The Yanks Are Starving: A Novel of the Bonus Army

MWSA Review

It was 1932 when scores of thousands of U.S. veterans of World War I, deprived of long-promised bonus monies from the federal government, reached the peak of their frustration and decided to act.

Led by a few charismatic leaders, an incipient movement took root in the heart of the industrial and agricultural Midwest, to combine forces and proclaim the injustice to their elected officials, by a massive march on Washington D.C., where they would seek redress for their grievance. 

Author Glen Craney has chosen the medium of the historical novel to capture the sense of the times, the era of the great Depression.  In so doing he has drawn a vivid picture of not only men being deprived of their veterans' rights, but of their human rights as well.  The starving war veterans in a sense become a metaphor for those seeking the right to a living wage in return for their labors.  In this case those labors included risking their lives for their country.

As the march gathered momentum and additional protesters--state by state--Craney extends the narrative to the growing anxiety of national leaders and local D.C. officials. First and foremost was a beleaguered President Herbert Hoover, struggling with the enormous burdens of the Depression and soon to seek reelection before a highly restive electorate.  A host of colorful fictional characters interact with true historical giants such as MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton in coping with the fall-out as hordes of bonus marchers enter the nation's capital and encamp on the banks of the Anacostia River, establishing a shanty town within a city---this one consisting of makeshift tents, huts and shacks. 

Craney provides a glimpse into the characters of the military icons when MacArthur sends U.S. armed troops into the shanty town against the urgings of Eisenhower, his deputy and aide, who lobbies for retaining the dignity of the veterans.  Meanwhile the veterans were protesting ardently but peacefully at the Halls of Congress, all the while being defamed by some as being Communists and malingerers.   

The Veterans Bonus March was a momentous event in American history and Craney performs a valuable service by chronicling it in this admirable book.

Reviewed by: D.J. Farinacci (2015)

Author's Summary

In 1932, a charismatic hobo led 20,000 jobless WWI veterans into Washington, D.C., only to be driven out of the city by General Douglas MacArthur with tanks and gas. The Yanks Are Starving unfolds the events that led to this confrontation through the experiences of eight Americans who survived the fighting in France during 1918 and came together again during the Great Depression to decide the fate of the nation on the brink of upheaval.