Carroll's claim, presented to the Pension Bureau, was rejected upon the ground that there was no record of his service on file; but in his testimony he stated that Perkins was wounded on the same occasion as himself, and that he (Perkins) was then a pensioner on account thereof.

The records of the Pension Bureau show that Perkins was pensioned in 1873 on account of three wounds received at the time and place of Carroll's injury.

It also appears that his name was dropped from the rolls in 1877 on the ground that his wounds were not received in the line of duty.

After an investigation made at that time by a special examiner, he reported that Perkins and Carroll had collected a number of men together, who made their headquarters at the home of Carroll's mother and were engaged in plundering the neighborhood, and that on account of their depredations they were hunted down by home guards and shot at the time they stated.

If this report is accepted as reliable, it should of course lead to the rejection of the claim for pension on the part of Mr. Carroll.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 3043, entitled "An act granting a pension to Lewis W. Scanland."

The claimant filed his declaration for a pension in 1884, alleging that he contracted chronic diarrhea while serving in a company of mounted Illinois volunteers in the Black Hawk War.

The records show that he served from April 18, 1832, to May 28, in the same year.

He was examined by a board of surgeons in 1884, when he was said to be 75 years old. In his examination he did not claim to have diarrhea for a good many years. On the contrary, he claimed to be affected with constipation, and said he had never had diarrhea of late years, except at times when he had taken medicine for constipation.

I am inclined to think it would have been a fortunate thing if in this case it could have been demonstrated that a man could thrive so well with the chronic diarrhea for fifty-two years as its existence 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 I think little, if any, more infirmity than is usually found in men of the age of the claimant.

Entertaining this belief, I am constrained to withhold my signature from this bill.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5414, entitled "An act granting a pension to Maria Cunningham."

The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted January 29, 1862, and was discharged January 20, 1865.

He applied for a pension in 1876, alleging a shell wound in the head. His claim was rejected on the ground that there appeared to be no disability from that cause. No other injury or disability was ever claimed by him, but at the time of his examination in 1876 he was found to be sickly, feeble, and emaciated, and suffering from an advanced stage of saccharine diabetes.

His widow filed an application for a pension in 1879, alleging that her husband died in December, 1877, of spinal disease and diabetes, contracted in the service.

Her claim was rejected because evidence was not furnished that the cause of the soldier's death had its origin in the military service.

There seems to be an entire absence of proof of this important fact.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4797, entitled "An act granting a pension to Robert H. Stapleton."

This claimant filed an application for pension in the Pension Bureau in 1883, alleging that while acting as lieutenant-colonel of a New Mexico regiment, on February 21, 1862, the tongue of a caisson struck him, injuring his left side. A medical examination made in 1882 showed a fracture of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh ribs of the left side.

If these fractures were the result of the injury alleged, they were immediately apparent, and the delay of twenty-one years in presenting the claim for pension certainly needs explanation.

Claims of this description, by a wise provision of law, must, to be valid, be prosecuted to a successful issue prior to the 4th day of July, 1874.

The rank which this claimant held presupposes such intelligence as admits of no excuse on the ground of ignorance of the law for his failure to present his application within the time fixed by law.

The evidence of disability from the cause alleged is weak, to say the most of it, and I can not think that such a wholesome provision of law as that above referred to, which limits the time for the adjustment of such claims, should be modified upon the facts presented in this case.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 5550, entitled "An act to provide for the erection of a public building at Duluth, Minn."

After quite a careful examination of the public needs at the point mentioned I am entirely satisfied that the public building provided for in this bill is not immediately necessary.

Not a little legislation has lately been perfected, and very likely more will be necessary, to increase miscalculated appropriations for and correct blunders in the construction of many of the public buildings now in process of erection.

While this does not furnish a good reason for disapproving the erection of other buildings where actually necessary, it induces close scrutiny and gives rise to the earnest wish that new projects for public buildings shall for the present be limited to such as are required by the most pressing necessities of the Government's business.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 2043, entitled "An act to place Mary Karstetter on the pension roll."

The husband of this beneficiary, Jacob Karstetter, was enrolled June 30, 1864, as a substitute in a Pennsylvania regiment, and was discharged for disability June 20, 1865, caused by a gunshot wound in the left hand.

A declaration for pension was filed by him in 1865, based upon this wound, and the same was granted, dating from June in that year, which he drew till the time of his death, August 21, 1874.

In 1882 his widow filed her application for pension, alleging that he died of wounds received in battle. The claim was made that he was injured while in the Army by a horse running over him.

There is little or no evidence of such an injury having been received; and if this was presented there would be no necessary connection between that and the cause of the soldier's death, which was certified by the attending physician to be gastritis and congestion of the kidneys.

I can hardly see how the Pension Bureau could arrive at any conclusion except that the death of the soldier was not due to his military service, and the acceptance of this finding, after an examination of the facts, leads me to disapprove this bill.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 5394, entitled "An act granting a pension to Sallie Ann Bradley."

The husband of this proposed beneficiary was discharged from the military service in 1865, after a long service, and was afterwards pensioned for gunshot wound.

He died in 1882. The widow appears to have never filed a claim for pension in her own right.

No cause is given of the soldier's death, but it is not claimed that it resulted from his military service, her pension being asked for entirely because of her needs and the faithful service of her husband and her sons.

This presents the question whether a gift in such a case is a proper disposition of money appropriated for the purpose of paying pensions.

The passage of this law would, in my opinion, establish a precedent so far-reaching and open the door to such a vast multitude of claims not on principle within our present pension laws that I am constrained to disapprove the bill under consideration.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5603, entitled "An act granting a pension to Mrs. Catherine McCarty."

The beneficiary is the widow of John McCarty, of the First Missouri Regiment of State Militia Volunteers, who died at Clinton, Mo., April 8, 1864.

The widow filed her claim in 1866, alleging that her husband died while in the service from an overdose of colchicum.

The evidence shows without dispute that on the day previous to the death of the soldier a comrade procured some medicine from the regimental surgeon and asked McCarty to smell and taste it; that he did so, and shortly afterwards became very sick and died the next morning.

It is quite evident that the deceased soldier did more than taste this medicine.

Although it would be pleasant to aid the widow in this case, it is hardly fair to ask the Government to grant a pension for the freak or gross heedlessness and recklessness of this soldier.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 6648, entitled "An act for the relief of Edward M. Harrington."

It appears that this claimant was enrolled as a recruit December 31, 1863, and mustered in at Dunkirk, N.Y. He remained at the barracks there until March, 1864, when he was received at the Elmira rendezvous. From there he was sent to his regiment on the 7th day of April, 1864.

He was discharged June 15, 1864, upon a surgeon's certificate of disability, declaring the cause of discharge to be epilepsy, produced by blows of violence over the hypochondrial region while in the service, producing a deformity of sternum.

The claimant filed an application for pension in June, 1879, and in that and subsequent affidavits he alleged that while in barracks at Dunkirk, N.Y., and about the 9th day of January, 1864, and in the line of duty, he was attacked by one Patrick Burnes, who struck him upon the head and stamped upon and kicked him, breaking his collar bone and a number of ribs, causing internal injury and fits, the latter recurring every two weeks.

It is hardly worth while considering the character of these alleged injuries or their connection with the fits with which the claimant is afflicted.

I am entirely unable to see how the injuries are related to the claimant's army service.

The Government ought not to be called upon to insure against the quarrelsome propensities of its individual soldiers, nor to compensate one who is worsted in a fight, or even in an unprovoked attack, when the cause of injury is in no way connected with or related to any requirement or incident of military service.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 7, 1886.

To the Senate of the United States:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2281, entitled "An act granting to railroads the right of way through the Indian reservation in northern Montana."

The reservation referred to stretches across the extreme northern part of Montana Territory, with British America for its northern boundary. It contains an area of over 30,000 square miles. It is dedicated to Indian occupancy by treaty of October 17, 1855, and act of Congress of April 15, 1874. No railroads are within immediate approach to its boundaries, and only one, as shown on recent maps, is under construction in the neighborhood leading in its direction. The surrounding country is sparsely settled, and I have been unable to ascertain that the necessities of commerce or any public exigencies demand this legislation, which would affect so seriously the rights and interests of the Indians occupying the reservation.

The bill is in the nature of a general right of way for railroads through this Indian reservation. The Indian occupants have not given their consent to it, neither have they been consulted regarding it, nor is there any provision in it for securing their consent or agreement to the location or construction of railroads upon their lands. No routes are described, and no general directions on which the line of any railroad will be constructed are given.

