Part 20
By the records of the War Department which have been furnished me it appears that this claimant enlisted August 19, 1861; that he deserted August 29, 1862; in November and December, 1862, he is reported as present in confinement in regimental guardhouse, to forfeit one month's pay by sentence of regimental court-martial; he is reported as having deserted again in December, 1863, but as present for duty in January and February, 1864; he reenlisted in the latter month, and was mustered out July 17, 1865, and with his company was paid up to and including July 21, 1865.
He filed a declaration for pension in 1879, alleging that he received a gunshot wound in the thigh at Trenton, N.J., July 21, 1865, and that the wound was inflicted by a member of the Invalid Corps, who was whipping a drummer boy, and the claimant interfered in behalf of the boy.
It is quite certain that the transaction took place July 23.
An examining board, in 1880, found pistol shot in thigh, but refused to give the claimant a rating, because, as they report, "from the evidence before the board there is reason to suppose that he was deserting from the barracks at Trenton July 23, 1865, and was shot by the guard."
This may not be a just suspicion or finding, but he surely was not in the service nor in the performance of any military duty at the time of the injury, nor was he engaged in such manner as to entitle him to indemnification at the hands of the Government.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 5, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 1059, entitled "An act to grant a pension to Joseph Romiser."
The Pension Bureau reports that the records of the office fail to show that an application has been filed in favor of this claimant, though it is stated in the report of the House committee that such a claim was made and rejected on the ground that the claimant was not at the time of injury in the service of the United States.
It certainly appears from the report of the committee that the beneficiary named in this bill was not in the service of the Government at such a time, and also that he had not been mustered into the service of any State military organization. It is stated that he belonged to Captain Frank Mason's company of volunteers, of Prostburg, in the State of Maryland.
Whether this company was organized for the purpose of cooperating at any time with the Union or State forces is not alleged, and it may well have been existing merely for the purpose of neighborhood protection.
Such as it was, the company was ordered in June, 1861, to proceed to Cumberland to repel a threatened attack of Confederate forces. Upon arriving at that place the men were ordered to uncap their muskets. In doing this, and through the negligence of another member of the company, whose musket was discharged, the claimant was wounded.
It does not seem to me that the facts in this case, so far as they have been developed, justify the passage of this act.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 5, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4226, entitled "An act granting a pension to Fannie E. Evans."
The beneficiary named in this bill is the widow of George S. Evans. He was a soldier in the Mexican War, and entered the Union Army in the War of the Rebellion, on the 16th day of October, 1861, as major of a California regiment. He became a colonel in February, 1863, and resigned in April of that year, to take effect on the 31st of May ensuing.
His resignation seems to have been tendered on account of private matters, and no mention was then made of any disability. It is stated in the committee's report to the House that in 1864 he accepted the office of adjutant-general of the State of California, which he held for nearly four years.
He died in 1883 from cerebral apoplexy.
In March, 1884, his widow filed an application for pension, based upon the allegation that from active and severe service in a battle with the Indians at Spanish Fort in 1863 her husband incurred a hernia, which incapacitated him for active service.
There appears to be evidence to justify this statement, notwithstanding the fact that the deceased during the twenty years that followed before his death made no claim for such disability.
But it seems to me that the effort to attribute his death by apoplexy to the existence of hernia ought not to be successful.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 5, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 2971, entitled "An act granting a pension to Francis Deming."
This claimant entered the service in August, 1861, and was discharged September 15, 1865.
His hospital record shows that during his service he was treated for various temporary ailments, among which rheumatism is not included.
He filed an application for pension in September, 1884, alleging that in August, 1864, he contracted rheumatism, which had resulted in blindness.
On an examination of his case in November, 1884, he stated that his eyesight began to fail in 1882.
There seems to be no testimony showing his condition from the time of his discharge to 1880, a period of fifteen years.
The claim that his present condition of blindness is the result of his army service is not insisted upon as a reason for granting him relief as strongly as his sad and helpless condition. The committee of the House to which this bill was referred, after detailing his situation, close their report with these words: "He served well his country in its dire need; his necessities now appeal for relief."
