Today in labor history July 28 troops burning to the ground a shantytown built near the US Capital

[Omaha Steve]

July 28

Women shoemakers in Lynn, Mass. create Daughters of St. Crispin, demand pay equal to that of men - 1869


July 28, 1932 - General Douglas MacArthur, assisted by Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, led troops in burning to the ground a shantytown built near the U.S. Capitol by unemployed veterans. Some 20,000 ex-servicemen had camped out in the capital demanding a veterans’ bonus they had been promised but never received. Many were unemployed due to the Great Depression. Cavalry troops and tanks fired tear gas into the shantytown, routing veterans and their families, then set the buildings ablaze. MacArthur and President Herbert Hoover claimed they had saved the nation from revolution.

Read more about this incident at www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1284687 and www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/peopleevents/pandeAMEX89.html

Nine miners are rescued in Sommerset, Pa. after being trapped for 77 hours 240 feet underground in the flooded Quecreek Mine - 2002

[Truth4Justice]

1. That bastard, George Patton, was there as well. What a shame this event had to happen.

[flashl]

2. I think of this event often as stories about denying veteran benefits surface. nt

[leveymg]

3. MacArthur was approached to lead the 1934 "Bankers Plot" to overthrow FDR

A group of Right-wing Wall Street figures raised money for an army of 500,000 American Legionaires to march on Washingon to remove Roosevelt.

While he declined the offer to command the coup, there's no record that he reported the approach. The plot was finally exposed by Gen. Smedley Butler, former head of the Marine Corps, who was aproached after MacArthur quietly declined.

Prescott Bush was the liaison with Nazi Germany for the Putsch.

[formercia]

4. American Legion founded by William Donovan, WWI hero

Knight of Malta (SMOM), as were most of the coup plotters and later head of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA.

The American Legion has been a KOM front since inception.