GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 11222, entitled “An act granting a pension to Elizabeth Heckler.”

The husband of this beneficiary was pensioned for asthma, and there is no doubt of the propriety of such pension, nor is there doubt upon the evidence that this affection continued up to the time of his death.

But he died of acute inflammation of the bladder and chronic enlargement of prostate gland.  There is no proof that these causes of death were in the least complicated with the difficulty for which the deceased was pensioned, or any other trouble which was the result of military service.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 4102, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mary A. Carr.”

The husband of this beneficiary served in the Army from November 5, 1863, to June 15, 1865.  He made a claim for pension for injury to his left ankle, caused by being thrown from a horse while in the service, and some time after his death a pension was allowed upon his claim, at the rate of $4 per month, commencing at the date of his discharge and ending at the date of his death.

He died on the 16th day of March, 1877, of apoplexy, and his widow filed a claim for pension on her own behalf in March, 1885, based upon the allegation that the injury for which her husband was pensioned was the cause of his death.

I can not upon the facts of this case arrive at a conclusion different from the Pension Bureau, where it was determined that the death of the soldier could not be accepted as having been caused by the injury to his ankle.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 11332, entitled “An act granting a pension to Eliza S. Glass.”

The husband of this beneficiary was in the military service from December 28, 1863, to April 27, 1864, a period of four months.  He was discharged at the last-mentioned date for disability, the surgeon stating in the certificate his trouble to be “chronic hemorrhoids and rheumatism, both together producing lameness of back; unfit for Invalid Corps.”  The captain of the soldier’s company in the same certificate states: 

During the last two months said soldier has been unfit for duty fifty-four days in consequence of chronic rheumatism, owing to spinal affections and sprains received before entering the service, and made worse by drilling in double quick.

He filed a claim for pension December 24, 1879, more than fifteen years after discharge, in which he claimed that on the 15th day of January, 1864, he received an injury to his back by slipping and falling upon the ground.