership concluded the editorial, It is apparent that the veteran has been forced to bear the burden of a depression that was actually caused by his enemiesthe predatory interests that have their hands in the public till. The money that will be withheld from the disabled veteran . . . can only be regarded as blood money.21 Editorial drawings by the VFWs artist and political cartoonist, Herbert E. Lake, accompanied the vitriol on the editorial pages of Foreign Service. Lake graphically depicted VFW sentiment regarding the Economy Act. In the panel titled, Some Call This Economy (Fig. 1), Lake portrayed the proponents of the Economy Act as executioners. The ring squad was lined with gures wearing top hat and tails labeled National Economy League and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while three veteransone each from the Civil War, the Spanish-American War,
21. Ibid.

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Fig. 2. The First Casualty in Americas War on Depression!, Foreign Service, April 1933. Reprinted by permission of the VFW.

and the World Warcalmly but sternly faced their executioners. In The First Casualty of Americas War on Depression (Fig. 2), Lake continued to express the VFWs reaction to the Economy Act. In this drawing, a World War veteran lay prostrate and bleeding from a vicious bayonet thrust in the back. The rie to which the bayonet is affixed was labeled economy. As the caption suggested, Roosevelts War on Depression presented dire and unexpected consequences for veterans. In short time, the expressions of distrust and dissatisfaction with the Roosevelt administration became more pronounced in the pages of Foreign Service.22 The VFW national leadership began to assail the New Deal more generally, not just the rapacity of the Economy Act. By April 1933, VFW
22. Ibid., 56.
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leadership recognized that Roosevelt had not been duped into the passage of the Economy Act. On the contrary, the Roosevelt administration openly sided with the business community on veteran issues and continued the conservative scal policies that had characterized the vilied Hoover administration. And, despite administration assurances that the cuts would be handled justly and humanely, reductions proved even more draconian than the VFW originally feared. The Economy Act removed 501,777 veterans and their dependents from the pension roll. Those who retained disability benets shouldered anywhere from 25 to 80 percent in reductions.23 The VFW, therefore, concluded that the New Deals policies threatened to undermine irrevocably the privileged positions expected by veterans and their supporters. From this point, the VFW leadership began referring to the Roosevelt administrations relief and recovery efforts with ironic quotation marks around the phrase new deal. One characteristic editorial began, the tragic consequences of the new deal in veteran legislation become more and more apparent, while an article outlining the specics of veteran benet reductions was entitled An Analysis of the New Deal for Disabled Veterans.24 The VFW also communicated this message through the very effective use of critical humor. The back page of Foreign Service always contained a list of jokes and comic drawings known as Jest-A-Minute. This section began to include jokes critical of the Roosevelt administration. In the following jokes, veterans lampooned the New Deal: Dealers Choice A gagster in Judge says the new deal started with the jack left out. The veteran apparently sat at the dealers right because he got the cut! Jeers or Cheers? Cheer Leader: Three cheers for the New Deal! Veteran Rooters: Raw! Raw! Raw!25 In a similarly mordant way, VFW editorials deployed the well-known forgotten man theme of the Roosevelt election campaign as a rhetorical weapon. A May 1933 editorial huffed that while legislation is being enacted for the relief of agriculture, the railroads, banks, and other nancial institutions, the veteran absorbed a reduction in income amounting to $460,000,000. The VFW warned, If the present session of Congress ignores the plight of these former defenders of the nation then

23. Foreign Service, February 1934, 4; and Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, 242. 24. Foreign Service, May 1933, 57. 25. Ibid., 30.

