GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 22, 1886.

To the Senate: 

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 7979, entitled “An act granting a pension to Jackson Steward.”

This claimant’s application for pension is now pending in the Pension Bureau, and has been sent to a special examiner for the purpose of taking additional proof.

This I deem sufficient reason why the proposed bill should not now become a law.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 22, 1886.

To the Senate: 

I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 2025, entitled “An act granting a pension to James Butler.”

This claimant was enrolled as a private in a New Hampshire regiment August 23, 1864, but on the organization of his company, on the 12th day of September, 1864, he was discharged on account of a fracture of his leg, which happened on the 11th day of September, 1864.

It appears that before the organization of the company to which he was attached, and on the 10th day of September, he obtained permission to leave the place of rendezvous for the purpose of visiting his family, and was to return the next day.  At a very early hour in the morning, either while preparing to return or actually on his way, he fell into a new cellar and broke his leg.  It is said that the leg fractured is now shorter than the other.

His claim for pension was rejected in December, 1864, by the Pension Bureau, and its action was affirmed in 1871 upon the ground that the injury was received while the claimant was on an individual furlough, and therefore not in the line of duty.

Considering the fact that neither his regiment nor his company had at the time of his accident been organized, and that he was in no sense in the military service of the United States, and that his injury was received while on a visit, and not in the performance of duty, I can see no pretext for allowing a pension in this case.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I hereby return without approval House bill No. 6688, entitled “An act for the relief of William Bishop.”

This claimant was enrolled as a substitute on the 25th day of March, 1865.  He was admitted to a post hospital at Indianapolis on the 3d day of April, 1865, with the measles; was removed to the City General Hospital, in Indianapolis, on the 5th day of May, 1865; was returned to duty May 8, 1865, and was mustered out with a detachment of unassigned men on the 11th day of May, 1865.

This is the military record of this soldier, who remained in the Army one month and seventeen days, having entered it as a substitute at a time when high bounties were paid.

Fifteen years after this brilliant service and this terrific encounter with the measles, and on the 28th day of June, 1880, the claimant discovered that his attack of the measles had some relation to his army enrollment and that this disease had “settled in his eyes, also affecting his spinal column.”