The Edwardsburg Museum seems be the repository of items that are not wanted but cannot be disposed of.

So the museum has a number of items and papers that just appear with no identification or explanation. They get filed away thinking that someday someone will find them and use them.

That is how this article came to be this week.

In honor of Veteran’s Day I thought this was an appropriate use of this piece.

It appears to be a letter written in pencil on yellowed paper. On one corner is written 1932. This may be when it was written. On another corner is written this address, 1130 M.P.Co.-3219(AVN) A.P.O. Postmaster.

Because it is written in pencil it is sometimes difficult to read so I will do the best I can.

“One of the most amazing episodes of the Hoover era has been this march of thousands of World W. veterans to the national capital to demand immediate payment of their bonuses, or adjusted compensation certificates for more than two months as soldiers, drawn from all sections of the U.S., camped in and about Washington, lobbied for what they considered their just due, threatened to afflict the capital with disease and epidemics, and presented a constant menace to law and order. No amount of logic or persuasion prevented the veterans from remaining in the District of Columbia from the end of May until July 28, when the patience of authorities exhausted, the veterans camps were destroyed and occupants driven from the capital by the Armed Forces of the U. S. Govt.

“Street fighting broke out July 25. The end came on July 28.

“In the mid-afternoon Secretary of War Hurley acting under instructions from President Hoover, ordered General Mac Arthur, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to surround the affected area and clear it without delay. By 4:30 p.m. the troops were out, they moved down Pennsylvania, the calvary leading the way and after them the trucks and machine gunners and the infantry tear gas and the flat side of the saber drove the veterans from Pennsylvania Ave towards their camp at

Anacostra. Many were injured but only two were killed.

“As an aftermath of the eviction of the B.E.F. President Hoover ordered a sweeping investigation by the District of Columbia grand jury of the charges that the leaders of the riots in Wash were radicals and not-service men. The communist party meanwhile had claimed credit not only for the riots but for starting Walter W. Walters, the commander, General Glassford (Superintendent of Police of Wash. D.C. 1932). This bonus march on Wash. The communist statement was probably calculated to serve Moscow rather then the truth. Out of here by Thursday? Huh? Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t do it in 18 months.”

At the top of the page is the name Patman Bill and BE.F.

This entire paper seems to be just an account of what happened at the Bonus March. Was it written by an Edwardsburg resident? How did the museum get it? Is it a piece of Edwardsburg history? Should it be thrown away or stored in a file somewhere? Can the museum continue to keep historical artifacts?

The museum faces the same questions that many collectors and families have.

 

JoAnn Boepple works with the Edwardsburg Area History Museum.