"Howard Waldrop - Ike At The Mike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

The bandleader fired Patton on the spot and threatened to call the cops. The
crowd nearly lynched the manager for it.

As soon as the hubbub died down, Patton said to Ike, "The S. stands for
Smith." And he shook his hand.

He and Ike took off that night to start up their own band.

And were together for almost thirty years.

Armstrong blew "Dry Bones."

Ike did "St. Louis Blues."

They had never done either better. This Washington audience loved them.

So had another, long ago.

The first time he and Armstrong met was in Washington, too. It was a hot,
bleak July day in 1932.

The Bonus Army had come to the Capitol,

asking their congressmen and their nation for some relief in the third year of
the Depression. President Al Smith was virtually powerless; he had a
Republican Congress under him, led by Senator Nye.
The bill granting the veterans of the Great War their bonus, due in 1945, had
been passed back in the Twenties. The vets wanted it to be paid immediately.
It had been sitting in the treasury, gaining interest, and was already part of
the budget. The vote was coming up soon.

Thousands, dubbed the B.E.F., had poured into Washington, camping on Anacostia
Flats, in tin boxes, towns of shanties dubbed Smithvilles, or under the rain
and stars.

Homeless men who had slogged through the mud of Europe, had been gassed and
shelled, and had lived with rats in the trenches while fighting for democracy;
now they found themselves back in the mud again.

This time they were out of money, out of work, out of luck.

The faces of the men were tired. Soup kitchens had been set up. They tried to
keep their humor. It was all they had left. May dragged by, then June, then
July. The vote was taken in Congress on the twelfth.

Congress said no.

They accused the Bonus Marchers of being Reds. They. said they were an armed
rabble. Rumors ran wild. Such financial largess, Congress said, could not be
afforded.