We have here presented the case of a soldier who did his duty during his army service, and who was discharged in 1865 without any record of having suffered with rheumatism and without any claim of disability arising from the same. He returned to his place as a citizen, and in peaceful pursuits, with chances certainly not impaired by the circumstance that he had served his country, he appears to have held his place in the race of life for fifteen years or more. Then, like many another, he was subjected to loss of sight, one of the saddest afflictions known to human life.
Thereupon, and after nineteen years had elapsed since his discharge from the Army, a pension is claimed for him upon a very shadowy allegation of the incurrence of rheumatism while in the service, coupled with the startling proposition that this rheumatism resulted, just previous to his application, in blindness. Upon medical examination it appeared that his blindness was caused by amaurosis, which is generally accepted as an affection of the optic nerve.
I am satisfied that a fair examination of the facts in this case justifies the statement that the bill under consideration can rest only upon the grounds that aid should be furnished to this ex-soldier because he served in the Army and because he a long time thereafter became blind, disabled, and dependent.
The question is whether we are prepared to adopt this principle and establish this precedent.
None of us are entitled to credit for extreme tenderness and consideration toward those who fought their country's battles. These are sentiments con|»ion to all good citizens. They lead to the most benevolent care on the part of the Government and deeds of charity and mercy in private life. The blatant and noisy self-assertion of those who, from motives that may well be suspected, declare themselves above all others friends of the soldier can not discredit nor belittle the calm, steady, and affectionate regard of a grateful nation.
An appropriation has just been passed setting apart $76,000,000 of the public money for distribution as pensions, under laws liberally constructed, with a view of meeting every meritorious case. More than $1,000,000 was added to maintain the Pension Bureau, which is charged with the duty of a fair, just, and liberal apportionment of this fund.
Legislation has been at the present session of Congress perfected considerably increasing the rate of pension in certain cases. Appropriations have also been made of large sums for the support of national homes where sick, disabled, or needy soldiers are cared for, and within a few days a liberal sum has been appropriated for the enlargement and increased accommodation and convenience of these institutions.
All this is no more than should be done.
But with all this, and with the hundreds of special acts which have been passed granting pensions in cases where, for my part, I am willing to confess that sympathy rather than judgment has often led to the discovery of a relation between injury or death and military service, I am constrained by a sense of public duty to interpose against establishing a principle and setting a precedent which must result in unregulated, partial, and unjust gifts of public money under the pretext of indemnifying those who suffered in their means of support as an incident of military service.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4642, entitled "An act granting a pension to James Carroll."
The claimant alleges that he was wounded while in the service as a member of Company B, Third Regiment North Carolina Mounted Volunteers, while securing recruits for the regiment at Watauga, N.C., January 25, 1865.
The records of the War Department develop the fact that the name of this man is not borne upon any roll of the company to which he claims to belong.
He stated in his application that he was sworn in by one George W. Perkins, who, it appears, was a private in said company, and that Perkins was with him at the time he was shot.
This is undoubtedly true, and that the claimant was injured by a gunshot is also probably true. He was not, however, at the time regularly in the United States service, but this objection might in some circumstances be regarded as technical. The difficulty is that the fact that he was creditably employed in a service of benefit to the country is not satisfactorily shown. He gives two accounts of the business in which he was engaged, and Mr. Perkins's explanation of the manner in which the two were occupied is somewhat different still.
Carroll's claim, presented to the Pension Bureau, was rejected upon the ground that there was no record of his service on file; but in his testimony he stated that Perkins was wounded on the same occasion as himself, and that he (Perkins) was then a pensioner on account thereof.
The records of the Pension Bureau show that Perkins was pensioned in 1873 on account of three wounds received at the time and place of Carroll's injury.
It also appears that his name was dropped from the rolls in 1877 on the ground that his wounds were not received in the line of duty.
After an investigation made at that time by a special examiner, he reported that Perkins and Carroll had collected a number of men together, who made their headquarters at the home of Carroll's mother and were engaged in plundering the neighborhood, and that on account of their depredations they were hunted down by home guards and shot at the time they stated.
If this report is accepted as reliable, it should of course lead to the rejection of the claim for pension on the part of Mr. Carroll.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 3043, entitled "An act granting a pension to Lewis W. Scanland."
