Should there be meritorious cases of hardship and loss, caused by an invitation on the part of the Government to settle upon lands apparently public, but to which no right or lawful possession can be secured, it would be better, rather than to attempt a disturbance of titles already settled, to ascertain such losses and do equity by compensating the proper parties through an appropriation for that purpose.

A law to accomplish this very object was passed by Congress in the year 1873.

Valuable proof is thus furnished, by the only law ever passed upon the subject, of the manner in which it was thought proper by the Congress at that time to meet the difficulties suggested by the bill now under consideration.

Notwithstanding the fact that there may be parties in the occupancy of these lands who suffer hardship by the application of strict legal principles to their claims, safety lies in noninterference by Congress with matters which should be left to judicial cognizance; and I am unwilling to concur in legislation which, if not an encroachment upon judicial power, trenches so closely thereon as to be of doubtful expediency, and which at the same time increases the elements of litigation that have heretofore existed and endangers vested rights.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 26, 1886.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I herewith return Senate bill No. 349, entitled “An act for the promotion of anatomical science and to prevent the desecration of graves,” without my approval.

The purpose of this bill is to permit the delivery of certain dead bodies to the medical colleges located in the District of Columbia for dissection.

Such disposition of the bodies of unknown and pauper dead is only excused by the necessity of acquiring by this means proper and useful anatomical knowledge, and the laws by which it is permitted should, in deference to a decent and universal sentiment, carefully guard against abuse and needless offense.

The measure under consideration does not with sufficient care specify and limit the officers and the parties who it is proposed to invest with discretion in the disposition of dead bodies remaining in the institutions and places mentioned in the bill.  The second section indicates an intention to prevent the use of said bodies for any other purpose than the promotion of anatomical and surgical knowledge within the District of Columbia, and to secure after such use the decent burial of the remains.  It declares that a bond shall be given providing for the performance of these conditions.  But instead of exacting the bond from the medical colleges, to which alone, by the terms of the first section, the bodies are to be delivered, such bond is required of “every physician or surgeon before receiving such dead body.”

The bill also provides that a relative by blood or marriage, or a friend, may, within forty-eight hours after death, demand that any body be buried, upon satisfying “the authorities” of the relationship claimed to the deceased.