GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 22, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2206, entitled “An act granting a pension to David H. Lutman.”

The beneficiary named in this bill was pensioned in 1885 on account of spinal irritation, the result of measles.

In 1886 he filed a claim for increase of pension, alleging rheumatism, and the board of examining surgeons at Cumberland, Md., upon an examination, found no evidence of spinal irritation or rheumatism, and he was dropped from the pension rolls on the ground that the disability for which he was pensioned had ceased to exist.

He afterwards filed medical and lay testimony tending to show that he suffered from disease of the back, legs, and arms, and he was thereupon, and on the 8th day of October, 1886, again examined by the board of examining surgeons at Hagerstown, Md., who reported as follows: 

We have stripped him, and find a splendid specimen, square built from the ground up, muscles well developed, his appearance indicative of perfect health.  No curvature of spine, disease or irritation of spinal cord; no atrophy of any muscles or evidence of weakness.  No impairment of motion anywhere.

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; and this is not a proper case, in my opinion, for interference with that determination.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 22, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 645, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mrs. Margaret B. Todd.”

This bill does not describe the beneficiary as related to any soldier of the war, but from other data it is found that she is the widow of Frank G. Todd, who served as a private in the One hundred and eighteenth Volunteer Infantry from July, 1863, to May, 1864, when he was transferred to the Navy.  It appears that he served in the Navy from May 13, 1864, until April 10, 1866.  He died in January, 1878, from exhaustion, as stated by the physicians who attended him.

There is scarcely a particle of satisfactory evidence showing his condition from the time of his discharge to 1871, and there is almost an entire lack of proof showing a connection between his death and any incident of his service.  The widow in her application to the Pension Bureau for a pension states that she has children who were born in 1870, 1871, and 1878.

There seems to be no record of any disability during the husband’s service in the Army, and the only mention of disability while in the Navy is an entry on the 30th day of May, 1864, showing that he was admitted to treatment for “syphilis secondary.”

The widow’s claim is still pending in the Pension Bureau.