The claimant filed his declaration for a pension in 1884, alleging that he contracted chronic diarrhea while serving in a company of mounted Illinois volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
The records show that he served from April 18, 1832, to May 28, in the same year.
He was examined by a board of surgeons in 1884, when he was said to be 75 years old. In his examination he did not claim to have diarrhea for a good many years. On the contrary, he claimed to be affected with constipation, and said he had never had diarrhea of late years, except at times when he had taken medicine for constipation.
I am inclined to think it would have been a fortunate thing if in this case it could have been demonstrated that a man could thrive so well with the chronic diarrhea for fifty-two years as its existence in the case of this good old gentleman would prove. We should then, perhaps, have less of it in claims for pensions.
The fact is, in this case there is no disability which can be traced to the forty days' military service of fifty-four years ago, and I think little, if any, more infirmity than is usually found in men of the age of the claimant.
Entertaining this belief, I am constrained to withhold my signature from this bill.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5414, entitled "An act granting a pension to Maria Cunningham."
The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted January 29, 1862, and was discharged January 20, 1865.
He applied for a pension in 1876, alleging a shell wound in the head. His claim was rejected on the ground that there appeared to be no disability from that cause. No other injury or disability was ever claimed by him, but at the time of his examination in 1876 he was found to be sickly, feeble, and emaciated, and suffering from an advanced stage of saccharine diabetes.
His widow filed an application for a pension in 1879, alleging that her husband died in December, 1877, of spinal disease and diabetes, contracted in the service.
Her claim was rejected because evidence was not furnished that the cause of the soldier's death had its origin in the military service.
There seems to be an entire absence of proof of this important fact.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4797, entitled "An act granting a pension to Robert H. Stapleton."
This claimant filed an application for pension in the Pension Bureau in 1883, alleging that while acting as lieutenant-colonel of a New Mexico regiment, on February 21, 1862, the tongue of a caisson struck him, injuring his left side. A medical examination made in 1882 showed a fracture of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh ribs of the left side.
If these fractures were the result of the injury alleged, they were immediately apparent, and the delay of twenty-one years in presenting the claim for pension certainly needs explanation.
Claims of this description, by a wise provision of law, must, to be valid, be prosecuted to a successful issue prior to the 4th day of July, 1874.
The rank which this claimant held presupposes such intelligence as admits of no excuse on the ground of ignorance of the law for his failure to present his application within the time fixed by law.
The evidence of disability from the cause alleged is weak, to say the most of it, and I can not think that such a wholesome provision of law as that above referred to, which limits the time for the adjustment of such claims, should be modified upon the facts presented in this case.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 5550, entitled "An act to provide for the erection of a public building at Duluth, Minn."
After quite a careful examination of the public needs at the point mentioned I am entirely satisfied that the public building provided for in this bill is not immediately necessary.
Not a little legislation has lately been perfected, and very likely more will be necessary, to increase miscalculated appropriations for and correct blunders in the construction of many of the public buildings now in process of erection.
While this does not furnish a good reason for disapproving the erection of other buildings where actually necessary, it induces close scrutiny and gives rise to the earnest wish that new projects for public buildings shall for the present be limited to such as are required by the most pressing necessities of the Government's business.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return herewith without approval House bill No. 2043, entitled "An act to place Mary Karstetter on the pension roll."
The husband of this beneficiary, Jacob Karstetter, was enrolled June 30, 1864, as a substitute in a Pennsylvania regiment, and was discharged for disability June 20, 1865, caused by a gunshot wound in the left hand.
A declaration for pension was filed by him in 1865, based upon this wound, and the same was granted, dating from June in that year, which he drew till the time of his death, August 21, 1874.
In 1882 his widow filed her application for pension, alleging that he died of wounds received in battle. The claim was made that he was injured while in the Army by a horse running over him.
There is little or no evidence of such an injury having been received; and if this was presented there would be no necessary connection between that and the cause of the soldier's death, which was certified by the attending physician to be gastritis and congestion of the kidneys.
I can hardly see how the Pension Bureau could arrive at any conclusion except that the death of the soldier was not due to his military service, and the acceptance of this finding, after an examination of the facts, leads me to disapprove this bill.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 5394, entitled "An act granting a pension to Sallie Ann Bradley."