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truly history will record the veteran as the real forgotten man of the depression and democracy will have failed its saviors.26 The VFW leadership urged members and local posts to express their outrage over the Economy Act by writing to their elected officials. Many VFW posts and members voiced their complaints directly to the White House. The L. M. Tate Post 39 of St. Petersburg, Florida, wired FDR that the members were ready to do our part in the interests of economy but suggested that cuts should not be made at the expense of the private in the rear rank. The Huntington Park, California, Post 952 forwarded to the White House a resolution passed by the Los Angeles County VFW Council reversing its decision to participate in a Roosevelt Day program. The Los Angeles County VFW Council explained its refusal to participate in view of the fact of the arbitrary assumption of dictatorial and unconstitutional powers, especially in veterans affairs. Minnesota VFW officers informed FDR by telegram that delegates of all posts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Minnesota . . . voted unanimouslyoppose granting of dictatorial powers to President and are absolutely opposed [to] cutting veterans benefitsemphatically demanding our Government that its defenders be not betrayed. Harry Hoffman, commander of City of Detroit Post 334, ominously warned FDRs personal secretary that the sober thinking veteran is getting tired of sitting idly by, he is thinking and some of these days youre going to have a real Bonus Army in Washington, men who served overseas.27 Democratic allies within the VFW had even more direct admonitions for the new administration. Democratic Party Chairman James A. Farley received a letter from Joseph Heffernan written from the Ohio state convention of the VFW where there was a strong undercurrent for open censure of President Roosevelt because of the Economy Act. Heffernana VFW member, Democrat, and ex-mayor of Youngstownclaimed he was able to keep the issue off of the convention oor and prevent a direct expression. Nonetheless, he urged Farley, Please do not underestimate the dynamite in the veteran situation. Heffernan put the controversy in the strict electoral terms that Farley understood, They feel that they were a great inuence in the defeat of Hoover, and, frankly, I should not like to see them turn en masse against Roosevelt. He

26. Ibid., 47. 27. L. M. Tate Post 39 to FDR in Economy Program, 1933, T, PPF 200f, Box 159, FDRL; Harry S. Roberts, Huntington Park Post 952, to Colonel Howe, 7 July 1933, in Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19331934, Official File (OF) 84, FDRL; Kenneth A. Bixler and W. R. Ambrose to FDR, 10 March 1933, in Economy Program, 1933, U-V, PPF 200f, Box 159, FDRL; Harry C. Hoffman, City of Detroit Post 334, to Sec. Howe, undated, in World War Veterans, June 5June 13, 1933, OF 95, FDRL.
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reiterated, They can cause trouble, so do not underestimate such a concerted opposition.28 Despite the reports of general veteran resentment toward the Roosevelt administration, and in contrast to the VFWs position, the American Legion national leadership appeared to side with the administration on the Economy Act. FDRs 5 March appearance on a Legion national radio broadcast in which he asked for the support of men who know the meaning of sacrice gave the impression that the Legion leadership knew and tacitly approved of the legislation.29 Legion Commander Louis A. Johnsons cozy relationship with the administration only fueled suspicions. Johnson, while opposed to the severity of the cuts, did everything possible to squelch the uproar from veterans. Johnson told FDR that Legion leadership had started a publicity campaign in American Legion News to convince veterans to Support the President. Indeed, on 15 March, despite his admission that the Economy Act might have the gravest consequences to the disabled veteran, Johnson issued a battle order that legionnaires support FDR on the issue. He explained, the Legion has every faith in the discretion, rmness, and justice with which the President will deal with this problem.30 These statements notwithstanding, the Legion quietly initiated efforts to repeal the most glaring injustices of the Economy Act. However, American Legion posts, state departments, and even the national executive committee repudiated their commanders public stand. The Newark, Ohio, Legion Post proclaimed, We disapprove of the attitude of National Commander Johnson in so completely surrendering the Legion to the victories of the National Economy League and for promising Legion support for policies and doctrines . . . contrary to its views and aims. The Dennis-Butler Legion Post of Stillwater, Oklahoma, called for Johnsons resignation. Regardless of the Legions behind-the-scenes

28. Copy of letter from Joe Heffernan to James Farley, 1 July 1933, in Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19331934, OF 84, FDRL. 29. FDR Address in American Legion National Broadcast, 5 March 1933, in American Legion, January-June, 1933, OF 64, Box 1, FDRL; and Washington Post, 6 March 1933. 30. Johnson was a Democratic Party stalwart from West Virginia, later appointed Assistant Secretary of War by FDR, who carried on a voluminous secret correspondence with the administration on veteran issues. On Louis Johnsons ties to the FDR administration and Legion response to the Economy Act, see Pencak, For God and Country, 19297. Louis Johnson to FDR, 28 March 1933, in American Legion, January-June, 1933, OF 64, Box 1, FDRL. Battle Orders quotation in Pencak, For God and Country, 192, and Washington Post, 16 March 1933.

