Part 47
At this time, when the subject of national defense is much discussed, I can not account for the apparent willingness to grant, or permit to be used for other purposes, Government lands reserved for military uses.
I judge from an expression in the letter of the Chief of Engineers, made a part of the report of the committee of the House to which this bill was referred, that its original purpose was to absolutely transfer this reservation to the city of Tacoma. The Chief of Engineers suggested an amendment to the bill providing that the mere permission to use this land for a park should be granted, "and that this permission be given with the full understanding that the United States intends to occupy the lands or any part of them for military or other purposes whenever its proper officials see fit to order the same, and without any claim for compensation or damage on the part of said city of Tacoma."
Instead of adopting the recommendation of the Chief of Engineers the provision of the bill limiting the extent of the use of this land declares--
That the United States reserves to itself the fee and the right forever to resume possession and occupy any portion of said lands for naval or military purposes whenever in the judgment of the President the exigency arises that should require the use and appropriation of the same for the public defense or for such other disposition as Congress may determine, without any claim for compensation to said city for improvements thereon or damages on account thereof.
The expediency of granting any right to the occupancy of this land is, in my opinion, very doubtful. If it is done, it should be in the form of a mere license, revocable at any time, for the purposes used by the officers to which its use and disposition are now subject.
It seems to me that if any use of this land is given to the city of Tacoma it should be with the proviso suggested by the Chief of Engineers, instead of the indefinite and restricted one incorporated in the bill.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 9, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 8761, entitled "An act granting a pension to Mrs. Anna Butterfield."
It is proposed by this bill to pension the beneficiary therein named as the "dependent mother of James A.B. Butterfield, late a sergeant in the Second Illinois Cavalry,"
The records show that the son of this beneficiary enlisted in the regiment mentioned in August, 1861, and was mustered out August 13, 1864. No claim is made in any quarter that he incurred the least disability during this service, and there is no dispute in regard to the date of enlistment or discharge, nor does there seem to be any definite claim that he again entered the military service.
The report of the committee states that his mother is advised that after his discharge her son still remained in the service of the Government and was killed by an explosion on board of the steamer _Sultana_, in April, 1865.
Her claim for pension is now pending in the Pension Bureau awaiting testimony, which seems to be entirely wanting, to support the allegation that at the time of his death the deceased was in the service of the Government in any capacity.
This evidence ought not to be difficult to obtain. Though the mother seems to have saved something, from which she draws a small income, her advanced age and the honorable service of her son would make the allowance of a pension in her case, upon any fair and plausible justification, very gratifying.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 9, 1888_.:
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 2140, entitled "An act granting a pension to Eliza Smith."
The husband of this beneficiary was a second lieutenant in an Indiana regiment, and was discharged from the service in April, 1864. It is proposed in the bill herewith returned to pension the beneficiary as the widow of a first lieutenant.
The deceased was pensioned for a gunshot wound in his left arm under the general law, and his pension was increased by a special act in 1883.
He died away from home at a hotel in Union City, Ind., on the 18th day of December, 1884, and it was determined at the time, and is still claimed, that his death was the result of an overdose of morphine self-administered.
It is represented that at times the wound of the deceased soldier was very painful and that he was in the habit of taking large doses of morphine to alleviate his suffering.
Two days before his death he was at the house of one Moore, in Union City; he complained of pain, and asked for a dose of morphine, but it does not appear that he obtained it.
On the same day he went to a hotel in the same town and remained there until his death. On the second evening after his arrival there he complained of asthma and pain in his arm, and retired about 9 o'clock p.m. In the afternoon of the next day the door of his room was forced open, and he was found prostrate and helpless, though able to talk. Medicine was administered, but he soon died.
His family physician testified that the deceased did not suffer from asthma; that when his wound was suppurating he had difficulty in breathing, and that at such times he was in the habit of taking morphine in large doses, and that at times he was intemperate, especially when suffering from his wound.
It seems to me it would establish a very bad precedent to allow a pension upon the facts developed in this case.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 9, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 7510, entitled "An act granting a pension to Stephen A. Seavey."
This beneficiary served in a Maine regiment from November 11, 1861, to August 17, 1862, when he was discharged upon a surgeon's certificate of epilepsia and melancholia. The surgeon further stated in his certificate that the soldier had been unfit for duty for sixty days in consequence of epileptic fits, occurring daily, and requiring the constant attendance of two persons during the past thirty days.
