In these cases the wife's long vigil at
the bed of wasting disease, the poverty that came before the death, and
the distressing doubt and uncertainty which darkened the future have not
secured to such widows the aid of our pension laws.
With these in sight the bounty of the Government may without injustice
be withheld from one whose soldier husband received a pension for nearly
twenty years, though all that time able to labor, and who, having
reached a stage of comfortable living, made his wife a widow by
destroying his own life.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 16, 1888_.
_To the Senate_:
I return herewith without approval Senate bill No. 809, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Betsey Mannsfield."
It is proposed to grant a pension to the beneficiary named in this bill
as the mother of Franklin J. Mannsfield, who enlisted as a private April
27, 1861, and died in camp of disease on the 14th day of November, in
the same year. His mother filed an application for pension in June,
1882.
The testimony filed in the Pension Bureau discloses the following facts:
At the time of the death of the soldier the family, besides himself,
consisted of three persons--his father and mother and an unmarried
sister. They owned and resided upon a homestead in Wisconsin comprising
293 acres, 20 of which were cleared, the balance being in timber, all
unencumbered.
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