I further declare
my belief that he will not be fit for the duties of a soldier in any
future time, having already been afflicted twelve years, as he asserts.
On the 14th day of February, 1880, nearly eighteen years after his
resignation, the beneficiary filed his claim for pension based upon
hemorrhoids, the result of diarrhea and fever.
He denied upon this application that he was unsound prior to enlistment,
and filed evidence to support his denial. One of the witnesses, a
surgeon, who testified to incurrence of disability in the service,
on a special examination stated that he so testified, having satisfied
himself of the fact by personal interviews with the beneficiary.
I do not think in the circumstances surrounding this case that the
beneficiary should at this late day be permitted to impeach and set
aside the medical certificate procured by himself and containing his
own statements, upon which he secured exemption from further military
service.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _September 13, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 6371, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Jesse M. Stilwell."
On the 6th day of May, 1885, twenty years after this beneficiary was
discharged from the Army, he filed an application in the Pension Bureau
for a pension, alleging that in December, 1863, one year and eight
months before his discharge, a comrade assaulted him with a stick while
he was sitting in front of his tent preparing for bed and injured his
back.
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