is unfair to the wounded, crippled soldier who is honored in the just recognition of his Government.  Such a man should never find himself side by side on the pension roll with those who have been tempted to attribute the natural ills to which humanity is heir to service in the Army.  Every relaxation of principle in the granting of pensions invites applications without merit and encourages those who for gain urge honest men to become dishonest.  Thus is the demoralizing lesson taught the people that as against the public Treasury the most questionable expedients are allowable.

During the present session of Congress 493 special pension bills have been submitted to me, and I am advised that 111 more have received the favorable action of both Houses of Congress and will be presented within a day or two, making over 600 of these bills which have been passed up to this time during the present session, nearly three times the number passed at any entire session since the year 1861.  With the Pension Bureau, fully equipped and regulated by the most liberal rules, in active operation, supplemented in its work by constant special legislation, it certainly is not unreasonable to suppose that in all the years that have elapsed since the close of the war a majority of the meritorious claims for pensions have been presented and determined.

I have now more than 130 of these bills before me awaiting Executive action.  It will be impossible to bestow upon them the examination they deserve, and many will probably become operative which should be rejected.

In the meantime I venture to suggest the significance of the startling increase in this kind of legislation and the consequences involved in its continuance.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 21, 1886.

To the Senate: 

I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 1584, entitled “An act for the relief of Cornelia R. Schenck.”

It is proposed by this bill to grant a pension to Mrs. Schenck as the widow of Daniel P. Schenck, who entered the military service of the United States in August, 1861, and was mustered out October 21, 1864.

The record of his service contains no mention of any disability.  He died in December, 1875, of a disease called gastroenteritis, which, being interpreted, seems to denote “inflammation of the stomach and small intestines.”  So far as the facts are made to appear, the soldier, neither during the term of his service nor during the eleven years he lived after his discharge, made any claim of any disability.

The claim of his widow was filed in the Pension Bureau in 1885, ten years after her husband’s death, and is still undetermined.

The fact that her application is still pending in that Bureau is sufficient reason why this bill should not become a law.

A better reason is based upon the entire lack of any facts shown to exist which entitle the beneficiary named to a pension.