This bill proposes to remove the limitation fixed by the law of 1879 prescribing the date prior to which an application for pension must be filed in order to entitle the claimant to draw the pension allowed from the time of his discharge from the service.

If this bill should become a law, it would entitle the claimant to about $9,000 of back pension.  This is claimed upon the ground that the soldier was so sick from the time of the passage of the act creating the limitation up to the date allowed him to avail himself of the privileges of the act that he could not file his claim.

I think the limitation thus fixed a very wise one, and that it should not, in fairness to other claimants, be relaxed for causes not mentioned in the statute; nor should the door be opened to applications of this kind.

The beneficiary named in this bill had fifteen years after the accruing of his claim, and before it is alleged that he was incapacitated, within which he might have filed his application and entitled himself to the back pension now applied for.

The facts here presented come so far short of furnishing a satisfactory excuse for his delay that, in my judgment, the discrimination asked in his favor should not be granted.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 19, 1886.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 763, entitled “An act for the erection of a public building at Sioux City, Iowa.”

The report of the committee of the House of Representatives to whom this bill was referred states that by the census of 1880 the population of Sioux City was nearly 8,000, and that by other enumerations since made its population would seem to exceed 23,000.  It is further stated in the report that for the accommodation of this population the city contains 393 brick and 2,984 frame buildings.

It seems to me that in the consideration of the merits of this bill the necessities of the Government should control the question, and that it should be decided as a business proposition, depending upon the needs of a Government building at the point proposed in order to do the Government work.

This greatly reduces the value of statistics showing population, extent of business, prospective growth, and matters of that kind, which, though exceedingly interesting, do not always demonstrate the necessity of the expenditure of a large sum of money for a public building.

I find upon examination that United States courts are sometimes held at Sioux City, but that they have been thus far held in the county court-house without serious inconvenience and without any expense to the Government.  There are actually no other Federal officers there for whom the Government in any view should provide accommodations except the postmaster.  The post-office is now located in a building rented by the Government until the 1st day of January, 1889, at the rate of $2,200 per annum.