No particular organized railway company engaged in constructing a railroad toward the reservation and ready or desirous to build its road through the Indian lands to meet the needs and requirements of trade and commerce is named. The bill gives the right to any railroad in the country, duly organized under the laws of any Territory, of any State, or of the United States, except those of the District of Columbia, to enter this Indian country, prospect for routes of travel, survey them, and construct routes of travel wherever it may please, with no check save possible disapproval by the Secretary of the Interior of its maps of location, and no limitation upon its acts except such rules and regulations as he may prescribe.

This power vested in the Secretary of the Interior might itself be improvidently exercised and subject to abuse.

No limit of time is fixed within which the construction of railroads should begin or be completed. Without such limitations speculating corporations would be enabled to seek out and secure the right of way over the natural and most feasible routes, with no present intention of constructing railroads along such lines, but with the view of holding their advantageous easements for disposal at some future time to some other corporation for a valuable consideration. In this way the construction of needed railroad facilities in that country could be hereafter greatly obstructed and retarded.

If the United States must exercise its right of eminent domain over the Indian Territories for the general welfare of the whole country, it should be done cautiously, with due regard for the interests of the Indians, and to no greater extent than the exigencies of the public service require.

Bills tending somewhat in the direction of this general character of legislation, affecting the rights of the Indians reserved to them by treaty stipulations, have been presented to me during the present session of Congress. They have received my reluctant approval, though I am by no means certain that a mistake has not been made in passing such laws without providing for the consent to such grants by the Indian occupants and otherwise more closely guarding their rights and interests; and I hoped that each of those bills as it received my approval would be the last of the kind presented. They, however, designated particular railroad companies, laid down general routes over which the respective roads should be constructed through the Indian lands, and specified their direction and termini, so that I was enabled to reasonably satisfy myself that the exigencies of the public service and the interests of commerce probably demanded the construction of the roads, and that by their construction and operation the Indians would not be too seriously affected.

The bill now before me is much more general in its terms than those which have preceded it. It is a new and wide departure from the general tenor of legislation affecting Indian reservations. It ignores the right of the Indians to be consulted as to the disposition of their lands, opens wide the door to any railroad corporation to do what, under the treaty covering the greater portion of the reservation, is reserved to the United States alone; it gives the right to enter upon Indian lands to a class of corporations carrying with them many individuals not known for any scrupulous regard for the interest or welfare of the Indians; it invites a general invasion of the Indian country, and brings into contact and intercourse with the Indians a class of whites and others who are independent of the orders, regulations, and control of the resident agents.

Corporations operating railroads through Indian lands are strongly tempted to infringe at will upon the reserved rights and the property of Indians, and thus are apt to become so arbitrary in their dealings and domineering in their conduct toward them that the Indians become disquieted, often threatening outbreaks and periling the lives of frontier settlers and others.

I am impressed with the belief that the bill under consideration does not sufficiently guard against an invasion of the rights and a disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Indians on the reservation mentioned; nor am I satisfied that the legislation proposed is demanded by any exigency of the public welfare.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 9, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 524, entitled "An act granting a pension to Daniel H. Ross."

An application for pension was filed in the Pension Bureau by the beneficiary named in this bill, and considerable testimony was filed in support of the same. I do not understand that the claim has been finally rejected. But however that may be, the claimant died, as I am advised, on the 1st day of February last. This, of course, renders the proposed legislation entirely inoperative, if it would not actually prejudice the claim of his surviving widow. She has already been advised of the evidence necessary to complete the claim of her husband, and it is not at all improbable that she will be able to prosecute the same to a successful issue for her benefit.

At any rate, her rights should not be in the least jeopardized by the completion of the legislation proposed in this bill.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 9, 1886.

To the Senate:

I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 856, entitled "An act to provide for the erection of a public building in the city of Dayton, Ohio."

It is not claimed that the Government has any public department or business which it should quarter at Dayton except its post-office and internal-revenue office. The former is represented as employing ten clerks, sixteen regular and two substitute letter carriers, and two special-delivery employees, who, I suppose, are boys, only occasionally in actual service. I do not understand that the present post-office quarters are either insufficient or inconvenient. By a statement prepared by the present postmaster it appears that they are rented by the Government for a period of ten years from the 15th day of October, 1883, at an annual rent of $2,950, which includes the cost of heating the same.

The office of the internal-revenue collector is claimed to be inadequate, but I am-led to believe that this officer is fairly accommodated at an annual rental of $900. It is not impossible that a suggestion to change the area of this revenue district may be adopted, which would relieve any complaint of inadequacy of office room.

With only these two offices to provide for, I am not satisfied that the expenditure of $150,000 for their accommodation, as proposed by this bill, is in accordance with sound business principles or consistent with that economy in public affairs which has been promised to the people.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 10, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 5546, entitled "An act for the erection of a public building at Asheville, N.C."

If the needs of the Government are alone considered, the proposed building is only necessary for the accommodation of two terms of the United States court in each year and to provide an office for the clerk of that court and more commodious quarters for the post-office.

The terms of the court are now held in the county court room at Asheville at an expense to the Government of $50 for each term; the clerk of the court occupies a room for which an annual rent of $150 is paid, and the rent paid for the rooms occupied by the post-office is $180 each year.

The postmaster reports that four employees are regularly engaged in his office, which is now rated as third class.

I have no doubt that the court could be much more conveniently provided for in a new building if one should be erected; but it is represented to me that the regular terms held at Asheville last only two or three weeks each, though special terms are ordered at times to clear the docket. It is difficult to see from any facts presented in support of this bill why the United States court does not find accommodations which fairly answer its needs in the rooms now occupied by it. The floor space furnished for the terms of the Federal court is stated to be 75 by 100 feet, which, it must be admitted, provides a very respectable court room.

It is submitted that the necessity to the Government of a proper place to hold its courts is the only consideration which should have any weight in determining upon the propriety of expending the money which will be necessary to erect the proposed new building.

The limit of its cost is fixed in the bill under consideration at the sum of $80,000, but the history of such projects justifies the expectation that this limit will certainly be exceeded.

I am satisfied that the present necessity for this building is not urgent, and that something may be gained by a delay which will demonstrate more fully the public needs, and thus better suggest the style and size of the building to be erected.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 30, 1886.

To the Senate:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 63, entitled "An act to authorize the construction of a highway bridge across that part of the waters of Lake Champlain lying between the towns of North Hero and Alburg, in the State of Vermont."

On the 20th day of June, 1884, a bill was approved and became a law having the same title and containing precisely the same provisions and in the exact words of the bill herewith returned.

The records of the War Department indicate that nothing has been done toward building the bridge permitted by such prior act. It is hardly possible that the bill now before me is intended to authorize an additional bridge between the two towns named, and I have been unable to discover any excuse or necessity for new legislation on the subject.

I conclude, therefore, that Congress in passing this bill acted in ignorance of the fact that a law providing for its objects and purposes was already on the statute book.

My approval of the bill is withheld for this reason and in order to prevent an unnecessary and confusing multiplicity of laws.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 30, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I hereby return without my approval House bill No. 1391, entitled "An act to provide for the erection of a public building at Springfield, Mo."

It appears from the report of the committee of the House of Representatives to which this bill was referred that the city of Springfield is in a thriving condition, with stores, banks, and manufactories, and having, with North Springfield, which is an adjoining town, about 20,000 inhabitants.

No Federal courts are held at this place, and apparently the only quarters which the Government should provide are such as are necessary for the accommodation of the post-office and the land-office located there.

The postmaster reports that six employees are engaged in his office.

The rooms used as a post-office are now furnished the Government free of expense, and the rent paid for the quarters occupied as a land-office amounts to $300 annually.

Upon the facts presented I am satisfied that the business of the Government at this point can be well transacted for the present without the construction of the proposed building.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the Senate:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2160, entitled "A bill granting a pension to Mary J. Hagerman."

The husband of this proposed beneficiary enlisted in 1861 and was wounded by a gunshot, which seriously injured his left forearm. In 1864 he was discharged; was afterwards pensioned for his wound, and died in August, 1884.

Dr. Hageman, who attended the deceased in his last illness, testifies that he was called to attend him in August, 1884; that he was sick with typhomalarial fever, and that upon inquiry he (the physician) found that it was caused by hard work or overexertion and exposure. He was ill for about ten days.