In 1879 he applied for a pension, alleging that he incurred a sunstroke on July 20, 1862. This was within the sixty days during which he was unfit for duty and also within the thirty days during which he required the constant attendance of two persons.
He succeeded in securing a pension, and drew the same until December, 1885, when information was received at the Pension Bureau which caused an examination of the merits of the case.
This examination developed such facts as led the Pension Bureau to the conclusion that the condition of the soldier was then identical with that before enlistment and that his disability existed before he entered the service. His name was accordingly dropped from the rolls.
The object of the bill herewith returned is to restore the pensioner to the rolls.
An examination of the facts satisfies me that the act of the Pension Bureau in dropping this name from the pension rolls was entirely correct and should not be reversed.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 9, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 6307, entitled "An act granting a pension to Sarah A. Corson."
Joshua Corson, the husband of the beneficiary named in this bill, enlisted in August, 1862, for nine months, was wounded by a ball which passed through the lower part of each buttock, and was discharged June 29, 1863. He was pensioned for his wound, and died December 12, 1885.
The cause of death is stated to have been femoral hernia by a physician who attended him shortly before his death. The official record of his death attributes it to a malignant tumor.
The widow filed a claim for pension in 1886, but furnished no evidence showing when or how the hernia originated. No disability of this description is shown by any service record, nor was it ever claimed by the soldier. It is stated in the report of the committee of the House of Representatives to whom this bill was referred that the hernia first made its appearance about four years prior to the soldier's death.
The claim of this beneficiary for pension was rejected by the Pension Bureau upon the ground that there was no possible connection between the soldier's wounds and the hernia from which he died.
I am forced to the conclusion that the case was properly disposed of, and base my disapproval of the bill herewith returned upon the same ground.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 9, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 3521, entitled "An act granting a pension to Manuel Garcia."
From the records it appears that the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted as a substitute August 6, 1864, and was transferred to the Eighth New Jersey Volunteers; that he is reported absent sick, and never joined his regiment, and was discharged from a hospital July 2, 1865.
He filed a claim for pension March 4, 1880, alleging that in October, 1864, at Alexandria, Va., he became lame in both legs, and that subsequently his eyes became inflamed. His hospital record shows that he was treated for pneumonia.
The board of examining surgeons in 1883 found no such evidence of varicose veins, which seems to be the disability claimed, as would justify a rating, and there appears to be no proof of the existence of any disability between the date of discharge and the year 1867.
The application of this beneficiary is still pending in the Pension Bureau awaiting any further proof which may be submitted in its support.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 149, entitled "An act granting a pension to Rachael Barnes."
The husband of this beneficiary served in the Regular Army of the United States from February 24, 1838, to February 24, 1841.
In 1880 he applied for a pension, alleging that he contracted disease of the eyes during the year 1840 while serving in Florida.
Pending the examination of his application, and on the 24th day of March, 1882, he committed suicide by hanging. His widow filed a claim for pension, alleging that he died of insanity, the result of disease of the head and eyes. Her claim was rejected on the ground that his insanity, forty-one years after discharge from the service, had no connection with his military service.
In July, 1886, a special act was passed granting a pension to the widow, which met with Executive disapproval.
At the time the soldier committed suicide he was 68 years old. Upon the facts I hardly think insanity is claimed. At least there does not appear to be the least evidence of it, unless it be the suicide itself. It is claimed, however, and with good reason, that he had become despondent on account of the delay in determining his application for a pension and because he supposed that important evidence to establish his claim which he expected would not be forthcoming. It is very likely that this despondency existed and that it so affected the mind of this old soldier that it led to his suicide. But the fact remains that he took his own life in a deliberate manner, and that the affection of his eyes, which was the disability claimed, was not in a proper sense even the remote cause of his death.
I confess that I have endeavored to relieve myself from again interposing objections to the granting of a pension to this poor and aged widow. But I can not forget that age and poverty do not themselves justify gifts of public money, and it seems to me that the according of pensions is a serious business which ought to be regulated by principle and reason, though these may well be tempered with much liberality.
