Video: Senate defeats 'Bonus' bill, June 17, 1932 (at 14:07)

(Friday, June 17, 1932, 8:20 p.m. EDT; during the Great Depression) — The U.S. Senate voted 62-18 tonight to reject the Wright Patman Bonus Bill, burying all hopes of several thousand war veterans massed at the Capitol for immediate payment of $2.4 billion on their bonus certificates.

The legislation, which had swept through the House on the wave of a 211-176 majority, had brought 20,000 former servicemen devastated by the Great Depression, known as the Bonus Army, to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress for an immediate cash payment that would amount to roughly $1,000 per veteran, scheduled to be paid in 1945.

As the result was announced outside the Capitol tonight, boos from the vast throng of veterans mingled with cheers at a statement from one of their leaders that “we will stay here until the bonus is paid.”