All this certainly commends her case to the kindness and benevolence of the citizens mentioned, and the State of Connecticut ought not to allow her to be in needy circumstances.

It seems to me, however, that it would establish a bad precedent to provide for her from the Federal Treasury.  From the statement of her present age she must have been born during the time of her first husband’s enlistment.  She knew nothing of his military service except as the same may have been detailed to her.  Her first widowhood had no connection with any incident or condition of health traceable to such service, and her second husband, with whom she lived for twenty years, never entered the military service of the Government.

I do not see how the relief proposed can be granted in this case without an unjustifiable departure from the rules under which applications for pension should be determined.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 19, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 879, entitled “An act granting a pension to Royal J. Hiar.”

The beneficiary named in this bill enlisted November 11, 1861, in the First Regiment of Michigan Engineers and Mechanics.  He is reported as absent without proper authority from May 24, 1862, to January 15, 1863, when he was discharged by reason of varicose veins of the left leg and thigh, claimed to have existed before enlistment.

He filed a claim for pension August 30, 1876, alleging disease of the right side and hip, due to typhoid pneumonia, contracted while repairing a hospital tent in March, 1862.

There is no record of this disease.  The proof he furnishes of the same is extremely slight, though he was furnished ample opportunity.  The disability of which he complains has no natural relation to the sickness he claims to have had during his service, but is quite a natural result of “an injury while logging,” to which some of the witnesses examined in a special examination of the case attribute it.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 19, 1888.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without approval House bill No. 5234, entitled “An act granting a pension to Cyrenius G. Stryker.”

The beneficiary named in this bill enlisted for nine months in
September, 1862, and was discharged June 27, 1863.

His enlistment was in Company A, Thirtieth New Jersey Regiment.  The bill proposes to pension him as “a private in Company A, Thirtieth Regiment New York Volunteers.”

He alleges that he was pushed or fell from the platform of a car in which he was transported to Washington after enlistment and injured his spine.  On the claim which he presented to the Pension Bureau in June, 1879, repeated medical examinations failed to reveal any disability from the cause alleged, and after a special examination his claim was rejected because, with the assistance of such special examination, the claimant did not prove the origin of alleged injury in service and the line of duty or a pensionable degree of disability therefrom since discharge.