St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-07-11
THE PENSION VETOES.

lnaSmuch as the president mas DSon maze
the subject of great deal of harsh criticism
because of having vetoed so many private
pensions. it is but fair to him that the pub
q lie Should know the grounds upon which
q these bills were vetoed. A careful exami-
nation of the reasons assigned by the presi-
dent in every veto message show that in no
single case was he prompted by desire to
deprive any honorably discharged soldier,
or the widow of soldier. of a
dollar they were entitled to under the pen
sion laws but in each and every case he
shows conclusively that the applicant was
not entitled to pension, and that in many
cases that congress was guilty of careless
ness in passing such bills that actually
amounted to criminal negligence. AS an
illustration of the general tenor of triviality
in the whole batch of them we cite the
following, which are taken at random from
the pile of veto messages now before us:
In house bill 56oS granting pen
sion to Mrs. MCCARTHY, the application
for pension was based on the allegation that
her husband had died while in service from
an overdose of colchicum. The evidence
showed that comrade had taken some
medicine from the surgeons stores and
asked MCCARTHY to taste it. He drank it
and shortly afterwards became very sick and
died the next morning. The president says
it is not fair to ask the government to grant
a pension for the freak of gross recklesSnesS
of this soldier. Bill 1923 grants pension
to WILLIAM H. NEvILL, when the
records show that the name of the
claimant is now on the pension rolls,
and has been for twenty years, and he has
ever since been drawing his pension regu-
lary. This is clear case of an attempt to
double up on the pension business. House
bill 1905 granted a pension to WILLIAM
DERMODY, who is proven by the army rec
ordS to have been deserter, and the only
wound he ever received was when he was
shot by the guard in attempting to escape
after his arrest House bill 664S is for
the relief of EDWARD M. HARRING-
TON. The evidence is that while in
service he had a fisticuff with one
PATRICK BARNES. in which he had
some bones broken and received
some internal injuries. The president
says: 1.-The government ought not to be
called upon to insure against the quarrel
some propensities of it's individual soldiers,
nor to compensate one who is wOrsted in a
| fight or an unprovoked attack, where the
cause of injury is in no way connected
WITH or related to, any requirement or i'll
cident of military service" House bill
701S is another doubling-up case. where
the applicant had for a long time been
on the pension roll. House bill
5306 is a case where the pension
was allowed OH the ground that the
applicant had liver complaint when the
testimony of the physicians was that the
mans liver was diseased before he enlisted
in the army. House bill 1857 was case
where the applicant had never enlisted in
the army, but was a member of home
guard organization in Maryland and was
wounded by the accidental discharge of
musket in the hands of another member of
his company. Home bill 3043 granted a
pension to LEWIS SCANLAND on the ground
that the claimant had contracted chronic
diarrhea in the Black Hawk war, fifty-two
years ago: Reviewing the case the presi-
dent says:
The records show that he served from
April IS, 1882, to May %, in the same year.
| He was examined by a board Of surgeons in
| 1884, when he was said to be rs years old. In
| bis examination he did not claim to have
| diarrhea for good many years. On the con-
| trary he claimed to be affected with conStipa-
| ton, and said he had never had diarrhea of
late years, except at times when he had taken
| medicine for constipation. l am inclined to
| think it would have been a fortunate thing if
in this case it could have been demonstrated
| that man could thrive SO well with the
| chronic diarrhea for fifty-two years, as its eX-
stence in the case Of this good old gentleman
would prove. We should then, perhaps, have
less of it in claims for pensions. The fact is
in this case there is no disability which can
be traced to the forty days military service
of fifty-four years ago, and think little if
any more infirmity than is usually found in
men of the age OF the claimant. Entertaining
this belief, am constrained to withhold my
| signature from this bill.
House bill 1926 was a case where the
widow claimed a pension Oh the ground that
her husband, while in battle with the In
dams at Spanish Fort in 1868, incurred a
hernia. 1t appears from the evidence that
twenty years afterwards he died from cere-
bral apopleXy. In vetoing the bill, the
president says: cit seems to ME that effort
to attribute his death by apopleXy TO the
existence of hernia ought not to be success
full House Bill 4642 granted a pension to
a man who was never in the service. nor
was there any evidence that he was credta-
bly, employed in a service that would bene-
fit the government. 1t was shown that he
belonged to q band of men in North
Carolina who were congregated together
and engaged in plundering the neighbor-
hood, and that on account of their depreda-
tions they were hunted down by the Union
home guards, and the claimant was shot at
the time stated in his application.
These are fair samples of the batch of
private pension bills passed by congress and
vetoed by the president. Not one of them
has anv more merit than the ones above
referred to. And in nearly every case ap-
plication had previously been made to the
pension bureau and had been rejected. For
wears congress has been passing these bills,
and simply because the president did not
take the time to examine them they have
become laws. Congress has at length
struck snag in the person of President
CLEVELAND, and hereafter it will be apt to
be more careful in the matter of squander-
ing the public money.
THE WHIPPING POST.
The National conference of Correction
and Charities will be in session in this city
during the latter part of this week and the
first half of the next. 1t will be large
gathering and there will be some notable
members of it, including an eX-president OF
|
many whose names are prominent in both