I can find no principle or plausible pretext in this case which would not lead to granting a pension in any case of alleged disability arising from military service followed by suicide. It would be an unfair discrimination against many who, though in sad plight, have been refused relief in similar circumstances, and would establish an exceedingly troublesome and dangerous precedent.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 8574, entitled "An act granting a pension to Sallie T. Ward, widow of the late W.T. Ward."
The husband of this beneficiary served about nine months in the Mexican War. He entered the service as a brigadier-general in 1861, and served through the War of the Rebellion with credit, and was wounded in the left arm on the 15th day of May, 1864.
For this wound he was pensioned according to his rank, and received such pension until his death, at the age of 70 years, which occurred October 12, 1878.
The cause of his death was brain disease, and it seems not to be seriously claimed that it had any relation to his wound.
His widow is now in receipt of the pension provided for those of her class by the Mexican pension law.
If this bill becomes a law, I am unable to see why, in fairness and justice, the widow of any officer of the grade of General Ward should not be allowed $50 a month, the amount proposed by this bill to be paid his widow, regardless of any other consideration except widowhood and the rank of the deceased husband.
The bill herewith returned, while fixing the monthly amount to be absolutely paid to the beneficiary, does not make the granting of the pension nor payment of the money subject to any of the provisions of the pension laws nor make any reference to the Mexican service pension she is now receiving. While it is the rule under general laws that two pensions shall not be paid to the same person, inasmuch as the widow is entitled to the pension she is now receiving upon grounds different from those upon which the special bill was passed, and no intention is apparent in the special bill that the other pension should be superseded, it may result that under the peculiar wording of this bill she would be entitled to both pensions.
The beneficiary filed a claim for pension in the Pension Bureau in 1884, which is still pending, awaiting evidence connecting the death of the soldier with his wound.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 490, entitled "An act granting a pension to George W. Pitner."
It appears from the records that the beneficiary named in this bill entered the military service in June, 1863, and was discharged in March, 1866. He was treated while in the Army in the months of December, 1864, and January, 1865, for conjunctivitis.
He filed a claim for pension in 1886, alleging that he had a sunstroke in 1865, and that while at work in a basement in the year 1881 he fell into a well which was open near him and received serious injuries, resulting in the amputation of his right foot and also disability of his left foot. He attributes his fall to vertigo, consequent upon or related to the sunstroke he suffered in the Army.
The claim was rejected on the ground that the evidence taken failed to connect the disabilities for which a pension was claimed with army service.
Whatever may be said of the incurrence of sunstroke in the Army, though he fixes it as after the date of his only medical treatment during his service, and whatever may be said of the continuance of vertigo consequent upon the sunstroke for sixteen years, I find no proof that at the time he fell he was afflicted with vertigo, unless it be his own statement; and whatever disability naturally arose from sunstroke does not appear by him to have been deemed sufficient to induce him to apply for a pension previous to his fall.
In any event there seems to be no satisfactory evidence that anything which occurred in his army service was the cause of his fall and consequent injury.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 19, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 9034, entitled "An act granting a pension to Lydia A. Heiny."
The husband of this beneficiary served in an Indiana regiment from August, 1861, to March, 1864, when he reenlisted as a veteran volunteer and served as a private and teamster to July 20, 1865, when he was discharged.
There is no record of any disability, and he never applied for a pension.
On the 12th day of December, 1880, in leaving a barber shop at the place where he resided, he fell downstairs and died the next day from the injuries thus received.
His widow filed an application for a pension in the year 1885, alleging that her husband contracted indigestion, bronchitis, nervous debility, and throat disease in the Army, which were the cause of his death.
The claim was rejected upon the ground that the death of the soldier was not due to an injury connected with his military service.
While there has been considerable evidence presented tending to show that the deceased had a throat difficulty which might have resulted from army exposure, the allegation or the presumption that it caused his fatal fall, it seems to me, is entirely unwarranted.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 9344, entitled "An act granting a pension to James C. White."
The records of the War Department show that this beneficiary enlisted in a Kentucky regiment September 29, 1861. On the muster roll of April 30, 1862, he is reported as absent. On the roll of August 31, 1863, he is mentioned as having deserted July 19, 1862. His name is not borne on subsequent muster rolls until it appears upon those of January and February, 1864, with the remark that he returned February, 1864, and that all pay and allowances were to be stopped from July 19, 1862, to February 5, 1864. It appears that he deserted again on the 18th of December, 1864, and that his name was not borne upon any subsequent rolls.
