The Workers’ Ex-Servicemen League was the Communist Party’s attempt to build an organization of left wing veterans to counteract the likes of the reaction American Legion and serve as stewards and defense for working class functions. It grew in scope as the Great Depression took hold and masses of struggling veterans began a movement to collect the bonus promised them at the end of the World War, leading to the bloody Bonus March on Washington. Below is a W.E.S.L. statement on the bonus.

‘Worker Vets Must Fight!’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 30. February 3, 1931.

(Adopted at WESL mass meeting held in New York City, on Friday, January 30, 1931.)

RIGHT after the world war, the veterans began to ask themselves: “What did we get out of this bloody mess?”

We were released from the military service, and we were promised our jobs back. Instead we were left on the streets starving and homeless. When we did get our jobs back, we found our wages cut. We were brutally speeded up by the bosses. Today large numbers of ex-service- men are on the bread lines all over the country, while hundreds of thousands are working part-time for starvation wages.

The bosses’ government formed veterans’ organizations, as American Legion, Disabled War Veterans, World War Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars to suppress and fool the veterans. These organizations were set up by the bosses to mislead the veterans from our real needs and to make us the tools of bosses against the labor movement.

After six years (from 1919 till 1925) of constant demands of veterans for compensation for the sufferings in the war, the government issued the Veterans Adjusted Service Compensation Certificates, or the so-called “tombstone bonus,” which were to be paid in 1945. Until 1927 the veterans did not receive any loans on those certificates, amount on which the interests were deducted from the value of the “tombstone bonus.” The above mentioned bosses’ veteran organizations supported this action. At present when the cry for the immediate cash payment at face value of the “tombstone bonus” is at its height, these organizations together with senators in Congress and with the bosses’ newspapers are trying to mislead the veterans. Right now there is more than 50 different bills in Congress to confuse the veterans on the question of the bonus.

While the bosses and their representatives in Congress claim that there is no money to pay the bonus, they are spending this year $1,250,000,000 in preparation for another imperialist war. Hundreds of millions of dollars are given back to railroad, steel, coal and other trusts as tax-refunds by the same government who refuses to pay the cash bonus to the veterans.

We must organize all veterans to put up a united fight for the Immediate cash payment of the bonus. But the bonus alone is not sufficient to save us from misery and starvation. We must unite with the employed and unemployed workers in the demand for Unemployment Insurance. Together with other workers we are going to send our delegation to Washington on February 10th to present our demands to Congress for passing the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill, which demands $25 per week for unemployed workers and in addition to this $5 per week for each dependent of the same; no eviction of unemployed, etc.

Especially as ex-servicemen we stress the importance of that section of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill, which provides for the turning over all war funds to the Workers Social Insurance Commission.

We call to all ex-servicemen, to unite on the following demands:

1. The Immediate cash payment at face value of the Veterans Adjusted Service Compensation Certificates to all war veterans, except those earning over $3,000 per year.

2. Increase of all compensations to partly and wholly disabled war veterans.

3. Better treatment of all disabled war veterans in government hospitals.

4. Right to choose our own physicians and medical assistance at the government expense.

5. No Jim Crowism or any kind of discrimination against the Negro war veterans.

6. Against the use of worker ex-servicemen against the labor movement.

WORKERS EX-SERVICEMEN LEAGUE.

Notice: Our regular meeting night is Friday night, at Ukrainian Workers Home, 15 East 3^rd Street, N.Y.C. Every ex-serviceman is welcome at our meetings, dome yourself and bring your buddies along.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n030-not-28-NY-feb-03-1931-DW-LOC.pdf