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efforts, the perception among legionnaires remained that the Legion had acquiesced to the President.31 The Economy Act crisis exposed some crucial differences between the Legion and VFW national organizations that had seldom come to light between 1919 and 1933. The VFW and the Legion had worked in tandem on most veterans issues. Both fought diligently for expanded medical benets and the construction of veteran hospitals and clinics. Each sought to strengthen the existing system of pensions and benets for ex-servicemen, their widows, and their families. Both organizations attempted to make the Veterans Bureau and the War Risk Insurance Board more efficient and more responsive to veterans needs. On nonveterans issues, the Legion and the VFW called for a strong national defense and military preparedness, supporting increased defense spending and the maintenance of civilian military training camps. Moreover, both stridently promoted the emotionally charged goal of Americanism and fervently opposed Bolshevism in any guise. Notwithstanding these overlapping political agendas, the two national organizations differed in important ways.32 The VFW lacked not only the Legions size and attendant lobbying strength, but also its prominent, conservative leadership. In 1933, the Legion maintained a membership of nearly 1,000,000 veterans, while the VFW had only just topped 150,000 dues-paying members the previous year. As importantly, a group of wealthy and conservative elites known as the kingmakers dominated the Legions national leadership. Never far from the reins of national political power, kingmakers such as Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Ogden Mills, and Bennett Champ Clark also exerted a tremendous amount of control over the Legions policies. While rank-and-le veterans complained about the Legions conservative oligarchy, the VFW leaders tended to be less elite in social origins, more populist than conservative, and ultimately more responsive to the rankand-le membership than their Legion counterparts. The VFW leaderships lack of economic and political stature also translated into a surprising lack of funds for the organization. Thus, the conservative, power-brokering Legion towered over the VFW not just in membership, but also in power and prestige, however measured.33
31. For the American Legion perspective on the Economy Act, see Pencak, For God and Country, 17075, 19297; and Rumer, The American Legion, 196201. National Tribune, 11 May 1933. 32. On the American Legion, see Pencak, For God and Country; and Rumer, The American Legion. On the VFW, see Mason, VFW: Our First Century, 18991999, 5495; Goldsmith, The Veterans of Foreign Wars; and Ortiz, Soldier-Citizens, passim. 33. Legion membership totals in National Tribune, 7 February 1935; and the VFWs in Goldsmith, The Veterans of Foreign Wars, 194. On Legion and VFW leadMILITARY HISTORY

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In 1933, though, the differences between the VFWs militant protest and the Legions perceived acquiescence on the Economy Act affected the institutional vitality of the two veteran organizations. The American Legion suffered a nearly 20 percent loss of membership; some 160,000 veterans did not renew their Legion membership.34 In the same year, the VFW continued a rapid expansion begun in 1929. New posts sprang up across the nation. Although the VFW leadership found the membership total difficult to calculate with members joining and just as rapidly falling by the wayside, the VFW signed up over 40,000 new recruits in 1933. The organization experienced a net growth of 165 new posts, with 74 more posts regaining their charters by paying their overdue fees. Post growth, while an imperfect measure of organizational vitality, can at least allow for generalizations about an organizations relative strength. The VFW ourished at the expense of the American Legion as a direct result of their respective stances on the Economy Act.35 The political mobilization of veterans against the Economy Act quickly produced legislative results. On 16 June 1933, Congress passed the Independent Offices Appropriation Act, rolling back some 100 million dollars in cuts, limiting reductions for those disabled in war to 25 percent, and creating ninety review boards for veterans to appeal their new disability classications. Although FDR grudgingly signed the legislation, only his threat of a nationally broadcast veto message capped the restored benets at $100,000,000. Several considered amendments pushed for signicantly greater restorations. Budget Director Douglas privately commented, This veteran uprising is an outrage. . . . To think that a small group can intimidate Congress and whats more FDR is discouraging. Senator Frederick Steiwer (Republican, Oregon), a VFW member and Senate leader for more generous restorations, wrote an Oregon veteran, we raised so much hell that I am reasonably hopeful that the President will further liberalize his regulations. Still, despite the attainment of these more amenable terms, veterans absorbed nearly $360,000,000 in benet reductions. The Independent Offices Appropri-

ership, see Pencak, For God and Country, especially 48106; Mason, VFW: Our First Century, 18991999, 5495; and Goldsmith, The Veterans of Foreign Wars, 192. 34. Chart of American Legion membership totals from 192034 in National Tribune, 7 February 1935. 35. Post growth information found in Foreign Service, January-December 1933; and Report of the Adjutant Generals Department and Report of the Chief of Staff, 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933 (Washington: GPO, 1934): 15263, 18285.

