In 1932, Washington Turned Away Broke Veterans but Rescued a Chicago Bank

In June 1932, America's bank bailout fund approved $90 million for one Chicago bank in a single night. Its new chairman had just quit running that fund. That same summer, the same government met World War I veterans with tear gas. So who did Washington say yes to, and who paid? Charles G. Dawes, a former Vice President and a banker who wrote a hit song, ran the lending of Herbert Hoover's new Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the Great Depression. Hoover said the fund was for the smaller banks. Three weeks after Dawes quit, two RFC directors sat in his Chicago bank on a Sunday night. The $90 million came 10 days after the Senate said no to the Bonus Army, in the same month 40 other Chicago banks closed. We keep a ledger of every yes and no, hear the case for the loan, and follow the bill to 1944. CHAPTERS 00:00 A Bank Got Yes, Veterans Got Tear Gas 01:00 The Banker Who Wrote a Hit Song 03:15 The Bank Bailout Fund: Not for Big Banks 05:49 The Senate Says No to the Bonus Army 08:16 The Run on Chicago's Banks 10:42 Sunday Night at the Dawes Bank 13:26 Was It a Fix? The Case for the Loan 16:13 Tear Gas on the Anacostia 18:29 Who Paid the Bill 21:07 The Ledger: Yes and No SOURCES Herbert Hoover, statement on signing the RFC Act, Jan. 22, 1932: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/... Hoover, letter accepting Charles G. Dawes's resignation, June 6, 1932: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docum... RFC v. Central Republic Trust Co., 17 F. Supp. 263 (N.D. Ill. 1936): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/... RFC v. McCormick, 102 F.2d 305 (7th Cir. 1939): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/... Calomiris and Mason, "Contagion and Bank Failures During the Great Depression: The June 1932 Chicago Banking Panic," NBER Working Paper 4934: https://www.nber.org/system/files/wor... Hoover, address in St. Louis, Nov. 4, 1932: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/... U.S. Senate Historical Office, "Capitol Besieged" (archived): https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eo... New Jersey Studies (Rutgers), on Joe Angelo: https://njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/ind... Time, "Dawes Bank," Nov. 16, 1936: https://time.com/archive/6756191/busi... Time, "Paid in Full," Sept. 25, 1944: https://time.com/archive/6782576/bank... Evening Star, June 10, 1937 (Dawes's own account), via finhist.com: https://finhist.com/bank-runs/episode... ARCHIVAL MATERIAL Photos: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (Harris & Ewing, Bain News Service, Underwood & Underwood, Theodor Horydczak, New York World-Telegram & Sun); U.S. National Archives (U.S. Army Signal Corps and other Army records, U.S. Information Agency, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library); Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (Report of the Army Chief of Staff, July 1932); Tichnor Brothers postcards, Boston Public Library; Mid-Week Pictorial and Evening Star (1932); 208 S. LaSalle St. in 2010 by Smallbones (public domain); via Wikimedia Commons; public domain. Film: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (1930); National Archives (1929 Hoover films, WPA films of 1936-37, U.S. Navy film of Washington); Prelinger Archives ("We Work Again," 1937; Chicago home movie, c. 1930-31); via Internet Archive; sound off. Scenes from other places and years are labeled. Maps, diagrams and typed cards are our own, marked "Illustration." Money conversions: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U (September 2026). Narration: ElevenLabs synthetic voice. Music: "Melody in A Major" (Charles G. Dawes), Fritz Kreisler, violin, Carl Lamson, piano, Victor 1921, public domain recording; Great 78 Project, Boston Public Library / George Blood, via Internet Archive. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... : "Gloom Horizon" "I Knew a Guy" "Smoother Move" "Lithium" "Mary Celeste" "Spider Eyes" "Mesmerize" "Texture for Violincello and Pianoforte No. 2" "Immersed" "On the Passing of Time" Sound effects: freesound.org (CC0). This video is history, not financial or legal advice. When Washington can only say yes fast to some people, who should be first in line: the bank, the saver, or the veteran? Did anyone in your family lose savings in a bank that closed in the 1930s? Tell me in the comments. #BankBailout #RichMansPanic #GreatDepression