Naturally enough, there does not appear to be any record of this soldier's honorable discharge.
It seems that this man during the time that he professed to be in the service earned two records of desertion, the first extending over a period of nearly a year and a half and the other terminating his military service.
He filed a claim for pension on the 4th day of August, 1883, alleging that he contracted piles in December, 1861, and a hernia in April, 1862.
A medical examination in 1883 revealed the nonexistence of piles and the presence of hernia.
The fact of the incurrence of any disability at all in the service is not satisfactorily established, and the entire case in all its phases appears to be devoid of merit.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 9183, entitled "An act granting a pension to William P. Riddle."
The records of the War Department show that the beneficiary named in this bill was enrolled October 4, 1861, in the Fifth Kentucky Regiment of Cavalry, and was mustered into the service on the 31st day of March, 1862.
From that time to April 30, 1862, he is reported absent sick. On the rolls for four months thereafter, ending August 31, 1862, he is reported as absent and deserted. His name is not borne on any subsequent rolls.
He did not file an application for pension until April, 1879, when the act granting arrears was in force. He then claimed that he contracted pneumonia February 15, 1862; that about a month after he was sent home, and was under medical treatment for two years; that he returned about May 1, 1864, and was discharged about May 15, 1864, but that his discharge papers were lost.
Though he has furnished some evidence in support of the claim that he was sick at about the time alleged and that he returned to the Army after an absence of two years, no record proof of any kind is furnished of an honorable discharge at any time.
He has been informed that the record of his desertion in the War Department will be investigated with a view to its correction if he will furnish direct proof that it is erroneous. No such proof has been supplied, and the case has not been finally acted upon in the Pension Bureau.
It does not seem to me that this case in its present condition should receive favorable consideration.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 9126, entitled "An act granting a pension to Mrs. Caroline G. Seyfforth."
The husband of this beneficiary served as contract surgeon in the United States Army from September 12, 1862, to August 17, 1865, and was stationed at Portsmouth Grove Hospital, in Rhode Island.
He never filed a claim for pension, and died July 21, 1874, of congestion of the liver. His widow filed an application for pension in 1882, alleging that her husband's death was caused by blood poisoning contracted while dressing the wound of a patient in January, 1863. There is proof that he suffered from blood poisoning.
The record of death states its cause as congestion of the liver, but the certificate was not signed. A young doctor named Adams, a friend and pupil of the deceased, seems to have been more than any other the attendant physician, but he appeared to think that one of three other doctors had actual charge of the case. These physicians, named, respectively, Sullivan, Dana, and Sargent, agreed that Adams had charge of the case and that they were consulting surgeons in the last illness.
Dr. Adams testified before a special examiner that from intimate association he knew that the deceased was subject to kidney disease and other symptoms of bad health from discharge to his death; that as he had lost a part of one hand from blood poisoning in the Army, he always supposed his subsequent troubles were referable to that cause; that he believed the cause of death was albuminuria, and that his liver was also affected. He further expresses the opinion that the death was the culmination of the disorders which affected him from the time of his discharge from the service.
Dr. Sullivan deposed that he knew the deceased well from about 1869, and never had any reason to think him the subject of blood poisoning or its results. He further says that he was called in consultation at the last illness of the deceased and diagnosed his trouble as liver disease, due to the patient's habits of intemperance.
Dr. Dana testified that he knew the deceased well from the time of his discharge; that he was called to consult in his case with young Dr. Adams a few days before the death occurred; that he took a general view of the case and considered that the trouble was due to habits of intemperance.
Dr. Sargent deposed that he knew the deceased well and knew that he had lost a part of his hand, as alleged, from septic poisoning in the Army, though he was not aware that the poisoning had left any other effect; that the deceased had several spells of alcoholism after the war; that he had heard him complain of his kidneys, but attributed his troubles to his excesses.
Other evidence suggested the same cause for sickness and death spoken of by these physicians, but there seems to be an almost entire absence of evidence connecting the death with service in the Army.
I am of the opinion that a case is not presented in any of its aspects justifying a pension.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 6193, entitled "An act for the relief of Edson Saxberry."
The beneficiary named in this bill filed a declaration for a pension in 1879, alleging that in 1863 he bruised his leg, which became very sore, and when it began to heal his eyes became sore.