The application of his widow for pension was rejected in 1885 on the ground that the fatal disease was not due to military service.

I am unable to discover how any different determination could have been reached.

To grant a pension in this case would clearly contravene the present policy of the Government, and either establish a precedent which, if followed, would allow a pension to the widow of every soldier wounded or disabled in the war, without regard to the cause of death, or would unjustly discriminate in favor of the few thus receiving the bounty of the Government against many whose cases were equally meritorious.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the Senate:

I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 1421, entitled "An act granting a pension to William H. Weaver."

The claimant named in this bill enlisted August 12, 1862, and was mustered out of service June 12, 1865. During his service he was treated in hospital for diarrhea and lumbago, and in the reports for May and June, as well as July and August, 1864, he is reported as absent sick.

He filed his application for pension in November, 1877, alleging that in March, 1863, he contracted measles, and in May, 1864, remittent fever, and that as a result of the two attacks he was afflicted with weakness in the limbs and eyes. He made statements afterwards in support of his application that he was also troubled in the service with rheumatism and diarrhea.

The case was examined by several special examiners, from which, as reported to me, it appeared from the claimant's admission that he had sore eyes previous to his enlistment, though he claimed they were sound when he entered the Army.

A surgeon who made an examination in March, 1881, reported that he could not find any evidence whatever of disease of the eyes, and nothing to corroborate the claimant's assertion that he was suffering from rheumatism, piles, or diarrhea.

Another surgeon, who examined the claimant in 1879, reported that he found the eyelids slightly granulated, producing some irritation of the eyeball and rendering the eyes a little weak, and that he found no other disability.

In 1882 a surgeon who made an examination reported that he discovered indications that the claimant had suffered at some time with chronic ophthalmia, but that in his opinion his eyes did not disable him in the least, and that the claimant was well nourished and in good health.

The report of the committee to whom this bill was referred in the Senate states that six special examinations have been made in the case and that two of them were favorable to the claim.

The trouble and expense incurred by the Pension Bureau to ascertain the truth and to deal fairly by this claimant, and the entire absence of any suspicion of bias against the claim in that Bureau, ought to give weight to its determination.

The claim was rejected by the Pension Bureau in July, 1885, upon the ground that disease of the eyes existed prior to enlistment and that the evidence failed to show that there had existed a pensionable degree of disability, since discharge, from diarrhea or rheumatism.

It will be observed that this is not a case where there was a lack of the technical proof required by the Pension Bureau, but that its judgment was based upon the merits of the application and affected the very foundation of the claim.

I think it should be sustained; and its correctness is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the claimant continued in active service for more than a year after his alleged sickness, that after filing his claim he added thereto allegations of additional disabilities, and that he made no application for pension until more than twelve years after his discharge.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 3363, entitled "An act granting a pension to Jennette Dow."

The husband of the claimant enlisted August 7, 1862; received a gunshot wound in his left knee in September, 1863, and was mustered out with his company June 10, 1865. He was pensioned for his wound in 1878 at the rate of $4 per month, dating from the time of his discharge, which amount was increased to $8 per month from June 4, 1880. The pensioned soldier died December 17, 1882, and in 1883 his widow, the claimant, filed an application for pension, alleging that her husband's death resulted from his wound. Her claim was rejected in 1885 upon the ground that death was not caused by the wound.

The physician who was present at the time of the death certifies that the same resulted from apoplexy in twelve hours after the deceased was attacked.

It also appears from the statement of this physician that the deceased was employed for years after his discharge from the Army as a railroad conductor, and that at the time of his death he had with difficulty reached his home. He then describes as following the attack the usual manifestations of apoplexy, and adds that he regards the case as one of "hemiplegia, the outgrowth primarily of nerve injury, aggravated by the life's calling, and eventuating in apoplexy as stated."

Evidence is filed in the Pension Bureau showing that after his discharge he was more or less troubled with his wound, though one witness testifies that he railroaded with him for fifteen years after his injury. I find no medical testimony referred to which with any distinctness charges death to the wound, and it would be hardly credible if such evidence was found.

I am sure that in no case except in an application for pension would an attempt be made in the circumstances here developed to attribute death from apoplexy to a wound in the knee received nineteen years before the apoplectic attack.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 9106, entitled "An act granting a pension to Rachel Barnes."

William Barnes, the husband of the beneficiary named in this bill, enlisted in the United States infantry in February, 1838, and was discharged February 24, 1841.

In 1880 he applied for a pension, alleging that while serving in Florida in 1840 and 1841 he contracted disease of the eyes. He procured considerable evidence in support of his claim, but in 1882, and while still endeavoring to furnish further proof, he committed suicide by hanging.

The inference that his death thus occasioned was the result of despondency and despair brought on by his failure to procure a pension, while it adds a sad feature to the case, does not aid in connecting his death with his military service.

That this was the view of the committee of the House to whom the bill was referred is evidenced by the conclusion of their report in these words:

And while your committee do not feel justified under the law as at present existing in recommending that the name of the widow be placed upon the pension roll for the purpose of a pension in her own right as widow of the deceased soldier and by reason of the soldier's death, they do think that she should be allowed such pension as, had her husband's claim been favorably determined on the day of his decease, he would have received.

And yet the bill under consideration directs the Secretary of the Interior to place this widow's name on the pension roll and to "pay her a pension as such widow from and after the passage of this act, subject to the provisions and limitations of the pension laws."

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 8336, entitled "An act granting an increase of pension to Duncan Forbes."

The beneficiary named in this bill enlisted, under the name of Alexander Sheret, January 7, 1862, in the Regular Army, and was discharged January 8, 1865.

He applied for a pension in 1879, alleging that he was wounded in his right breast December 31, 1862, and in his right ankle September 20, 1863. He was pensioned in 1883, dating from January 9, 1865, for the ankle wound, but that part of his claim based upon the wound in his breast was rejected upon the ground that there was no record of the same and the testimony failed to show that such a wound had its origin in the service.

Though the lack of such a record is sufficiently accounted for, I am convinced that, conceding both the wounds alleged were received, this pensioner has been fairly and justly treated.

It appears from the allegations of his application to the Pension Bureau that after the wound in his breast, in December, 1862, he continued his service till September, 1863, when he was wounded again in the ankle, and that with both wounds he served until his discharge in January, 1865. It also appears from the records that after his discharge from the. Army, and on the 3d day of February, 1865, he enlisted as landsman in the United States Navy, and served in that branch of the service for three years.

A medical examination in May, 1885, disclosed the appearance of a gunshot wound in the right breast, which is thus described:

The missile struck the seventh rib of right side and glanced off, leaving a horizontal scar 2-1/4 inches long and one-half inch wide, deeply depressed and firmly adherent.

I credit this claimant with being a good soldier, and I am willing to believe that his insistence upon a greater pension than that already allowed by the Pension Bureau, under liberal general laws, enacted for the benefit of himself and all his comrades, is the result of the demoralization produced by ill-advised special legislation on the subject.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 4, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 5389, entitled "An act granting a pension to Ann Kinney."

This beneficiary applied for a pension in 1877 as the widow of Edward Kinney, alleging that he died September 5, 1875, from the effects of a wound received in the Army. He enlisted November 4, 1861, and was discharged July 28, 1862, on account of a gunshot wound in his left elbow, for which wound he was pensioned in the year 1865.

A physician testifies that the pensioned soldier's death was, in his opinion, brought on indirectly by the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, and that he died from congestion of the brain.

The marshal of the city where he resided states that on the day of the soldier's death he was called to remove him from a house in which he was making a disturbance, and that finding him intoxicated he arrested him and took him to the lockup and placed him in a cell. In a short time, not exceeding an hour, thereafter he was found dead. He further states that he was addicted to periodical sprees.

Another statement is made that the soldier was an intemperate man, and died very suddenly in the city lockup, where he had been taken by an officer while on a drunken spree.

This is not a pleasant recital, and as against the widow I should be glad to avoid its effect. But the most favorable phase of the case does not aid her, since her claim rests upon the allegation that her husband was subject to epileptic fits and died from congestion of the brain while in one of these fits. Even upon this showing the connection between the fits and the wound in the elbow is not made apparent.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 4, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 8556, entitled "An act granting a pension to Abraham Points."

This soldier enlisted August 11, 1864, and was mustered out June 28, 1865.

