Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1888-07-20

Tenders with beneficial results.
A Pension Case.
The thick -and-thin organs of President
Cleveland would like to have the public
believe that he personally examines all
the evidence in each pension case which
comes before him by special bill, and
that he thereupon writes his veto message
based on the facts before him, giving his
honest reasons why he cannot approve
the bill. This is very far from the truth.
What really happens when a special pen
sion bill comes in is that his secretary
sends the bill to the pension office. Here
it is assigned to the same examining clerk
who had the claim for Il pension before
him originally, and who had reported
against it. This clerk regards the action
of Congress as an impeachment of his
official action in this case, so he sums up
all the objections to granting pension to
said Smith which he can find, puts them
in the most unfavorabe shape he can,
leaves out all the facts in the applicants
favor, and this one sided and prejudictd
statement is laid before Commissioner
| Black, who sends it, with his Endorsement,
to Secretary Villas, who forwards it,
with his Endorsement, to President
Cleveland. The president signs il
and sends it III as veto message,
| adding thereto some suggestions of
| his own, in the way of sarcastic com
| ment on the case, or rebuke of Congress for
its wasteful expenditure of public money.
A case recently decided is worthy of note.
Richard Lewis enlisted in Company f,
Fourteenth Vermont Volunteers, in Sep
TENDER, 1862, and was discharged in July,
1868. He filed an application for pension
April 2, 1872 alleging that in June, 1868.
he contracted chronic diarrhpa, and that
his system was so debilitated by this dis
ease that slight attack of pleurisy
brought on dropsv of the chest. He was
given pension at 81 per month for chron-
| ic diarrhpa.
| In 1855 this pension was increased to IS
month in consequence of an official med
| ical examination showing that the debil
| ity and pulmonary difficulty from which
the pensioner was then suffering, and
which made him incapable of any manual
labor, were the results of his chronic
diarrhpa. April 10, 1855, he died of con-
sumption. His widow applied for a pen
sion, and her application was rejected on
the ground that her husband died of dis
ease not contracted in the military service,
the medical referee in the pension bureau
reasoning, on general principles, that the
pulmonary trouble of which the man died
| had no connection with the chronic
darrhPa for which he was pensioned.
! But, against this view were the state
ments OF a physician who had attended
Lewis for twenty five years, the aflidavts
of neighbors, and the records of the
official examination of the pension Office
itself, all which went to establish a direct
connection between the chronic diarrhma
and the pulmonary trouble. The widow
took an appeal from the referee to the de
partment of the interior, only to have the
case virtually decided over again by the
referee. The secretary of the interior an
nounced his decision thus
The evidence upon the whole, to an unpro
fessuual mind, would seem to present ,
: strong case for the CLAIM. ant and has left thu
= department in ooubt upon the medical ques
ton involved. But it the peculiar PROVING,
OF the medical referee IN such cases to max,
; tn proper deduction from he acts presented
such being the case and the department hav
ing no higher expert authority to whom t.,
matter can now be referred his opinlon /
/ held conclusive.
Yo.r rejection is therefore affirmed.
Hdl lS W say, Tue Claimant seems 10 nav
a strong case, but the secretary will no
90 back of the medical referee. The un
; fortunate soldiers widow therefore zoe
y without her pension. But, says the Bos
- ton journal, in returning to the facts il
8 the case, the medical referee does not en
> here. suppose that in view OF the man
- fest justice of her claim the poor widow
y procures the passage of Il private pension
:, bill for herself. The bill goes to the pres
" ident; he discovers the point on which tn
y decision of the medical referee turned, an
~ forthwith makes it the text of a veto me-
" sage to Congress declaring it impossibl
= that chronic dIarrhma should have an,
thing to do with pulmonary trouble. Thu
- president who draws $40 day from ii
national treasury for his own Valuab
services stops the profligate largess OF IS
month to a soldiers widow, and the az
,e ministration organs break out in II chorl
e of delight But the average citizen do,
IN not approve of this method of dealiu
e. with veterans and their widows.