When Hoover Tear-Gassed My Dad

Hollywood Sent Its Own Bonus Marchers To Washington. The Welcome Wasn't Warm.

Hollywood 1932. What a town. Fantasyland. Eternal summer.

Great Depression? Not here, at least not as reported by the local press. Hollywood was where Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Douglas Fairbanks, Gary Cooper, Lana Turner, Errol Flynn, and Ginger Rogers frolicked at the Coconut Grove. Hollywood was where Busby Berkeley made extravaganza movies with long-legged showgirls sashaying down curving, white staircases with hats the size of chandeliers balanced on their heads.

So who gave that Depression much thought? In Los Angeles, veterans of World War I did; veterans all over America …