He was treated during his short term of service for "catarrhal," "constipation," "diarrhea," "jaundice," and "colic."

He filed an application for pension in 1878, alleging that some of his comrades in a joke twisted his arm in such a manner that the elbow joint became stiffened and anchylosed, and that his eyes became sore and have continued to grow worse ever since. There is no record of either of these disabilities.

The application was denied upon the ground, as stated in the report from the Pension Bureau, that the claim "was specially examined, and it was shown conclusively, from the evidence of neighbors and acquaintances of good repute and standing, that the alleged disabilities existed at and prior to claimant's enlistment."

I am satisfied from an examination of the facts submitted to me that this determination was correct.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 4, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 3551, entitled "An act granting a pension to George W. Cutler, late a private in Company B, Ninth New Hampshire Volunteers."

This claimant enlisted July 12, 1862, and was discharged June 22, 1863, for disability resulting from "scrofulous ulceration of the tibia and fibula of right leg; loss of sight of left eye."

He made a claim for pension in 1865, alleging an injury while loading commissary stores, resulting in spitting of blood, injury to lungs, and heart disease.

This claim was rejected August 31, 1865.

In 1867 he again enlisted in the United States infantry, and was discharged from that enlistment March 29, 1869, for disability, the certificate stating that—

He is unfit for military service by reason of being subject to bleeding of the lungs. He was wounded, while in the line of his duty in the United States Army, at Fredericksburg, Va., December 13, 1862. Said wound is not the cause of his disability.

Afterwards, and in the year 1879, he filed affidavits claiming that he was wounded by a minie ball at the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, and was injured by falling down an embankment.

In 1883 he filed an affidavit in which he stated that the disability for which he claims a pension arose from injuries received in falling down a bank at Fredericksburg and being tramped on by troops, causing a complication of diseases resulting in general debility.

The statement in the certificate of discharge from his second enlistment as to the wound he received by a minie ball at Fredericksburg was of course derived from his own statement, as it was related to a prior term of service.

The records of the Adjutant-General's Office furnish no evidence of wounds or injury at Fredericksburg.

The injury alleged at first as a consequence of loading commissary stores seems to have been abandoned by the claimant for the adoption of a wound at Fredericksburg, which in its turn seems to have been abandoned and a fall down a bank and trampling upon by troops substituted.

Whatever injuries he may have suffered during his first enlistment, and to whatever cause he chooses at last to attribute them, they did not prevent his reenlistment and passing the physical examination necessary before acceptance.

The surgeon of the Ninth New Hampshire Volunteers, in which he first enlisted, states that he remembers the claimant well; that he was mustered and accepted as a recruit in spite of his (the surgeon's) protest; that he was physically unfit for duty; that he had the appearance of impaired health, and that his face and neck were marked by one or more deep scars, the result, as the claimant himself alleged, of scrofulous abscesses in early youth. He expresses the opinion that he is attempting to palm off these old scars as evidence of wounds received, and that if he had been wounded as he claimed he (the surgeon) would have known it and remembered it.

It is true that whenever in this case a wound is described it is located in the jaw, while some of the medical testimony negatives the existence of any wound.

The contrariety of the claimant's statements and the testimony and circumstances tend so strongly to impeach his claim that I do not think the decision of the Pension Bureau should be reversed and the claimant pensioned.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 4, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 7234, entitled "An act granting a pension to Susan Hawes."

The beneficiary named in this bill is the mother of Jeremiah Hawes, who enlisted in February, 1861, in the United States artillery, and was discharged in February, 1864. He filed a claim for pension in 1881, alleging that in 1862, by the premature discharge of a cannon, he sustained paralysis of his right arm and side. In 1883, while his claim was still pending, he died.

He does not appear to have made his home with his mother altogether, if at all. For some years prior to his death and at the time of its occurrence he was an inmate, or had been an inmate, of a soldiers' home in Ohio.

But whatever may be said of the character of any injuries he may have received in the service or of his relations to his mother, the cause of his death, it seems to me, can not possibly upon any reasonable theory be attributable to any incident of his military service.

It appears that in July, 1883, while the deceased was on his way from Buffalo, where he had been in a hospital, to the soldiers' home in Ohio, he attempted to step on a slowly moving freight train, and making a misstep a wheel of the car passed over his foot, injuring it so badly that it was deemed necessary by two physicians who were called to amputate the foot. An anaesthetic was administered preparatory to the operation, but before it was entered upon the injured man died, having survived the accident but two hours.

The physicians who were present stated that in their opinion death was due to heart disease.

The above account of the death of the soldier is derived from a report furnished by the Pension Bureau, and differs somewhat from the statement contained in the report of the House Committee on Invalid Pensions as related to the intention of the physicians to amputate the injured foot and their administration of an anaesthetic. But the accident and the death two hours thereafter under the treatment of the physicians are conceded facts.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 4, 1886.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 1584, entitled "An act for the relief of Mrs. Aurelia C. Richardson."

Albert H. Fillmore, the son of the beneficiary mentioned in this bill, enlisted in August, 1862, and died in the service of smallpox, May 20, 1865.

His father having died some time prior to the soldier's enlistment, his mother in 1858 married Lorenzo D. Richardson. It is stated in the report upon this case from the Pension Bureau that the deceased did not live with his mother after her marriage to Richardson, and that there is no competent evidence that he contributed to her support after that event.

At the time of the soldier's death his stepfather was a blacksmith, earning at about that time, as it is represented, not less than $70 a month, and owning considerable property, a part of which still remains to him.

While in ordinary cases of this kind I am by no means inclined to distinguish very closely between dependence at the date of the soldier's death and the date of proposed aid to a needy mother, I think the circumstances here presented, especially the fact of nonresidence by the son with his mother since her second marriage, do not call for a departure from the law governing claims based upon dependence.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



POCKET VETOES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, August 17, 1886.

Hon. Thos. F. Bayard, Secretary of State.

DEAR SIR: The President directs me to transmit to you the accompanying bills and joint resolutions, which failed to become laws at the close of the late session of Congress, being unsigned and not having been presented to him ten days prior to adjournment.

I may add that the printed copy of memorandum (without signature) is by the President, and is attached to each bill and resolution by his direction.

Very respectfully,

O.L. PRUDEN, Assistant Secretary.



["An act for the relief of Francis W. Haldeman."—Received July 28, 1886.]

This bill appropriates $200 to the party named therein "as compensation for services performed and money expended for the benefit of the United States Army." It appears from a report of the House Committee on War Claims that in the fall of 1863 Haldeman, a lad 12 years of age, purchased a uniform and armed himself and attached himself to various Ohio regiments, and, as is said, performed various duties connected with the army service until the end of the year 1864, and for this it is proposed to give him $200.

Of course he never enlisted and never was regularly attached to any regiment. What kind of arms this boy 12 years of age armed himself with is not stated, and it is quite evident that his military service could not have amounted to much more than the indulgence of a boyish freak and his being made a pet of the soldiers with whom he was associated. There is a pleasant sentiment connected with this display of patriotism and childish military ardor, and it is not a matter of surprise that he should, as stated by the committee, have "received honorable mention by name in the history of his regiment;" but when it is proposed twenty-two years after his one year's experience with troops to pay him a sum nearly if not quite equal to the pay of a soldier who fought and suffered all the dangers and privations of a soldier's life, I am constrained to dissent.



["An act for the relief of R.D. Beckley and Leon Howard."—Received July 28, 1886.]

These two men were employed by the Doorkeeper of the Forty-eighth Congress as laborers at the rate of $720 per annum.

They claim that in both sessions of that Congress they not only performed the duties appertaining to their positions as laborers, but also performed the full duties of messengers. Having received their pay as laborers, this bill proposes to appropriate for them the difference between their compensation as laborers and $1,200, the pay allowed messengers.

Congress, in appropriation bills covering the period in which these men claim to have performed these dual duties, provided for a certain specified number of messengers and a fixed number of laborers. They both accepted the latter position. If they actually performed the duties of both places, their ability to do so is evidence that the labor of either place was very light. In any case they owed their time and services to the Government, and while they were performing the duties of messengers they were not engaged in the harder tasks which might have been required of them as laborers. They ought not to complain if they have received the amount for which they agreed to work, and which was allowed for as the wages of a place which they were glad enough to secure. If they really did the work of both places, I don't see why they should not be paid both compensations. This proposition of course would not be entertained for a moment.

