Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1936 Congress paid the veterans’ bonus over a presidential veto, and households that had held the paper since the 1920s finally received money they could spend.
A stretched veteran household could pay debts, buy clothing, or catch the rent up with a lump sum a weekly wage had never equaled.
A veteran household that had not needed the money to survive could still spend or save it, and the spending showed up in stores that had been quiet.
A shop in a town full of veterans could see a real run of customers, and the Treasury paid out a large sum during a depression because Congress forced the payment.
The Adjusted Compensation Payment Act of 1936 turned the old certificates into cash, after years in which the government had said the date on the paper mattered more than the need.
Roosevelt vetoed the bill and Congress overrode him.
The money was not a new monthly wage, and families spent a visible share of it because they had been waiting.
Adjusted Compensation Payment Act of 1936