This can not be right.  And yet the bill herewith returned directs the Secretary of the Treasury to settle this claim for extra work upon the basis of the report of the experts who have adopted this mode of adjustment; or, if not satisfied with their report, he shall within thirty days from the passage of the act cause a reweighing of said material to be made by two sworn experts, one to be appointed by him and one by the claimant, and a third to be appointed by these two in case they can not agree.  The bill further provides that he shall then pay to said Willbur the difference of excess in weight and superficial measurement as found by said experts between the illuminated tiling and frames furnished and that contracted for at the contract prices for such work and material.

There are features of this claim which suggest suspicion as to its merit.  In any view of the matter, I regard the claimant as seeking equitable relief.  He is not entitled to dictate the rule by which his claim is to be adjusted, and he should be quite satisfied if the officers of the Government charged with the settlement of such matters are permitted by the Congress to afford equitable relief according to such rules and methods as are best calculated to reach fair results.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 15, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 3306, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mary K. Richards.”

The beneficiary named in this bill applied for a pension on the 14th day of November, 1878, and the same was rejected in April, 1879.  Her claim has lately been reexamined, and since the passage of the bill herewith returned she has been allowed a pension by the Pension Bureau, it having been there determined that the former rejection was a manifest error.

With this action of the Pension Bureau I entirely concur.

I therefore venture, notwithstanding the persistent misrepresentations of my action in similar cases, to disapprove this bill, upon the ground that this deserving beneficiary will receive under the action of the Pension Bureau a much larger sum than she would if such action was superseded by the enactment of the proposed special statute in her behalf.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 15, 1888.

To the Senate

I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 3208, entitled “An act granting a pension to William S. Bradshaw.”

The beneficiary mentioned in this bill was mustered into the military service as first lieutenant on the 28th day of October, 1861.

About eight months afterwards, and in June, 1862, he resigned from the service, his resignation being based upon a surgeon’s certificate which he procured, and which is as follows: