EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 24, 1886_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 2186, entitled "An
act granting a pension to Louis Melcher."
This claimant enlisted on the 25th day of May, 1861, and was discharged
for disability on the 16th day of August, 1861, having been in the
service less than three months.
The certificate of the surgeon of his regiment, made at the time of his
discharge, stated his disability to be "lameness, caused by previous
repeated and extensive ulcerations of his legs, extending deeply among
the muscles and impairing their powers and action by cicatrices, all
existing before enlistment and not mentioned to the mustering officers
at the time."
Upon this certificate, given at the time of the claimant's discharge and
while he was actually under the surgeon's observation, an application
for a pension was rejected by the Pension Bureau.
In the absence of anything impeaching the ability and integrity of the
surgeon of the regiment, his certificate should, in my opinion, be
regarded as a true statement of the condition of the claimant at the
time of his discharge, though the committee's report suggests that the
surgeon's skill may have been at fault when he declared that the ulcers
existed before enlistment. The cicatrices showing beyond a doubt the
previous existence of this difficulty would be plainly apparent upon an
examination by a surgeon, and their origin could hardly be mistaken.
The term of the claimant's service was not sufficiently long to have
developed and healed, even imperfectly, in a location previously
healthy, ulcers of the kind mentioned in the claimant's application.
My approval of this bill is therefore withheld upon the ground that I
find nothing in my examination of the facts connected with the case
which impeaches the value of the surgeon's certificate upon which the
adverse action of the Pension Bureau was predicated.