This bill proposes to remove the limitation fixed by the law of 1879
prescribing the date prior to which an application for pension must be
filed in order to entitle the claimant to draw the pension allowed from
the time of his discharge from the service.
If this bill should become a law, it would entitle the claimant to about
$9,000 of back pension. This is claimed upon the ground that the soldier
was so sick from the time of the passage of the act creating the
limitation up to the date allowed him to avail himself of the privileges
of the act that he could not file his claim.
I think the limitation thus fixed a very wise one, and that it should
not, in fairness to other claimants, be relaxed for causes not mentioned
in the statute; nor should the door be opened to applications of this
kind.
The beneficiary named in this bill had fifteen years after the accruing
of his claim, and before it is alleged that he was incapacitated, within
which he might have filed his application and entitled himself to the
back pension now applied for.
The facts here presented come so far short of furnishing a satisfactory
excuse for his delay that, in my judgment, the discrimination asked in
his favor should not be granted.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 19, 1886_.
_To the Senate_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 763, entitled "An act for the
erection of a public building at Sioux City, Iowa.
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