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.
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