Grover Cleveland

To give the least encouragement to postmasters that these allowances would be upon their application revised and increased by Congress would lead to demoralization in the service.

I think it should not, on the grounds that the amount was fixed by the Department upon full examination.

If there is any value to be placed upon the reports of these examining boards, the refusal of the Pension Bureau to restore this beneficiary to the rolls was fully justified.

Neither the service nor the alleged disability of this beneficiary are of a meritorious character.

It is perfectly apparent that this beneficiary was injured while acting as a deputy assistant provost-marshal, arresting deserters for the pay and rewards allowed him, and that his injuries were not at all connected with actual military…

The Government is in no default and should be put to no expense in refunding the small sum recovered on account of the defalcation of its officer whose good conduct this beneficiary guaranteed.

There seems to be an entire lack of testimony connecting in any reasonable way his death with any incident of his military service.

It seems to me that the action of Congress in relieving these sureties was generous in the extreme.

To allow a claim so lacking in merit would endanger discipline and invite irregularity and loose methods in a very important branch of the public service.

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2370, entitled 'An act granting a pension to Sarah C. Anderson and children under 16 years of age.'

I fail to find in it reasonably satisfactory proof that the disabilities upon which he now bases his claim for a pension were incurred in the military service.

I do not understand that this physician gives the least support to the theory that the wound for which this soldier was pensioned was in the slightest degree connected with his death.

This bill does not give the name of the intended beneficiary.

There is hardly room for the pretense that her first husband's death was due to his military service.

I return the joint resolution without approval.

The propriety and expediency of this appropriation should be left to legislative discretion.

I return without approval Senate bill No. 1076.

I return without approval Senate bill No. 1762, entitled 'An act granting a pension to Benjamin A. Burtram.'

If this bill becomes a law, I am unable to see why, in fairness and justice, the widow of any officer of the grade of General Ward should not be allowed $50 a month.

This is certainly the correct course to be pursued in this case, in view of the failure to state in the special bill the regiment and company to which the soldier belonged at the time of the incurrence of disability.

I am of the opinion that a case is not presented in any of its aspects justifying a pension.

While it is the rule under general laws that two pensions shall not be paid to the same person, ... it may result that under the peculiar wording of this bill she would be entitled to both pensions.

The allegation or the presumption that it caused his fatal fall, it seems to me, is entirely unwarranted.

I return without approval House bill No. 2233, entitled 'An act granting a pension to Bernard Carlin.'

I can find no principle or plausible pretext in this case which would not lead to granting a pension in any case of alleged disability arising from military service followed by suicide.