I am of the opinion that claims for extra compensation such as these should be firmly discountenanced, and I am sure no injustice will be done by my declining to approve this bill.



["An act for the relief of Thomas P. Morgan, jr."—Received July 31, 1886.—Memorandum.]

Thomas P. Morgan, jr., in the year 1881 entered into a contract with the Government to do certain excavating in the harbor of Norfolk.

He performed considerable of the work, but though the time limited by the contract for the completion was extended by the Government, he failed to complete the work, which necessitated other arrangements, to the damage of the Government in quite a large sum. His contract was forfeited by the Government because the progress he made was so slow and unsatisfactory. It seems that a certain percentage of the money earned by him in the progress of the work was, under the terms of the contract, retained by the Government to insure its completion, and when work was terminated the sum thus retained amounted to $4,898.04, which sum was justly forfeited to the Government.

The object of this bill is to waive this forfeiture and pay this sum to the derelict contractor.

Inasmuch as I am unable to see any equities in this case that should overcome the fact that the amount of loss to the Government through the contract is greater than the sum thus sought to be released to him, I am not willing to agree to his release from the consequence of his failure to perform his contract.



["An act for the relief of Charles F. Bowers."—Received August 2, 1886.]

It appears that Charles P. Bowers, while acting as regimental quartermaster in 1862, received of John Weeks, assistant quartermaster of volunteers, the sum of $230, for which he gave a receipt. On the settlement of his accounts he was unable to account for said sum, for the reason, as he alleges, that certain of his papers were lost and destroyed. Thus in the statement of his account he is represented as a debtor of the Government in that amount.

This bill directs that a credit be allowed to him of the said sum of $230. But since his account was adjusted as above stated, showing him in debt to the Government in the amount last stated, he has paid the sum of $75 and been allowed a credit of $125 for the value of a horse; so that whatever may be said of the merits of his claim that he should not be charged with the sum of $230, if he should now be credited with that sum the Government would owe him upon its books the sum of $30.

The bill is therefore not approved.



["An act to provide for the erection of a public building in the city of Annapolis, Md."—Received August 3, 1886.—Memorandum.]

The post-office at Annapolis is now accommodated in quarters for which the Government pays rent at the rate of $500 per annum, and the office occupied by the collector of customs is rented for $75 per annum.

The Government has no other use for a public building at Annapolis than is above indicated, and the chief argument urged why a building should be constructed there is based upon the fact that this city is the capital of the State of Maryland and should have a Government building because most if not all the other capitals of the States have such edifices.

There seems to be so little necessity for the building proposed for the transaction of Government business, and if there is anything in the argument last referred to it seems so well answered by the maintenance of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, this bill is allowed to remain inoperative.



["An act for the relief of J.A. Henry and others."—Received August 3, 1886.—Memorandum.]

This bill appropriates various sums to the parties named therein, being claims of rent of quarters occupied during the war by the Quartermaster's Department of the Army.

Among the appropriations there proposed to be made is one of the sum of $51 to L.F. Green. This account has been once paid, a special act directing such payment having been approved February 12, 1885. The fact of this payment and important information bearing upon the validity of some of the other claims mentioned in the bill could have been easily obtained by application to the Third Auditor.



["An act for the relief of William H. Wheeler."—Received August 3, 1886.]

This bill directs the payment of the sum of $633.50 to William H. Wheeler for quartermaster's stores furnished the Army in the year 1862.

From the data furnished me by the Quartermaster-General I am quite certain that this claim has been once paid. The circumstances presented to prove this are so strong that they should be explained before the relief provided by this bill is afforded the claimant.



["An act granting a pension to Margaret D. Marchand."—Received August 5, 1886.—Memorandum.]

A bill presented to me for approval, granting a pension of $50 per month to the beneficiary named, was disapproved upon the ground that the death of her husband did not appear to be in any way related to any incident of his military service.

This bill differs from the prior one simply in granting a pension subject to the provisions and limitations of the pension laws instead of fixing the rate of pension at a specified sum. I am still unable to see how the objection to the first bill has been obviated.



["Joint resolution providing for the distribution of the Official Register of the United States."—Received August 5, 1886.—Memorandum.]

This resolution reached me five minutes after the adjournment of the two Houses of Congress, and is the only enactment of the session which came to me too late for official action.

I do not understand this resolution nor the purposes sought to be accomplished by its passage, and while in that frame of mind should have been constrained to withhold my approval from the same even if it had reached me in time for consideration.



["Joint resolution directing payment of the surplus in the Treasury on the public debt."—Received August 5, 1886.—Memorandum.]

This resolution involves so much and is of such serious import that I do not deem it best to discuss it at this time. It is not approved because I believe it to be unnecessary and because I am by no means convinced that its mere passage and approval at this time may not endanger and embarrass the successful and useful operations of the Treasury Department and impair the confidence which the people should have in the management of the finances of the Government.



PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it is represented to me by the governor of the Territory of Washington that domestic violence exists within the said Territory, and that by reason of unlawful obstructions and combinations and the assemblage of evil-disposed persons it has become impracticable to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the laws of the United States at Seattle and at other points and places within said Territory, whereby life and property are there threatened and endangered; and

Whereas, in the judgment of the President, an emergency has arisen and a case is now presented which justifies and requires, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the employment of military force to suppress domestic violence and enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States if the command and warning of this proclamation be disobeyed and disregarded:

Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States of America, do hereby command and warn all insurgents and all persons who have assembled at any point within the said Territory of Washington for the unlawful purposes aforesaid to desist therefrom and to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes on or before 6 o'clock in the afternoon of the 10th day of February instant.

And I do admonish all good citizens of the United States and all persons within the limits and jurisdiction thereof against aiding, abetting, countenancing, or taking any part in such unlawful acts or assemblages.

In witness whereof I have set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 9th day of February, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and tenth.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

By the President: T.F. BAYARD, Secretary of State.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by a proclamation of the President of the United States dated the 14th day of February, in the year 1884,[5] upon evidence then appearing satisfactory to him that the Government of Spain had abolished the discriminating customs duty theretofore imposed upon the products of and articles proceeding from the United States of America imported into the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, such abolition to take effect on and after the 1st day of March of said year 1884, and, by virtue of the authority vested in him by section 4228 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, the President did thereby declare and proclaim that on and after the said 1st day of March, 1884, so long as the products of and articles proceeding from the United States imported into the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico should be exempt from discriminating customs duties, any such duties on the products of and articles proceeding from Cuba and Puerto Rico under the Spanish flag should be suspended and discontinued; and

Whereas by Article I of the commercial agreement signed at Madrid the 13th day of February, 1884, it was stipulated and provided that "the duties of the third column of the customs tariffs of Cuba and Puerto Rico, which implies the suppression of the differential flag duty," should at once be applied to the products of and articles proceeding from the United States of America; and

Whereas the complete suppression of the differential flag duty in respect of all vessels of the United States and their cargoes entering the ports of Cuba and Puerto Rico is by the terms of the said agreement expressly made the consideration for the exercise of the authority conferred upon the President in respect of the suspension of the collection of foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and imposts upon merchandise brought within the United States from Cuba and Puerto Rico in Spanish vessels by said section 4228 of the Revised Statutes, which section reads as follows:

SEC. 4228. Upon satisfactory proof being given to the President by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties of tonnage or imposts are imposed or levied in the ports of such nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country, the President may issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of such foreign nation, and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States from such foreign nation or from any other foreign country; the suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President, and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, and their cargoes, shall be continued, and no longer.

And whereas proof is given to me that such complete suppression of the differential flag duty in respect of vessels of the United States and their cargoes entering the ports of Cuba and Puerto Rico has not in fact been secured, but that, notwithstanding the said agreement dated at Madrid, February 13, 1884, and in contravention thereof, as well as of the provisions of the said section 4228 of the Revised Statutes, higher and discriminating duties continue to be imposed and levied in said ports upon certain produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into said ports from the United States or from any foreign country in vessels of the United States than is imposed and levied on the like produce, manufactures, or merchandise carried to said ports in Spanish vessels:

Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States of America, in execution of the aforesaid section 4228 of the Revised Statutes, do hereby revoke the suspension of the discriminating customs imposed and levied in the ports of the United States on the products of and articles proceeding under the Spanish flag from Cuba and Puerto Rico, which is set forth and contained in the aforesaid proclamation dated the 14th day of February, 1884; this revocation of said proclamation to take effect on and after the 25th day of October instant.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 13th day of October, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and eleventh.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

By the President: T.F. BAYARD, Secretary of State.

