The disposition to concede the most generous treatment to the disabled, aged, and needy among our veterans ought not to be restrained; and it must be admitted that in some cases justice and equity can not be done nor the charitable tendencies of the Government in favor of worthy objects of its care indulged under fixed rules.  These conditions sometimes justify a resort to special legislation, but I am convinced that the interposition by special enactment in the granting of pensions should be rare and exceptional.  In the nature of things if this is lightly done and upon slight occasion, an invitation is offered for the presentation of claims to Congress which upon their merits could not survive the test of an examination by the Pension Bureau, and whose only hope of success depends upon sympathy, often misdirected, instead of right and justice.  The instrumentality organized by law for the determination of pension claims is thus often overruled and discredited, and there is danger that in the end popular prejudice will be created against those who are worthily entitled to the bounty of the Government.

There has lately been presented to me, on the same day, for approval, nearly 240 special bills granting and increasing pensions and restoring to the pension list the names of parties which for cause have been dropped.  To aid Executive duty they were referred to the Pension Bureau for examination and report.  After a delay absolutely necessary they have been returned to me within a few hours of the limit constitutionally permitted for Executive action.  Two hundred and thirty-two of these bills are thus classified: 

Eighty-one cover cases in which favorable action by the Pension Bureau was denied by reason of the insufficiency of the testimony filed to prove the facts alleged.

These bills I have approved on the assumption that the claims were meritorious and that by the passage of the bills the Government has waived full proof of the facts.

Twenty-six of the bills cover claims rejected by the Pension Bureau because the evidence produced tended to prove that the alleged disability existed before the claimant’s enlistment; 21 cover claims which have been denied by such Bureau because the evidence tended to show that the disability, though contracted in the service, was not incurred in the line of duty; 33 cover claims which have been denied because the evidence tended to establish that the disability originated after the soldier’s discharge from the Army; 47 cover claims which have been denied because the general pension laws contain no provisions under which they could be allowed, and 24 of the claims have never been presented to the Pension Bureau.

I estimate the expenditure involved in these bills at more than $35,000 annually.

Though my conception of public duty leads me to the conclusion, upon the slight examination which I have been able to give such of these bills as are not comprised in the first class above mentioned, that many of them should be disapproved, I am utterly unable to submit within the time allowed me for that purpose my objections to the same.