I return without approval House bill No. 11052, entitled “An act granting a pension to Clara M. Owen.”

The husband of this beneficiary was pensioned for a gunshot wound in the left chest and lung, received in action on the 30th day of September, 1864.

He was drowned August 31, 1884.

It appears that he was found in a stream where he frequently bathed, in a depth of water variously given from 5 to 8 feet.  He had undressed and apparently gone into the water as usual.

Medical opinions are produced tending to show that drowning was not the cause of death.

No post mortem examination was had, and it seems to me it must be conceded that a conclusion that death was in any degree the result of wounds received in military service rests upon the most unsatisfactory conjecture.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 12, 1889.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 5752, entitled “An act for the relief of Julia Triggs.”

This beneficiary filed an application for pension in 1882, claiming that her son, William Triggs, died in 1875 from the effects of poison taken during his military service in water which had been poisoned by the rebels and in food eaten in rebel houses, which had also been poisoned.

He was discharged from the Army with his company July 24, 1865, after a service of more than four years.

The cause of his death is reported to have been an abscess of the lung.

The case was specially examined, and the evidence elicited to support the claim of poisoning appears to have been anything but satisfactory.

The mother herself testified that her son was absent from Chicago, where she lived, and in the South from 1868 to 1869, and that he was in Indiana from 1869 to 1874.

The claim was rejected on the 12th day of February, 1887, on the ground that evidence could not be obtained upon special examination showing that the soldier’s death was due to any disability contracted in the military service.

While I am unable to see how any other conclusion could have been reached upon the facts in this case, there is reason to believe that a favorable determination upon its merits would be of no avail, since, on the 17th day of April, 1888, a letter was filed in the Pension Office from a citizen of Chicago in which it is stated that the beneficiary named in this bill died on the 27th day of February, 1888, and an application is therein made on behalf of her daughter for reimbursement of money expended for her mother in her last illness and for her burial.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 13, 1889.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2514, entitled “An act granting a pension to Michael Shong.”

It appears that the beneficiary named in this bill, under the name of John M. Johns, enlisted in Company I, Fourteenth New York Volunteers, on the 17th day of May, 1861, and was discharged May 24, 1863.