[Footnote 5: See pp. 323-224.]



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas satisfactory proof has been given to me by the Government of Spain that no discriminating duties of tonnage or imposts are imposed or levied in the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country; and

Whereas notification of such abolition of discriminating duties of tonnage and imposts as aforesaid has been given to me by a memorandum of agreement signed this day in the city of Washington between the Secretary of State of the United States and the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain accredited to the Government of the United States of America:

Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by section 4228 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, do hereby declare and proclaim that from and after the date of this my proclamation, being also the date of the notification received as aforesaid, the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of Spain and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in said vessels into the United States from the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico or from any other foreign country; such suspension to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, and their cargoes, shall be continued in the said islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and no longer. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of October, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and eleventh.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

By the President: T.F. BAYARD, Secretary of State.



A PROCLAMATION

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

It has long been the custom of the people of the United States, on a day in each year especially set apart for that purpose by their Chief Executive, to acknowledge the goodness and mercy of God and to invoke His continued care and protection.

In observance of such custom I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, do hereby designate and set apart Thursday, the 25th day of November instant, to be observed and kept as a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

On that day let all our people forego their accustomed employments and assemble in their usual places of worship to give thanks to the Ruler of the Universe for our continued enjoyment of the blessings of a free government, for a renewal of business prosperity throughout our land, for the return which has rewarded the labor of those who till the soil, and for our progress as a people in all that makes a nation great.

And while we contemplate the infinite power of God in earthquake, flood, and storm let the grateful hearts of those who have been shielded from harm through His mercy be turned in sympathy and kindness toward those who have suffered through His visitations.

Let us also in the midst of our thanksgiving remember the poor and needy with cheerful gifts and alms so that our service may by deeds of charity be made acceptable in the sight of the Lord.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 1st day of November, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eleventh.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

By the President: T.F. BAYARD, Secretary of State.



EXECUTIVE ORDERS.

Whereas in an Executive order dated the 21st day of July, 1875, directing the distribution of the fund of 400,000 pesetas received from the Spanish Government in satisfaction of the reclamation of the United States arising from the capture of the Virginius, it was provided "that should any further order or direction be required the same will hereafter be made in addition hereto;" and

Whereas a further order or direction is deemed necessary:

Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, do hereby direct that all persons entitled to the benefit of any of the aforesaid fund of 400,000 pesetas who have not yet presented their claims thereto shall formulate and present their claims to the Secretary of State of the United States within six months from the date of this order, or be held as forever barred from the benefits of said fund.

And I hereby further direct that the balance of the fund which shall remain unclaimed at the expiration of the aforesaid period of six months shall be distributed pro rata among the beneficiaries under the original distribution, provided they or their heirs or representatives shall within the six months next succeeding the said former period present to the Secretary of State of the United States petitions for their shares of said balance.

And to these ends the Secretary of State is requested to cause public notice to be given of the above direction.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, at the city of Washington, this 12th day of December, A.D. 1885, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and tenth.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 9, 1886—4 o'clock p.m.

Tidings of the death of Winfield Scott Hancock, the senior major-general of the Army of the United States, have just been received.

A patriotic and valiant defender of his country, an able and heroic soldier, a spotless and accomplished gentleman, crowned alike with the laurels of military renown and the highest tribute of his fellow-countrymen to his worth as a citizen, he has gone to his reward.

It is fitting that every mark of public respect should be paid to his memory.

Therefore it is now ordered by the President that the national flag be displayed at half-mast upon all the buildings of the Executive Departments in this city until after his funeral shall have taken place.

By direction of the President:

DANIEL S. LAMONT, Private Secretary.



In the exercise of the power vested in the President by the Constitution, and by virtue of the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of the Revised Statutes and of the civil-service act approved January 16, 1883, the following rule for the regulation and improvement of the executive civil service is hereby amended and promulgated, as follows:

Rule XXII.

Any person in the classified departmental service may be transferred and appointed to any other place therein upon the following conditions:

1. That he is not debarred by clause 2 of Rule XXI.

2. That the head of a Department has, in a written statement to be filed with the Commission, requested such transfer to a place in said Department, to be designated in the statement.

3. That said person is shown in the statement or by other evidence satisfactory to the Commission to have been during six consecutive months in such service since January 16, 1883.

4. That such person has passed at the required grade one or more examinations under the Commission which are together equal to that required for the place to which the transfer is to be made.

But any person who has for three years last preceding served as a clerk in the office of the President of the United States may be transferred or appointed to any place in the classified service without examination.

Approved, April 12, 1886.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 20, 1886.

Under the provisions of section 4 of the act approved March 3, 1883, it is hereby ordered that the several Executive Departments, the Department of Agriculture, and the Government Printing Office be closed on Monday, the 31st instant, to enable the employees to participate in the decoration of the graves of the soldiers who fell during the rebellion.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 3, 1886.

To Heads of the Government Departments:

Inasmuch as the 4th of July of the present year falls upon Sunday and the celebration of Independence Day is to be generally observed upon Monday, July 5, it is hereby ordered that the several Executive Departments, the Department of Agriculture, and the Government Printing Office be closed on Monday, the 5th instant.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, July 14, 1886.

To the Heads of Departments in the Service of the General Government:

I deem this a proper time to especially warn all subordinates in the several Departments and all officeholders under the General Government against the use of their official positions in attempts to control political movements in their localities.

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials.

They should also constantly remember that their party friends from whom they have received preferment have not invested them with the power of arbitrarily managing their political affairs. They have no right as officeholders to dictate the political action of their party associates or to throttle freedom of action within party lines by methods and practices which pervert every useful and justifiable purpose of party organization.

The influence of Federal officeholders should not be felt in the manipulation of political primary meetings and nominating conventions. The use by these officials of their positions to compass their selection as delegates to political conventions is indecent and unfair; and proper regard for the proprieties and requirements of official place will also prevent their assuming the active conduct of political campaigns.

Individual interest and activity in political affairs are by no means condemned. Officeholders are neither disfranchised nor forbidden the exercise of political privileges, but their privileges are not enlarged nor is their duty to party increased to pernicious activity by officeholding.

A just discrimination in this regard between the things a citizen may properly do and the purposes for which a public office should not be used is easy in the light of a correct appreciation of the relation between the people and those intrusted with official place and a consideration of the necessity under our form of government of political action free from official coercion.

You are requested to communicate the substance of these views to those for whose guidance they are intended.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



In the exercise of the power vested in the President by the Constitution, and by virtue of the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of the Revised Statutes and of the civil-service act approved January 16, 1883, the following rule for the regulation and improvement of the executive civil service is hereby amended and promulgated, as follows:

RULE IX.

All applications for regular competitive examinations for admission to the classified civil service must be made on blank forms to be prescribed by the Commission.

Requests for blank forms of application for competitive examination for admission to the classified civil service and all regular applications for such examination shall be made—

1. If for the classified departmental service, to the United States Civil Service Commission at Washington, D.C.

2. If for the classified customs service, to the civil-service board of examiners for the customs district in which the person desiring to be examined wishes to enter the customs service.

3. If for the classified postal service, to the civil-service board of examiners for the post-office at which the person desiring to be examined wishes to enter the postal service.

Requests for blank forms of application to customs and postal boards of examiners must be made in writing by the persons desiring examination, and such blank forms shall not be furnished to any other persons.

Approved, August 13, 1886.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, November 16, 1886.

Hon. Daniel Manning, Secretary of the Treasury.

DEAR SIR: In pursuance of a joint resolution of the Congress approved March 3, 1877, authorizing the President to cause suitable regulations to be made for the maintenance of the statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," now located on Bedloes Island, in the harbor of New York, as a beacon, I hereby direct that said statue be at once placed under the care and superintendence of the Light-House Board, and that it be from henceforth maintained by said board as a beacon, and that it be so maintained, lighted, and tended in accordance with such rules and regulations as now exist applicable thereto, or such other and different rules and regulations as said board may deem necessary to carry out the design of said joint resolution and this order.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



GENERAL ORDERS, No. 84.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, November 18, 1886.

I. The following proclamation [order] has been received from the President:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D.C., November 18, 1886.

To the People of the United States:

It is my painful duty to announce the death of Chester Alan Arthur, lately the President of the United States, which occurred, after an illness of long duration, at an early hour this morning at his residence in the city of New York.

