An application to remove the charge of desertion against him was denied.

Without especially discussing the question of disability chargeable to military service, it seems to me that a soldier with such a record should not be pensioned.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 31, 1889.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 3264, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mrs. Ellen Hand.”

The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted August 22, 1862, and was mustered out with his company July 10, 1865.

He filed a claim for pension in 1881, sixteen years after his discharge, alleging that he contracted rheumatism about December, 1862.

He died in February, 1883, the cause of death being, as then certified, typhoid fever.

His claim for pension on account of rheumatism seems to have been favorably determined after his death, for it was made payable to his widow and was allowed from the time of filing his petition to February 25, 1883, the day of his death.

The facts of the case as now presented appear to me to lead in the most satisfactory manner to the conclusion that the soldier’s death was in no way related to any incident of his military service.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 12, 1889.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 9163, entitled “An act granting a pension to Eli Garrett.”

This beneficiary enlisted in the Confederate Army December 1, 1862.  He was captured by the United States forces on the 26th of November, 1863, and enlisted in the Union Navy January 22, 1864.

He was discharged from the Navy for disability September 8, 1864, upon the certificate of a naval surgeon, which states that he had valvular cardiac disease (disease of the heart), and that there was no evidence that it originated in the line of duty.

His claim for pension was rejected in 1882 upon the ground that the act which permits pensions to Confederate soldiers who joined the Union Army did not extend to such soldiers who enlisted in the Navy.

I can see no reason why such a distinction should exist, and the recommendation of the Commissioner of Pensions, made in 1887, that this discrimination be removed should be adopted by the enactment of a law for that purpose.

In this case, however, I am unable to discover any evidence that the trouble with which this beneficiary appears to be afflicted is related to his naval service which should overcome the plain statement of the surgeon upon whose certificate he was discharged to the effect that there was no evidence that his disability originated in the line of naval duty.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 12, 1889.

To the House of Representatives: