The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-10-28
CLEVELAND AND THE YET
ERANS,

CLEVELAND AND THE YET
GRAMS.
Mr.. Cleveland's reputation as a
humorist rests alone upon that series OF
State papers, more than five hundred in
number, known as his soldiers veto
messages. In no other letters to Con-
gress and on no other subject than the
old soldier did he manifest any DISPOSE
ton to laugh. His jokes were always at
the expense of the unfortunate. He
made fun of their claims, laughed at
their infirmities and hurled an OCCASION
al shaft of riGicule at their services IN the
field. He was the only President of the
United States who ever did this, al
though other Presidents have been much
more humorous than Mr.. Cleveland on
many other subjects.
His vetoes fill nearly 100 pages of
stout volume of executive messages and
they contain more insinuations of cow
ardice, of desertion, of mendaclty and OF
false pretense against the old soldiers
than all that he ever wrote or said in his
life of the valor and sacrifices of those
who fought for their country.
AS an example of Mr.. Clevelands
brilliant and scintillating wit at the ex-
the veto messages sent in during the first
half of his Presidency. In rejecting the
bill granting a pension to Lewis w.
Scanland he says:
81 am inclined think it would have
been fortunate thing if in this case 1T
could have been demonstrated that man
could thrive so well with the chronic
diarrhea for fifty-two years, as its ex-
istence in the case of this good old gen
tleman would prove. We should then,
perhaps, have less of it in claims, for,
pension"
In the case of Aaron Probert, he sug-
gests that all applicants for pensions
are PROBABLY liars. His exact language
was:
1--WE shall soon find oursel yes SUI
rounded and hedged in by the rule that
all men entering an army were free from
disease or the liability to disease before
their enlistment, and every intirmity
which is visited upon them thereafter is
the consequence of army service"
A Democratic pension committee in
the House during part of Mr.. Cleveland S
term investigated and passed on all
these claims and a Republican pension
committee in the Senate, and no bill
ever reached HIM until it had been voted
by majority of both houses of Con
press. But President Cleveland rejected
over 100 bills so passed, and nearly all of
them were the object of his pitiless
humor. He denied a few hundred dol
lars voted to Andrew j. Wilson with his
sarcastic comment upon the gravity Of
Mr. Wilson's maladies.
Whatever else may be said of this
a. anliovamnntS 1nrinp his
short Military career, it must be con-
coded that he accumulated great deal of
disability"
The following is probably. one OF the
best samples of this sort Of wit:
The ingenuity developed in the con-
slant and persistent attacks upon the
public treasury by those claiming pen
sions, and the increase of those already
granted, is exhibited in bold relief by
this attempt to include sore eyes among
the results of diarrhea."
OF another applicant he wrote learned
ly and wIttily:
1.-The account given of the cause of his
alleged varicOSe veins must surprise those
who are at all familiar with the character
of that difficulty, and the routine of army
service"
OF another whose application was
supported by the fact of almost cOntinu-
Gus illness during as well as after the
war, the warrior President says:
ut will be seen that the claimants
term of service was literally intersperseI
with sick leave, detached service, res.
ignations and membership in the Invalid
Corps"
In these veto messages he makes sar.
castle mention of everything connected
with the service, and here is what he says
of the army saddles:
1.-The number of instances in which
those of our soldiers who rode horses
during the war were injured by being
thrown forward upon their saddles indi
cate that those saddles were very danger
Gus cOntrivances."
So the President who declined to fight
for his country and who employed &
substitute to fight for him when service
was pressed upon him, and who permit
ted that substitute afterwards to die il
the poorhOuse, tainted those who riskeC
their lives for the Union and whose
claims for just compensation were after
ward deemed worthy and honorable
by majority of both parties in Con
gress.