Mr. Arthur was called to the chair of the Chief Magistracy of the nation by a tragedy which cast its shadow over the entire Government.

His assumption of the grave duties was marked by an evident and conscientious sense of his responsibilities and an earnest desire to meet them in a patriotic and benevolent spirit.

With dignity and ability he sustained the important duties of his station, and the reputation of his personal worth, conspicuous graciousness, and patriotic fidelity will long be cherished by his fellow-countrymen.

In token of respect to the memory of the deceased it is ordered that the Executive Mansion and the several departmental buildings be draped in mourning for a period of thirty days and that on the day of the funeral all public business in the departments be suspended.

The Secretaries of War and of the Navy will cause orders to be issued for appropriate military and naval honors to be rendered on that day.

Done at the city of Washington this 18th day of November, A.D. 1886, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eleventh.

[SEAL.]

GROVER CLEVELAND.

By the President: THOMAS F. BAYARD, Secretary of State.

II. In compliance with the instructions of the President, on the day of the funeral, at each military post, the troops and cadets will be paraded and this order read to them, after which all labors for the day will cease.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting of the sun a single gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of thirty-eight guns.

The officers of the Army will wear crape on the left arm and on their swords and the colors of the Battalion of Engineers, of the several regiments, and of the United States Corps of Cadets will be put in mourning for the period of six months.

The date and hour of the funeral will be communicated to department commanders by telegraph, and by them to their subordinate commanders.

By command of Lieutenant-General Sheridan:

R.C. DRUM, Adjutant-General.



SPECIAL ORDER.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington, November 18, 1886.

The President of the United States announces the death of ex-President Chester Alan Arthur in the following proclamation [order]:

[For order see preceding page.]

It is hereby directed, in pursuance of the instructions of the President, that on the day of the funeral, where this order may be received in time, otherwise on the day after its receipt, the ensign at each naval station and of each of the vessels of the United States Navy in commission be hoisted at half-mast from sunrise to sunset, and that also, at each naval station and on board of flagships and vessels acting singly, a gun be fired at intervals of every half hour from sunrise to sunset.

The officers of the Navy and Marine Corps will wear the usual badge of mourning attached to the sword hilt and on the left arm for a period of thirty days.

WILLIAM C. WHITNEY, Secretary of the Navy.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, November 20, 1886.

It is hereby ordered, That the Department of Agriculture, the Government Printing Office, and all other Government offices in the District of Columbia be closed on Monday, the 22d instant, the day of the funeral of the late Chester Alan Arthur, ex-President of the United States.

GROVER CLEVELAND.



SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, December 6, 1886.

To the Congress of the United States:

In discharge of a constitutional duty, and following a well-established precedent in the Executive office, I herewith transmit to the Congress at its reassembling certain information concerning the state of the Union, together with such recommendations for legislative consideration as appear necessary and expedient.

Our Government has consistently maintained its relations of friendship toward all other powers and of neighborly interest toward those whose possessions are contiguous to our own. Few questions have arisen during the past year with other governments, and none of those are beyond the reach of settlement in friendly counsel.

We are as yet without provision for the settlement of claims of citizens of the United States against Chile for injustice during the late war with Peru and Bolivia. The mixed commissions organized under claims conventions concluded by the Chilean Government with certain European States have developed an amount of friction which we trust can be avoided in the convention which our representative at Santiago is authorized to negotiate.

The cruel treatment of inoffensive Chinese has, I regret to say, been repeated in some of the far Western States and Territories, and acts of violence against those people, beyond the power of the local constituted authorities to prevent and difficult to punish, are reported even in distant Alaska. Much of this violence can be traced to race prejudice and competition of labor, which can not, however, justify the oppression of strangers whose safety is guaranteed by our treaty with China equally with the most favored nations.

In opening our vast domain to alien elements the purpose of our law-givers was to invite assimilation, and not to provide an arena for endless antagonism. The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race. I am not without assurance that the Government of China, whose friendly disposition toward us I am most happy to recognize, will meet us halfway in devising a comprehensive remedy by which an effective limitation of Chinese emigration, joined to protection of those Chinese subjects who remain in this country, may be secured.

Legislation is needed to execute the provisions of our Chinese convention of 1880 touching the opium traffic.

While the good will of the Colombian Government toward our country is manifest, the situation of American interests on the Isthmus of Panama has at times excited concern and invited friendly action looking to the performance of the engagements of the two nations concerning the territory embraced in the interoceanic transit. With the subsidence of the Isthmian disturbances and the erection of the State of Panama into a federal district under the direct government of the constitutional administration at Bogota, a new order of things has been inaugurated, which, although as yet somewhat experimental and affording scope for arbitrary-exercise of power by the delegates of the national authority, promises much improvement.

The sympathy between the people of the United States and France, born during our colonial struggle for independence and continuing to-day, has received a fresh impulse in the successful completion and dedication of the colossal statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" in New York Harbor—the gift of Frenchmen to Americans.

A convention between the United States and certain other powers for the protection of submarine cables was signed at Paris on March 14, 1884, and has been duly ratified and proclaimed by this Government. By agreement between the high contracting parties this convention is to go into effect on the 1st of January next, but the legislation required for its execution in the United States has not yet been adopted. I earnestly recommend its enactment.

Cases have continued to occur in Germany giving rise to much correspondence in relation to the privilege of sojourn of our naturalized citizens of German origin revisiting the land of their birth, yet I am happy to state that our relations with that country have lost none of their accustomed cordiality.

The claims for interest upon the amount of tonnage dues illegally exacted from certain German steamship lines were favorably reported in both Houses of Congress at the last session, and I trust will receive final and favorable action at an early day.

The recommendations contained in my last annual message in relation to a mode of settlement of the fishery rights in the waters of British North America, so long a subject of anxious difference between the United States and Great Britain, was met by an adverse vote of the Senate on April 13 last, and thereupon negotiations were instituted to obtain an agreement with Her Britannic Majesty's Government for the promulgation of such joint interpretation and definition of the article of the convention of 1818 relating to the territorial waters and inshore fisheries of the British Provinces as should secure the Canadian rights from encroachment by the United States fishermen and at the same time insure the enjoyment by the latter of the privileges guaranteed to them by such convention.

The questions involved are of long standing, of grave consequence, and from time to time for nearly three-quarters of a century have given rise to earnest international discussions, not unaccompanied by irritation.

Temporary arrangements by treaties have served to allay friction, which, however, has revived as each treaty was terminated. The last arrangement, under the treaty of 1871, was abrogated after due notice by the United States on June 30, 1885, but I was enabled to obtain for our fishermen for the remainder of that season enjoyment of the full privileges accorded by the terminated treaty.

The joint high commission by whom the treaty had been negotiated, although invested with plenary power to make a permanent settlement, were content with a temporary arrangement, after the termination of which the question was relegated to the stipulations of the treaty of 1818, as to the first article of which no construction satisfactory to both countries has ever been agreed upon.

The progress of civilization and growth of population in the British Provinces to which the fisheries in question are contiguous and the expansion of commercial intercourse between them and the United States present to-day a condition of affairs scarcely realizable at the date of the negotiations of 1818.

New and vast interests have been brought into existence; modes of intercourse between the respective countries have been invented and multiplied; the methods of conducting the fisheries have been wholly changed; and all this is necessarily entitled to candid and careful consideration in the adjustment of the terms and conditions of intercourse and commerce between the United States and their neighbors along a frontier of over 3,500 miles.

This propinquity, community of language and occupation, and similarity of political and social institutions indicate the practicability and obvious wisdom of maintaining mutually beneficial and friendly relations. Whilst I am unfeignedly desirous that such relations should exist between us and the inhabitants of Canada, yet the action of their officials during the past season toward our fishermen has been such as to seriously threaten their continuance.

Although disappointed in my efforts to secure a satisfactory settlement of the fishery question, negotiations are still pending, with reasonable hope that before the close of the present session of Congress announcement may be made that an acceptable conclusion has been reached.

As at an early day there may be laid before Congress the correspondence of the Department of State in relation to this important subject, so that the history of the past fishing season may be fully disclosed and the action and the attitude of the Administration clearly comprehended, a more extended reference is not deemed necessary in this communication. The recommendation submitted last year that provision be made for a preliminary reconnoissance of the conventional boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia is renewed.

