Images thread XX

[robkelk]

Quoting from Wikipedia:

Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment with compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.

There were 3,662,374 Adjusted Service Certificates issued, with a combined face value of $3.64 billion (equivalent to $55 billion in 2019). Congress established a trust fund to receive 20 annual payments of $112 million that, with interest, would finance the 1945 disbursement of the $3.638 billion for the veterans. Meanwhile, veterans could borrow up to 22.5% of the certificate's face value from the fund; but in 1931, because of the Great Depression, Congress increased the maximum value of such loans to 50% of the certificate's face value.

So, Congress had sent those bonuses out, and they weren't supposed to have been in cash.

The more of these "Weird History" snippets I see posted here, the less I trust this "Weird History" group.