President Hoover's Speech Analysis

In the fall of 1931 President Hoover traveled to Detroit, Michigan to speak at the Annual American Legion meeting. Hoover was concerned about the proposed Congressional legislation that would require the government to pay in full $3,400,000,000 to the WWI veterans. In his speech Hoover tried to persuade the Legionnaires not to support the act. Hoover stated, “the world is passing though a great depression…today the national government is faced with another large deficit in its budget. There is a decrease in the annual yield of income taxes alone from $2,400,000,000 in the years of prosperity to only $1,200,000,000 today.” Simply put, President Hoover the leader of the American government did not have the money to pay the WWI veterans their bonus. In a show of respect for President Hoover and the financial crisis the American Legion did

Connery of Massachusetts and John .E. Rankin of Mississippi spearhead support for the release of WWI bonus money, however, it was a junior Congressman from Texas Wright Patman made the World War I bonus payment his own personal quest. Patman a WWI veteran himself proposed legislation for the immediate release of the bonus money to all World War veterans. Upon hearing about Patman’s legislation an estimated 11,000 WWI veterans started to arrive in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 1932. The veterans intended to persuade Congress to immediately release bonus payments due to them in 1945 under the Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924. The WWI veterans were unaware or unwilling to accept that years of political wrangling had taken place in regards to awarding them a monetary bonus. They knew they were unemployed and in need of financial aid. They wanted the early release of the bonus payment in full or in part so they could maintain their homes and families. However, they may have been unaware of the financial restraints placed upon the Hoover administration, due to the depression and the national