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ation Act only temporarily placated veteran unrest. For the VFW, the continuing ght over the Economy Act came to a climax at the 1933 VFW national encampment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, held from 27 August to 1 September.36 Proclaiming veteran legislation the number one priority, the VFW held a raucous national convention with a roster of speakers openly hostile to the Economy Act. The call for political mobilization against the administrations policies echoed throughout the 1933 encampment. The 10,000 veterans in attendance roared approval at the lengthy denunciations of the Economy Act resounding from the speakers platform. In numerous addresses, the call was militant, expressed in the well-worn rhetoric of the Great War and in thinly veiled gender and class terms. Senator and VFW member Arthur R. Robinson (Republican, Indiana) proclaimed, There is no time for mollycoddling, no time for silk stockings, but the moment has arrived . . . when the veterans of all wars must put on their shining armor and go forth to battle once again . . . and when this war is won, no one will dare again attempt to stab the veterans in the back. Robinson denounced the so-called economy bill as the most cruel, brutal, and utterly indefensible act ever passed by a cowardly Congress. Rice W. Means, past national commander of the VFW, ex-Senator from Colorado, and publisher of the national veteran publication National Tribune, continued the assault in a ferocious attack on the FDR administration. In response to American Legion Commander Johnsons call for supporting the President, Means proclaimed, I want to say to you I will never uphold the hand of the one who struck that cruel blow. We must not pussyfoot! Means whipped the veterans into thunderous applause, exclaiming, this economy act was conceived by income-tax dodgers. It was born of a result of ruthless, vicious propaganda. . . . It is a stain upon the honor of the United States. Marine Major General Smedley D. Butler exhorted the crowd, Youve got to get mad. Its time you woke upits time you realized theres another war on.37 The VFW furthered its standing as a center of New Deal dissent by inviting one of the most outspoken and controversial critics of the New
36. Pencak, For God and Country ,193; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, 449; and Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, 24260. Lewis Douglas to James S. Douglas, 8 June 1933, quoted in Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, 247. For Steiwers membership in VFW Post 81, Portland, Oregon, see Foreign Service, July 1933. Frederick Steiwer to Cicero Hogan, 20 June 1933, quoted in Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, 260. 37. Attendance estimates in Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 August 1933. Address of Senator Arthur Robinson, 30 August 1933, in 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933 (Washington: GPO, 1934), 53, 54. Address of Rice W. Means, 30 August 1933, in 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933, 51. Butler Address reprinted in Foreign Service, December 1933, 30.
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Deal to address the encampment: Senator Huey P. Long (Democrat, Louisiana). Long obliged by denigrating the Roosevelt administration in a rancorous ninety-minute address.38 He repeated an oft-cited claim that he was responsible for FDRs nomination at the 1932 Democratic convention and expressed hope that Roosevelt would get back on the right track. But he spent the majority of his speech to the VFW railing against the concentration of wealth and the FDR administrations reneging on campaign promises to address that issue. Long attacked the administrations missteps, such as the Economy Act, and mocked the New Deal as ineffective. In an allegory criticizing the New Deal for not addressing the concentration of wealth, Long described a poker game in which the winner walks away from the table with 95 percent of the money, prompting the remaining players to ask for a new deal. Long responded, Well what are you going to deal with? It isnt going to do any good to break open a new deck of cards and deal another hand. The man has gone home with all the money! Long proposed to redistribute wealth through sharp increases in income and estate taxes, and came out for immediate payment of the Bonusall as measures to increase the purchasing power of ordinary Americans. Long told the assembled veterans that the Bonus would do ten times the good the sapling bill and the Recovery Act put together are doing.39 Longs antiNew Deal diatribe found a receptive audience among VFW members. The VFW veterans handed multiple questions to the stage for Long to answer and begged him to continue with cries of Go ahead! when Long began his concluding remarks. Foreign Service reported to the VFW membership that Longs speech was vociferously applauded and his wit and droll anecdotes elicited long laughter.40 Moreover, the VFW members in attendance provided Long with more physical measures of approval. Representative Everett M. Dirksen (Republican, Illinois) reminisced that after Long asked the VFW audience, Fellows, do I have to put up with this? VFW Sergeants at Arms manhandled the reporters who were crowding in on the dais, smashing photographers cameras as the newspapermen were given the bums rush from the stage apron in a real scuffle. This brouhaha nearly forced the
38. Longs appearance at the VFW Encampment came within a day of a muchpublicized altercation at a Long Island country club in which Long received a probably well-deserved black eye. Dogged by reporters over the incident, Long addressed the encampment in what Brinkley calls one of the surliest and most vituperative speeches he had ever made. See Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 6566, for story and quote. 39. Address of Senator Huey Long, 29 August 1933, in 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933, 3139. The sapling bill was Longs dismissive term for the Reforestation Act that created the Civilian Conservation Corps. 40. Foreign Service, October 1933, 39.

