The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-08-11
A Widow Refused Sixteen Dollars q Month,
Though Her Husband Suffered Years Of
Agony from Hurts Received in Battle.
The Senate Passes Gen. HOvey's Bill for
a Marine Hospital at Evansville.
Tbousan ds of People Visit St. Matthews
Church and View the Casket Containing
Sheridan's Remains-Washington Notes.
ANOTHER VETO.

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The President, In His Eagerness to Make q
Record, Overshoots the Mark.
Special to the Indianapolis journal
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10.-President Cleveland,
IN his esgerness to make Wholesale vetoes of in
dividual pension bills. sent to the House to-day
q measure with his disapproval, which will un-
doubtedly arouse the universal and just indiRna-
ton of every soldier in Indiana. The President
vetoed . bill granting . pension of SIC a month
to Mrs. Eliza Smith, widow of the late Lieut..
Clinton B. Smith. Of Winchester, Randolph
county. He gives as his reason for vetoing this
bill the following: Smith died in 1884 at .
hotel in Union City, Ind. and it was determined
at the time that his death resulted from an over
dose Of morphine. self administered"
The journal correspondent was tonight given
by an intimate personal friend OF Lieutenant
Smith, q gentleman who lives in Randolph coun-
ty. and served through the war in the same d.
vision with him. q statement of the merits Of
the bill the President vetoed. Lieutenant
Smith was one of the bravest soldiers, u said he.
Indiana produced. He was q printer before
the war, and when he enlisted was editor and
proprietor Of the Randolph County Journal,
published at Winchester. II q battle some
where in Kentucky, / think it was at Perryville,
Smith was severely wounded. A ball shattered
a bone in tho upper part of his left arm and dis
abled him. When he returned home his prop
erty was gone. and although he could scarcely
be on his feet much of the time. he was COM
PEELED to work as 9 journeyman printer to
make q livelihood. He was early
subject to agonizine pains in his
arm, directly resulting from the wound received.
He had necrosis of the bone, and At times there
was suppuration and slouehing. which threw
him into paroxysms Of pain. Ihave seen him
writhe scores of times and moan most bitterly,
till l thought the man would take his life, to end
his suffsrings. The pain often threw him into
fever and sent him to bed for daysat a time. He
was at work in Union City when he died. II is
true that when the pain was most severe he took
morphine to allay it, but the fact that the in
juries the man sustained from his service in the
army drove him to tbs periodical use of NOR
phine. and that he finally took an overdose of it,
ought to have appealed to mems sympathy. He
could not have lived without something to ailay
tho pain. / have never known a man vino suf-
fered more directly and more sgonizingly from
injuries received in service than did Lieutenant
Smith for years, and / know Of my own personal
knowledge that he died from the effects OF his
injuries. II he took an overdose of morphine
and died from it. he took it on account of his
pains. The President could veto q bill giving a
pension to q widow whose husband died under
the surgeons knife when the knife was being
used to amputate q limb shattered in the service
on equally as justi6able grounds as he vetoed
the bill for Mra Smith. 1t is the most out
raeeous act imaginable. and yet l have no doubt
that a large majority of the three or four hun
dred pension bills vetoed by Cleveland were a.
meritous as this one. Mrs. Smith belongs to
one of the best families In Randolph county.
Her father was Robert Irwin. formerly sheriff
of the county, and she is a sister to Mrs Judge
Monks, Of Winchester. She has a large number
Of relatives there, and they are among the best
people in Indiana"