When, therefore, it is said that this loss can be charged in any degree to the neglect or default of the Government, it is answered that the direct and immediate cause of the loss was the omission on the part of this paymaster of the Government, in whose custody these funds were placed, of the plainest and simplest acts of prudence and care.

The temptation is very strong to yield assent to the proposition for the relief of a citizen from liability to the Government arising from conduct not absolutely criminal; but the bonds and the security wisely exacted by the Government from its officers to insure proper discharge of public duty will be of very limited value if everything is to be excused except actual dishonesty.

I am thoroughly convinced that the interests of the public would be better protected if fewer private bills were passed relieving officials, upon slight and sentimental grounds, from their pecuniary responsibilities; and the readiness with which army officers join in applications for the condonation of negligence on the part of their army comrades does not tend, in my opinion, to maintain that regard for discipline and that scrupulous observance of duty which should characterize those belonging to their honorable profession.

I can not satisfy myself that the negligence made apparent in this case should be overlooked.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 21, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 823, entitled “An act granting a pension to Hannah C. De Witt.”

An act the precise duplicate of this was passed at the present session of the Congress, and received Executive approval on the 10th day of March, 1888.  Pursuant to said act the name of the beneficiary mentioned in the bill herewith returned has been placed upon the pension rolls.  The second enactment is of course entirely useless, and was evidently passed by mistake.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 21, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 418, entitled “An act granting a pension to William H. Brokenshaw.”

The history of the military service of the beneficiary mentioned in this bill, as derived from the records of the War Department, shows that he was received at draft rendezvous at Jackson, Mich., on the 25th day of March, 1865; that he was sent to the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Michigan Volunteers on the 29th day of the same month, and that he was present with his command, without any record of disability, from that date until the 30th day of June, 1865, when he was mustered out with his company.  It will thus be seen that he was in the service a few days more than three months, just at the close of the war.  It is not alleged that he did any actual fighting.

In 1883 he filed an application for pension, alleging that on the evening of the 25th of March, 1865, being the day he was received at rendezvous, he was injured in his ribs while getting into his bunk by three other recruits, who were scuffling in the room and who jumped upon him or crushed him against the side of his bunk.