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leadership to temporarily shut down the encampment. The New York Times summed up Longs appearance with the headline, Long Amid Bedlam Denounces Foes. The front page of the Washington Post read, Kingsh Fans VFW Frenzy.41 The VFWs frustration with the limitations of the New Deal and agreement with Longs dissenting political agenda can be measured in a more profound way. The 1933 VFW national encampment went on record with a spate of resolutions concerning the political economy of the country. The VFW demanded, of course, the full repeal of the Economy Act. The assembled delegates passed resolutions reiterating their insistence on cash payment of the Bonus, calling for the reduction of interest on existing tax-exempt securities, and demanding the universal draft of industry and capital during times of warall measures opposed by the Roosevelt administration.42 The encampment also passed Resolution No. 64, stating the VFWs position heartily endorsing a proposed constitutional amendment providing for the limitation of wealth. The VFW pledged every effort possible to secure [the] enactment . . . of this humanitarian proposal. According to the resolution, the amendment would benet the entire Nation and all out [sic] people by distributing wealth, limiting income, and making spending power more equitable than is possible at present. Seamlessly, the VFW wove the problems of the Depression, the concentration of wealth, and popular veteran understandings of the causes of wars into the language of the resolution. According to the veteran delegates, the amendment would through the elimination of huge fortunes, with their attending greed and selshness, serve to limit the possibilities of future wars.43 Despite the VFW leaderships claims that there was little or no tendency toward radical thought or action and that a spirit of conservatism, coupled with aggressive determination, seemed to prevail during the encampment, the set of resolutions situated the VFW as a leading critic of the rst New Deal.44 On 22 September 1933, newly elected Commander James E. Van Zandt brought the VFWs agenda directly to the White House. In a brief meeting with FDR, Van Zandt described the widespread suffering that has been caused among disabled veterans including the vicious penalties upon the more than 175,000 veterans of the War with Spain and the
41. Everett McKinley Dirksen, The Education of A Senator (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998),13233; Foreign Service, October 1933, 10; and New York Times and Washington Post, 30 August 1933. The VFW leadership sent formal apologies to the Milwaukee newspapers for Longs violent abuse of the assembled newspapermen. See Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 August 1933. 42. For list of resolutions, see 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933, 23669. 43. 34th National Encampment of the VFW, 1933, 255. 44. Foreign Service, October 1933, 8.
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plight of more than 400,000 disabled World War veterans . . . thrust upon local community charities. Van Zandt issued an emphatic plea for the Presidents cooperation and tolerant consideration of policies adopted by the Milwaukee encampment. Reiterating the encampments mandateopposition to the Economy Act and continued support for immediate cash payment of the BonusVan Zandt garnered little sympathy from FDR on either issue. Moreover, Van Zandt described the organizations expansive view of the federal responsibility for veterans, enumerating three fundamental principles of veteran legislation: adequate relief for veterans with service-connected disabilities; relief to veterans suffering from disabilities due either to injury, disease, or old age, who are unable to carry on; and relief to widows and orphans regardless of the cause of the veterans death. The VFWs articulation of these principles, in direct opposition to the very basis of the Economy Act, possibly crystallized plans for FDR to speak at the upcoming American Legion national convention in Chicago.45 FDR chose to address the more hospitable Legion convention as a way to undermine veteran unrest. An internal White House memorandum describing why FDR should attend this gathering of veterans indicated the depth of veteran resentment and the political stakes at risk. The writer, John C. Fischer of the Board of Veteran Appeals, described the political calculations of the veteran situation. He argued, Someone must speak to pacify the angry veterans and only the President with his magnicent personality could escape unscathed. The political clout associated with the voting bloc of veterans and their relatives represented one sixth of our citizenry, and the convention was a necessary engagement to insure the future success of the administrations programs. Fischer also pointed to the short-term legislative concerns, noting that only FDRs presence could forestall legislation calculated to emasculate the Economy Act and mollify the radicals and disarm a thoroughly aroused and recalcitrant Congress . . . deluged with veterans appeals. A Washington Post report quoted unnamed Legion leaders that the President would attend because resentment against Congressional cuts in disability pensions has been mounting steadily in veterans ranks.46 On 2 October 1933, FDR addressed the Legion national convention in Chicago. In his speech, FDR acknowledged the governments responsibility to care for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the dependents of those killed in action. Yet, FDR bluntly rebuffed further
45. Commander James E. Van Zandt to the President, 22 September 1933, in VFW, 19331936, PPF 87, FDRL; and Foreign Service, November 1933, 12. 46. John C. Fischer to Stephen F. Early, 15 September 1933 in American Legion, July-Dec., 1933, OF 64, Box 1, FDRL; Washington Post, 1 October 1933.