The husband of this proposed beneficiary was discharged from the military service in 1865, after a long service, and was afterwards pensioned for gunshot wound.
He died in 1882. The widow appears to have never filed a claim for pension in her own right.
No cause is given of the soldier's death, but it is not claimed that it resulted from his military service, her pension being asked for entirely because of her needs and the faithful service of her husband and her sons.
This presents the question whether a gift in such a case is a proper disposition of money appropriated for the purpose of paying pensions.
The passage of this law would, in my opinion, establish a precedent so far-reaching and open the door to such a vast multitude of claims not on principle within our present pension laws that I am constrained to disapprove the bill under consideration.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5603, entitled "An act granting a pension to Mrs. Catherine McCarty."
The beneficiary is the widow of John McCarty, of the First Missouri Regiment of State Militia Volunteers, who died at Clinton, Mo., April 8, 1864.
The widow filed her claim in 1866, alleging that her husband died while in the service from an overdose of colchicum.
The evidence shows without dispute that on the day previous to the death of the soldier a comrade procured some medicine from the regimental surgeon and asked McCarty to smell and taste it; that he did so, and shortly afterwards became very sick and died the next morning.
It is quite evident that the deceased soldier did more than taste this medicine.
Although it would be pleasant to aid the widow in this case, it is hardly fair to ask the Government to grant a pension for the freak or gross heedlessness and recklessness of this soldier.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 6648, entitled "An act for the relief of Edward M. Harrington."
It appears that this claimant was enrolled as a recruit December 31, 1863, and mustered in at Dunkirk, N.Y. He remained at the barracks there until March, 1864, when he was received at the Elmira rendezvous. From there he was sent to his regiment on the 7th day of April, 1864.
He was discharged June 15, 1864, upon a surgeon's certificate of disability, declaring the cause of discharge to be epilepsy, produced by blows of violence over the hypochondrial region while in the service, producing a deformity of sternum.
The claimant filed an application for pension in June, 1879, and in that and subsequent affidavits he alleged that while in barracks at Dunkirk, N.Y., and about the 9th day of January, 1864, and in the line of duty, he was attacked by one Patrick Burnes, who struck him upon the head and stamped upon and kicked him, breaking his collar bone and a number of ribs, causing internal injury and fits, the latter recurring every two weeks.
It is hardly worth while considering the character of these alleged injuries or their connection with the fits with which the claimant is afflicted.
I am entirely unable to see how the injuries are related to the claimant's army service.
The Government ought not to be called upon to insure against the quarrelsome propensities of its individual soldiers, nor to compensate one who is worsted in a fight, or even in an unprovoked attack, when the cause of injury is in no way connected with or related to any requirement or incident of military service.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 7, 1886_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 2281, entitled "An act granting to railroads the right of way through the Indian reservation in northern Montana."
The reservation referred to stretches across the extreme northern part of Montana Territory, with British America for its northern boundary. It contains an area of over 30,000 square miles. It is dedicated to Indian occupancy by treaty of October 17, 1855, and act of Congress of April 15, 1874. No railroads are within immediate approach to its boundaries, and only one, as shown on recent maps, is under construction in the neighborhood leading in its direction. The surrounding country is sparsely settled, and I have been unable to ascertain that the necessities of commerce or any public exigencies demand this legislation, which would affect so seriously the rights and interests of the Indians occupying the reservation.
The bill is in the nature of a general right of way for railroads through this Indian reservation. The Indian occupants have not given their consent to it, neither have they been consulted regarding it, nor is there any provision in it for securing their consent or agreement to the location or construction of railroads upon their lands. No routes are described, and no general directions on which the line of any railroad will be constructed are given.
No particular organized railway company engaged in constructing a railroad toward the reservation and ready or desirous to build its road through the Indian lands to meet the needs and requirements of trade and commerce is named. The bill gives the right to any railroad in the country, duly organized under the laws of any Territory, of any State, or of the United States, except those of the District of Columbia, to enter this Indian country, prospect for routes of travel, survey them, and construct routes of travel wherever it may please, with no check save possible disapproval by the Secretary of the Interior of its maps of location, and no limitation upon its acts except such rules and regulations as he may prescribe.
This power vested in the Secretary of the Interior might itself be improvidently exercised and subject to abuse.