The medical certificate upon which he was discharged makes no mention
of the disorders of which the applicant for pension now complains, but
contains other statements which demonstrate that no allowance should
be made to him by way of pension, unless such pension is to be openly
and confessedly regarded as a mere charity, or unless the medical
certificate made at the time of discharge, with the patient under
observation, is to be, without any allegation to that effect, impeached.
I am not prepared either to gratuitously set at naught two
determinations of the Pension Bureau, one very lately made after a
special examination, and especially when the evidence produced before
the committee to reverse the Bureau's action is admitted to be
"contradictory" and "biased in about equal proportion for and against
the claimant."
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 19, 1886_.
_To the Senate_:
I return herewith Senate bill No. 226, entitled "An act granting a
pension to Margaret D. Marchand," without approval.
The beneficiary named in this bill is the widow of John B. Marchand, who
entered the United States Navy in 1828, who was promoted to the rank of
commodore in 1866, and who was placed upon the retired list in 1870. He
died in August, 1875, of heart disease.
His widow filed an application for pension in 1883, claiming that his
fatal disease was caused by exposure and exertion in the service during
the War of the Rebellion.
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