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demands by veterans, and specically, the VFW, claiming, no person, because he wore a uniform must thereafter be placed in a special class of beneciaries over and above all other citizens. FDR continued, the fact of wearing a uniform does not mean that he can demand and receive from his Government a benet which no other citizen receives. In this blunt refutation, a Washington Post reporter explained, Facing the blue-clad soldiers of 1918, who felt the swing of the Administrations economy ax in the drive to assure National credit, the President dramatically pointed his nger at them and backed up his program.47 Afterward, Commander Johnson wrote FDR and assured him that only his presence allowed the Legion leaders to reverse the mandate of the 1932 Legion convention supporting immediate payment of the Bonus and quieted the clamor to rescind the Economy Act. The New York Times called the convention a victory for the conservative element, leaving little doubt of the ability of the Legions leadership to hold its members in line . . . with the Administration. Despite FDRs success in pacifying the Legion convention, his words further inamed the VFW.48 The VFW issued sharp rebuttals to FDRs remarks. Many VFW members agreed that the wearing of a uniform did not entitle veterans to benets, but found it incomprehensible that this would apply to overseas and combat veterans, too. Frank O. Gangwisch, commander of Post 12 in Pittsburgh, informed FDR, We are writing you, Mr. President, to let you know that we do not agree with you. We believe that the man who donned a uniform in time of war is entitled to special benets not enjoyed by the man who stayed home and earned from fteen to fty dollars a day while we were ghting at the front. Commander Van Zandt issued a statement reiterating the VFWs liberal position on veteran benets, claiming that the veterans welfare today is exclusively a federal responsibility.49 The Foreign Service editorial page assaulted FDRs speech as an abrupt departure from long-held American views concerning veterans. In an editorial entitled Ideals Ignored, the VFW pointed out the radicalism of the new deal Administration on veteran issues. Moreover, the VFW leadership predicted, If Franklin D. Roosevelt believes for one moment that his drastic theories on the problem of veteran welfare reect the wishes of the American people, he is indeed due for a sad
47. FDR speech to American Legion Convention, 2 October 1933, in PPF: Speeches, Box 15, FDRL. See also Washington Post, 23 October 1933. 48. Louis A. Johnson to FDR, October 9, 1933, in American Legion, 1933, PPF 350, FDRL; New York Times, 7 and 3 October 1933. 49. Emphasis added, Commander Frank O. Gangwisch to FDR, in Soldiers Bonus, 1933, OF 95c, Box 2, FDRL; Van Zandt in Foreign Service, November 1933, 12.
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awakening at the hands of an aroused Congress. VFW artist Lake penned the scornful accompanying drawing. In Old Ideals vs. New Deals (Fig. 3), statements from Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt concerning the federal obligation to veterans contrasted with FDRs new deal departure. The imagery rendered the drawing an especially harsh condemnation of FDR. Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt stood sternly and statesmanlike while FDR, cigarette holder prominently displayed, was drawn with a whimsical, perhaps mocking, visage.50 In October 1933, the VFW initiated an intense publicity drive to bring attention to the plight of veterans and to galvanize opposition to the Economy Act. VFW Legislative Chairman George Brobeck instituted a nine point program to utilize the network of VFW local posts, radio broadcasts, and VFW national publications in the effort.51 Commander Van Zandt was a dynamo. Speaking almost weekly on the NBC and CBS national radio networks, Van Zandt called for the total repeal of the Economy Act and immediate cash payment of the Bonus in addresses such as The VFW Legislative Policy for the Coming Year.52 Moreover, throughout the winter of 193334, he continually traveled the country to address and recruit veterans for the VFW and win public support for the VFW agenda.53 In December 1933, a national speaking tour headed by Van Zandt and the extremely popular Smedley Butler drew national media attention to the VFWs mobilization efforts. General Butler, recently retired to the lecture circuit, commanded huge veteran audiences everywhere he spoke. For recruiting purposes, the VFW published Butlers You Got to Get Mad address to the 1933 encampment in Foreign Service. The VFW also realized that Butler was a real asset for obtaining national media attention. The tour of Van Zandt and Butler, spanning ten cities across the Midwest and South in eleven days, garnered reporting from the New York Times even when they were in the Deep South. A Roosevelt supporter in 1932, Butler now decried the administrations cozy alliance with Big Business. His animated harangues against Wall Street and calls for veteran political activism energized veteran audiences.54 Veteransand reportersloved Butlers salty language and colorful analogies. In Omaha, Nebraska, Butler launched a stormy attack against capital50. Foreign Service, December 1933, 45. 51. National Tribune, 26 October 1933. 52. New York Times, 28 September 1933 and 29 October 1933; Foreign Service, October 1933 to March 1934. 53. See Foreign Service, October 1933 to April 1934, for Van Zandts breakneck tour of VFW posts across the nation. 54. For more on the mercurial Butler, see Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and The Contradictions of American Military History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987).

