If the bill herewith returned should become a law, it would permit the payment of a pension only from the date of its approval.  Thus, if it did not result in loss to the claimant by superseding the action of the Pension Bureau, it is plain that it would be a useless enactment.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 27, 1887.

To the Senate: 

I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 2173, entitled “An act granting a pension to Benjamin Obekiah.”

This bill directs that the beneficiary named therein be placed upon the pension roll, “subject to the provisions and limitations of the pension laws.”

In July, 1886, the person named in this bill was placed upon the pension roll at a rate determined upon by the Pension Bureau, pursuant to the provisions and limitations of the pension laws; and it is entirely certain that the special act now presented to me would give the claimant no new rights or additional benefits.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 27, 1887.

To the Senate: 

I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 127, entitled “An act for the relief of H.K.  Belding.”

This bill directs the sum of $1,566 to be paid to the said H.K.  Belding “for carrying the mails of the United States between the years 1858 and 1862.”

In April, 1858, a contract was awarded to the said Belding for carrying the mails from Brownsville, Minn., to Carimona, in the same State, a distance of 63 miles, and return, three times a week, for the sum of $1,800 per annum, said service to begin on the 1st day of July, 1858, and to terminate on the 30th day of June, 1862.  This contract contained a provision that the Post-Office Department might discontinue the service in whole or in part, allowing to the contractor one month’s extra pay therefor.

On May 9, 1859, in consequence of a failure on the part of the Congress to make the necessary appropriation, a general reduction of mail service was ordered, and the service under the contract with the claimant was reduced to two trips per week from May 10, 1859, instead of three, as stipulated in the contract, and a deduction of one-third of the annual sum to be paid by the contract was made for such reduced service; and thereupon one month’s extra pay was allowed and paid the contractor on account of said reduction.

It is conceded that payment was made in full according to the terms of the contract up to the 10th day of May, 1859, but it is claimed that notwithstanding the reduction of the service to two trips per week and the receipt by the contractor of one month’s extra pay by reason thereof, he continued to perform the full service of three trips per week from the 10th day of May, 1859, to the 30th day of September, 1860, being seventeen months.