I express my unhesitating conviction that the intimacy of our relations with Hawaii should be emphasized. As a result of the reciprocity treaty of 1875, those islands, on the highway of Oriental and Australasian traffic, are virtually an outpost of American commerce and a stepping-stone to the growing trade of the Pacific. The Polynesian Island groups have been so absorbed by other and more powerful governments that the Hawaiian Islands are left almost alone in the enjoyment of their autonomy, which it is important for us should be preserved. Our treaty is now terminable on one year's notice, but propositions to abrogate it would be, in my judgment, most ill advised. The paramount influence we have there acquired, once relinquished, could only with difficulty be regained, and a valuable ground of vantage for ourselves might be converted into a stronghold for our commercial competitors. I earnestly recommend that the existing treaty stipulations be extended for a further term of seven years. A recently signed treaty to this end is now before the Senate.

The importance of telegraphic communication between those islands and the United States should not be overlooked.

The question of a general revision of the treaties of Japan is again under discussion at Tokyo. As the first to open relations with that Empire, and as the nation in most direct commercial relations with Japan, the United States have lost no opportunity to testify their consistent friendship by supporting the just claims of Japan to autonomy and independence among nations.

A treaty of extradition between the United States and Japan, the first concluded by that Empire, has been lately proclaimed.

The weakness of Liberia and the difficulty of maintaining effective sovereignty over its outlying districts have exposed that Republic to encroachment. It can not be forgotten that this distant community is an offshoot of our own system, owing its origin to the associated benevolence of American citizens, whose praiseworthy efforts to create a nucleus of civilization in the Dark Continent have commanded respect and sympathy everywhere, especially in this country. Although a formal protectorate over Liberia is contrary to our traditional policy, the moral right and duty of the United States to assist in all proper ways in the maintenance of its integrity is obvious, and has been consistently announced during nearly half a century. I recommend that in the reorganization of our Navy a small vessel, no longer found adequate to our needs, be presented to Liberia, to be employed by it in the protection of its coastwise revenues.

The encouraging development of beneficial and intimate relations between the United States and Mexico, which has been so marked within the past few years, is at once the occasion of congratulation and of friendly solicitude. I urgently renew my former representation of the need of speedy legislation by Congress to carry into effect the reciprocity commercial convention of January 20, 1883.

Our commercial treaty of 1831 with Mexico was terminated, according to its provisions, in 1881, upon notification given by Mexico in pursuance of her announced policy of recasting all her commercial treaties. Mexico has since concluded with several foreign governments new treaties of commerce and navigation, defining alien rights of trade, property, and residence, treatment of shipping, consular privileges, and the like. Our yet unexecuted reciprocity convention of 1883 covers none of these points, the settlement of which is so necessary to good relationship. I propose to initiate with Mexico negotiations for a new and enlarged treaty of commerce and navigation.

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, I communicated to that body on August 2 last, and also to the House of Representatives,[6] the correspondence in the case of A.K. Cutting, an American citizen, then imprisoned in Mexico, charged with the commission of a penal offense in Texas, of which a Mexican citizen was the object.

After demand had been made for his release the charge against him was amended so as to include a violation of Mexican law within Mexican territory.

This joinder of alleged offenses, one within and the other exterior to Mexico, induced me to order a special investigation of the case, pending which Mr. Cutting was released.

The incident has, however, disclosed a claim of jurisdiction by Mexico novel in our history, whereby any offense committed anywhere by a foreigner, penal in the place of its commission, and of which a Mexican is the object, may, if the offender be found in Mexico, be there tried and punished in conformity with Mexican laws.

This jurisdiction was sustained by the courts of Mexico in the Cutting case, and approved by the executive branch of that Government, upon the authority of a Mexican statute. The appellate court in releasing Mr. Cutting decided that the abandonment of the complaint by the Mexican citizen aggrieved by the alleged crime (a libelous publication) removed the basis of further prosecution, and also declared justice to have been satisfied by the enforcement of a small part of the original sentence.

The admission of such a pretension would be attended with serious results, invasive of the jurisdiction of this Government and highly dangerous to our citizens in foreign lands. Therefore I have denied it and protested against its attempted exercise as unwarranted by the principles of law and international usages.

A sovereign has jurisdiction of offenses which take effect within his territory, although concocted or commenced outside of it; but the right is denied of any foreign sovereign to punish a citizen of the United States for an offense consummated on our soil in violation of our laws, even though the offense be against a subject or citizen of such sovereign. The Mexican statute in question makes the claim broadly, and the principle, if conceded, would create a dual responsibility in the citizen and lead to inextricable confusion, destructive of that certainty in the law which is an essential of liberty.

When citizens of the United States voluntarily go into a foreign country, they must abide by the laws there in force, and will not be protected by their own Government from the consequences of an offense against those laws committed in such foreign country; but watchful care and interest of this Government over its citizens are not relinquished because they have gone abroad, and if charged with crime committed in the foreign land a fair and open trial, conducted with decent regard for justice and humanity, will be demanded for them. With less than that this Government will not be content when the life or liberty of its citizens is at stake.

Whatever the degree to which extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction may have been formerly allowed by consent and reciprocal agreement among certain of the European States, no such doctrine or practice was ever known to the laws of this country or of that from which our institutions have mainly been derived.

In the case of Mexico there are reasons especially strong for perfect harmony in the mutual exercise of jurisdiction. Nature has made us irrevocably neighbors, and wisdom and kind feeling should make us friends.

The overflow of capital and enterprise from the United States is a potent factor in assisting the development of the resources of Mexico and in building up the prosperity of both countries.

To assist this good work all grounds of apprehension for the security of person and property should be removed; and I trust that in the interests of good neighborhood the statute referred to will be so modified as to eliminate the present possibilities of danger to the peace of the two countries.

The Government of the Netherlands has exhibited concern in relation to certain features of our tariff laws, which are supposed by them to be aimed at a class of tobacco produced in the Dutch East Indies. Comment would seem unnecessary upon the unwisdom of legislation appearing to have a special national discrimination for its object, which, although unintentional, may give rise to injurious retaliation.

The establishment, less than four years ago, of a legation at Teheran is bearing fruit in the interest exhibited by the Shah's Government in the industrial activity of the United States and the opportunities of beneficial interchanges.

Stable government is now happily restored in Peru by the election of a constitutional President, and a period of rehabilitation is entered upon; but the recovery is necessarily slow from the exhaustion caused by the late war and civil disturbances. A convention to adjust by arbitration claims of our citizens has been proposed and is under consideration.

The naval officer who bore to Siberia the testimonials bestowed by Congress in recognition of the aid given to the Jeannette survivors has successfully accomplished his mission. His interesting report will be submitted. It is pleasant to know that this mark of appreciation has been welcomed by the Russian Government and people as befits the traditional friendship of the two countries.

Civil perturbations in the Samoan Islands have during the past few years been a source of considerable embarrassment to the three Governments—Germany, Great Britain, and the United States—whose relations and extraterritorial rights in that important group are guaranteed by treaties. The weakness of the native administration and the conflict of opposing interests in the islands have led King Malietoa to seek alliance or protection in some one quarter, regardless of the distinct engagements whereby no one of the three treaty powers may acquire any paramount or exclusive interest. In May last Malietoa offered to place Samoa under the protection of the United States, and the late consul, without authority, assumed to grant it. The proceeding was promptly disavowed and the overzealous official recalled. Special agents of the three Governments have been deputed to examine the situation in the islands. With a change in the representation of all three powers and a harmonious understanding between them, the peace, prosperity, autonomous administration, and neutrality of Samoa can hardly fail to be secured.

It appearing that the Government of Spain did not extend to the flag of the United States in the Antilles the full measure of reciprocity requisite under our statute for the continuance of the suspension of discriminations against the Spanish flag in our ports, I was constrained in October last[7] to rescind my predecessor's proclamation of February 14, 1884,[8] permitting such suspension. An arrangement was, however, speedily reached, and upon notification from the Government of Spain that all differential treatment of our vessels and their cargoes, from the United States or from any foreign country, had been completely and absolutely relinquished, I availed myself of the discretion conferred by law and issued on the 27th of October my proclamation[9] declaring reciprocal suspension in the United States. It is most gratifying to bear testimony to the earnest spirit in which the Government of the Queen Regent has met our efforts to avert the initiation of commercial discriminations and reprisals, which are ever disastrous to the material interests and the political good will of the countries they may affect.