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Fig. 3. Old Ideals vs. New Deals, Foreign Service, December 1933. Reprinted by permission of the VFW.

ists, blaming them for the National Economy Act. In New Orleans, Butler shared the dais with Huey Long at a VFW rally and told the veterans, I believe in making Wall Street pay for ittaking Wall Street by the throat and shaking it up. In Atlanta, he explained, Jimmie [Van Zandt] and I are going around the country trying to educate the soldiers out of the sucker class.55 The power of veteran political activism over a Congress facing reelection proved too forceful for the administration to suppress. In March of 1934, the passage of a second Independent Offices Bill all but repealed the Economy Act. Once the Roosevelt administration recognized the likelihood of major revisions to the Economy Act, multiple attempts ensued to water down the restorations in cuts. The VFW legislative committee, however, asked congressional allies to reject any compromise proposal oated by the administration limiting the restoration of benets even if it meant a presidential veto. Foreign Service gloried the decision: the leaders of the VFW, inspired by the knowledge that they were ghting for a cause that was just and honest, declined to
55. National Tribune, 14 December 1933; New York Times, 10 December 1933; and Atlanta Constitution, 11 December 1933.
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be a party to this type of treason. FDR indeed vetoed the bill but, on 29 March 1934, both houses of Congress handily overrode the veto. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes complained in his diary that the members of the House man after man, like so many scared rabbits, ran to cover out of fear of the soldier vote.56 In the end, the Independent Offices Bill handed FDR his rst significant congressional defeat. Ickes conded that the veto override dealt FDR his rst serious political setback and a serious blow to his economy program. Arthur Krock of the New York Times called the veto override the Presidents rst Manassas, pointing out that FDRs supreme control of the parliamentary arm lasted a year and twenty-four days. The Boston Herald noted that the veto override offered a grim warning that the veterans are in the saddle again and they have always ridden hard. Commander Van Zandt issued a victory statement claiming, Congress has demonstrated it will no longer tolerate dictatorship. Emboldened by the triumph, the VFW rededicated its energy to the immediate cash payment of the Bonus and continued to voice dissent with administration policy.57 Even after the repeal of the Economy Act, veteran political activism remained at the epicenter of New Deal dissent. On 23 February 1934, somewhat lost in the hullabaloo over the second Independent Offices Act, Huey Long delivered a nationally broadcast speech touting his new political organization, the Share Our Wealth Society. In this speech outlining the organizations platform and purpose, Long appealed to disaffected veterans, We ought to take care of the veterans of the wars in this program. . . . Every man that wore the uniform of this country is entitled to be taken care of.58 Two days later, Father Charles E. Coughlin reversed his position and openly supported the Bonus on his national radio broadcast. On Armistice Day, 11 November 1934, in the middle of veteran-oriented radio programming, Coughlin announced the formation of the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ). By 1935, as Longs and Coughlins organizations grew to reportedly millions of members, their platforms almost exactly matched the legislative agenda of the VFW.59
56. Foreign Service, May 1934, 5; Harold L. Ickes, 31 March 1934 diary entry in The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: The First Thousand Days, 19331936 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), 158. 57. Ickes, 31 March 1934 diary entry in The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, 158; Krock and Van Zandt in New York Times, 30 March 1934; Boston Herald, 29 March 1934. 58. Longs Every Man A King address, reprinted in Henry M. Christman, ed., Kingsh to America: Share Our Wealth (New York: Schocken Books, 1985), 44. 59. For Coughlin addresses, see United States Incorporated, 25 February 1934, in Charles E. Coughlin, Eight Lectures on Labor, Capital, and Justice (Royal Oak, Mich.: Radio League of the Little Flower, 1934), 8399, and The National Union

