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"Dugout  Doug"  Loses His First Battle

     With this success under his belt (!), George, nothing deterred, landed a very large government contract somewhere "over on the Potomac shore".  I cannot recall the particulars, but this construction site was quite extensive.  For the dubious, I can give it a designation that could be pinpointed on the map: it was the site where the famed "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans assembled.   To refresh my readers' minds, you must recall that following World War I, Congress dragged heels on paying the combat veterans.  As "hard times" came upon the nation, many found themselves out of work.  Hobos rode the rails and many Americans went hungry to bed at night. 

      The golden lining to this dismal cloud, was the vast  pool of indigents this brought to Washington.  And as fast as he could get a pick and shovel in their hands, George Rhine put them all to work...

      But the unpaid veterans who descended on their Capitol were cut of different cloth.  At first in trickles, then in ever-increasing numbers,  they began to converge on Lafayette's city.  I believe this was around 1932.  Soon the press was talking about the "Bonus Army" marshaling "on the Potomac shore"  and making its presence felt in the Halls of Congress.  At least part of this army moved onto George's site, and pre-empted his warehouses and buildings.  As he said, "they moved in to stay" - and they tapped into his water and electric lines and set up housekeeping in his sheds. 

     Though generally sympathetic to their cause and to their demands, this was disconcerting indeed,  for he was under performance bond for the completion of his project, and every day lost was a day he could not make up.   So he turned to his onetime White House "contacts" and lodged a complaint.  In confidence, he was told not to worry: a vast military sweep had been planned, using Army troops, to drive all these "bums" out  of their self-proclaimed "village" and arrest them. 

     This was to take place in a matter of days.  George was dubious - but what could he do?  His informants added that the entire affair was being entrusted to a somewhat controversial officer, who nevertheless had attracted the attention of his superiors, one Douglas M. MacArthur.  The name stuck in George's mind - for no particular reason... 

      Came the fateful day - and the Big Sweep got under way with a bang!  George and his engineer staff were sitting around in one of the shed field offices,  when tear gas shells began to fall outside!  (George of course, was "in on it" - but the others weren't - and shock and alarm lit their faces...).  Now it happened that at the time, George had one employee who was a colossal shall we say, thorn in his side, for some cause or another, and so he said to him, 

     "Hey, Joe - step outside would you a minute and see what's up?" 

     Joe obliged, human nature being what it is and all - and as George had been counting on skimming some off as Life flowed by, he was not to be disappointed, for just as Joe emerged from the shack, around the corner through the smoke and gas came a helmeted soldier in a gas mask with bayonet at the "Ready" - and he forked Joe right into a crowd of coughing, choking vets - late driven from their hideouts. 

     George loved to recall...

     "They took Joe on the trucks with them, and despite all his protestations, they bundled his ass over to the Virginia shore where they had a big lockup for all these fellows and he was locked up with them for about three months before it was all straightened out...". 

     One surmises Joe must have been a mighty humble Bumble after that. 

     With this duck thus accounted for, George now felt it was his turn to step outside and see what the increasing racket was about.  He did so - and as he did, he saw some soldiers needlessly roughing up a poor old vet or two - while others were deliberately smashing in shed windows with their rifle butts.  He remonstrated with them. 

     Instantly (he recalled) there appeared before him a hawk-nosed officer who demanded in imperious tones to know what George was doing accosting his troops.  George replied in kind - and suddenly, without warning - BAM! - the officer socked old George right in the snoot!  (George, of course, knew who he was - that is, he knew he was the commander in charge).  For a brief instant, he thought to return the blow (as was his nature) but on a split-second decision he decided otherwise - and took a headlong dive into a mud puddle at his feet. 

     "That's the only time," he used to recall, "when anyone ever threw a punch at me that I didn't return it.  But you know, it came to me in a flash at the last minute as I fell in that puddle: 'Georgie - you are going to come up out of this puddle a whole lot better off than when you went in...!'" 

     And his intuition paid off.  The following day, the press was  widely critical of the "controversial" officer who had bullied the "poor vets"  so, and certainly "Dugout Doug's" assorted derelictions that day are well-known and his higher ups largely shared the views of the press.  (Some say, in fact, that his poor handling of the Bonus Army affair was really the reason he was shuttled out to the far-off Philippines for a new start to his career - but of this, I cannot vouch...). 

     But bright and early,  one George W. Rhine, with beefsteak held conspicuously to eye, arrived at the War Department with a civilian complaint...  He  capitalized mightily on this misfortune (!), and many cushy government contracts were thrown his way - including that of the "Ida M. Dow" affair, to be related next ... 

          


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