Upon the report of this last examination the case has been reopened for further proof of disability since discharge, which if found will entitle the claimant to a pension under general laws.  On the question to be determined he would have no advantage under a special act, inasmuch as there must be a ratable disability to entitle him to any payment in pursuance of its provisions.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 11, 1887.

To the House of Representatives: 

I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 10457, entitled “An act for the relief of dependent parents and honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who are now disabled and dependent upon their own labor for support.”

This is the first general bill that has been sanctioned by the Congress since the close of the late civil war permitting a pension to the soldiers and sailors who served in that war upon the ground of service and present disability alone, and in the entire absence of any injuries received by the casualties or incidents of such service.

While by almost constant legislation since the close of this war there has been compensation awarded for every possible injury received as a result of military service in the Union Army, and while a great number of laws passed for that purpose have been administered with great liberality and have been supplemented by numerous private acts to reach special cases, there has not until now been an avowed departure from the principle thus far adhered to respecting Union soldiers, that the bounty of the Government in the way of pensions is generously bestowed when granted to those who, in this military service and in the line of military duty, have to a greater or less extent been disabled.

But it is a mistake to suppose that service pensions, such as are permitted by the second section of the bill under consideration, are new to our legislation.  In 1818, thirty-five years after the close of the Revolutionary War, they were granted to the soldiers engaged in that struggle, conditional upon service until the end of the war or for a term not less than nine months, and requiring every beneficiary under the act to be one “who is, or hereafter by reason of his reduced circumstances in life shall be, in need of assistance from his country for support.”  Another law of a like character was passed in 1828, requiring service until the close of the Revolutionary War; and still another, passed in 1832, provided for those persons not included in the previous statute, but who served two years at some time during the war, and giving a proportionate sum to those who had served not less than six months.

A service-pension law was passed for the benefit of the soldiers of 1812 in the year 1871, fifty-six years after the close of that war, which required only sixty days’ service; and another was passed in 1878, sixty-three years after the war, requiring only fourteen days’ service.