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In 1935, both Long and Coughlin openly embraced the support of the VFW organization and national leadership. On 11 May, Long delivered an address in support of the Bonus entitled A Fair Deal for the Veterans, a national radio broadcast sponsored by the national VFW organization. In two May radio broadcasts, Father Coughlin challenged his listeners and NUSJ members to throw the weight of their support behind the VFW-sponsored Bonus Bill. On 22 May, just hours after FDRs unprecedented, personally delivered veto of the Bonus Bill before a joint session of Congress, VFW Commander Van Zandt roused the gathering of 23,000 Coughlin followers in Madison Square Garden to howling enthusiasm as a preliminary to Coughlins most acclaimed address.60 During the spring of 1935, correspondence reaching the White House conrmed the conuence of veteran activism and the Long and Coughlin movements. Many correspondents to FDR wrote in explicit terms about the possibility of a third-party developmentor worse involving Long, Coughlin, and veterans. R. S. Appleton warned FDR, If you are the shrewd politician they credit you with being, you will think twice before you go against the veterans and the National Union for Social Justice. E. J. Hawes wired FDR, Remember it was the service vote and Father Coughlin that put your party in. Hawes warned the President, veto of the . . . Bill means only one thing, Huey Long next. John Allen of Jersey City warned FDR of more ominous developments: if this [Bonus] bill is beaten, this country will see a dictator in the White House in 1936, [a] veteran of the World War, backed by the veteran vote, Father Coughlin, and Huey Long. Only two years after Adolf Hitlers rise to power in Germany, these were chilling words indeed.61 The Economy Act of 1933 precipitated a massive political mobilization of veterans, a mobilization led by the VFW. As a result, the VFW formed the vanguard of a slowly coalescing group of New Deal Dissidents.
for Social Justice, Nov. 11, 1934, in A Series of Lectures on Social Justice (Royal Oak, Mich.: Radio League of the Little Flower, 1935), 817. 60. Long speech in Christman, Kingsh to America, 11218; and Ernest G. Bormann, A Rhetorical Analysis of the National Radio Broadcasts of Senator Huey P. Long (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1953), 71, 31819. For Coughlin rally, see Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 17677. For VFW involvement and text of Van Zandt speech, see Wall Street Journal, 23 May 1935; and New York Times, 23 May 1935. 61. R. S. Appleton, Attleboro, Massachusetts, to FDR, 10 May 1935, in Bonus Bill Veto, Against, PPF 200L, container 182, folder 2, FDRL; E. J. Hawes, Drexell Hill, Pennsylvania, telegram to FDR, 10 May 1935, in Bonus Bill Veto, Against, PPF 200L, container 192, FDRL; and John Allen, Jersey City, N.J., to FDR, 11 May 1935, in Bonus Bill Veto, Against, PPF 200L, Cont. 169, FDRL.
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While the vilication of the Economy Act emerged as a unifying theme, veterans quickly subsumed the Economy Act into a larger indictment of the existing political economy. By weaving together the causes and results of the Great War, the causes of the Depression, and the corrosive inuence of Big Business on the political and legislative processes, the VFW extended a seamless critique of the American political and economic system. With the Economy Act and the loss of substantial veteran benets as the pretext, the VFW issued a very clear renunciation of the Roosevelt administration, decrying the New Deals failure both to keep the federal governments contract with its veterans and, by extension, to reshape the political economy as many veterans had hoped. Predating both Longs and Coughlins organizations, veterans became founding members, and the VFW national organization an early meeting ground, of an otherwise loosely organized Depression-era protest movement. The VFWs sophisticated organizational network, energized national leadership, national publications and meetings, high-prole spokesmen, and ready access to print and radio media provided the early organizational structure and the means of national conveyance for New Deal dissent. Ultimately, the combined forces of veterans and the New Deal Dissidents posed a serious threat to Roosevelts reelection in 1936, supplying the political pressure behind Roosevelts turn to the left and the widesweeping social legislation of the second New Deal. In this coalition, military veterans expressed early and crucial voices of protest. And the politics of veterans pensions and benets, in turn, profoundly shaped the New Deal era.

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