EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 24, 1886_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 1630, entitled "An act
granting a pension to James C. Chandler."
It appears from the report of the committee to whom this bill was
referred and from an examination of the official records that the
proposed beneficiary first enlisted on the 27th day of August, 1861,
and about nine months thereafter, on the 1st day of June, 1862, was
discharged on account of disability arising from chronic bronchitis.
Notwithstanding the chronic character of his alleged disability, he
enlisted again on the 3d day of January, 1864, seventeen months after
such discharge.
No statement is presented of the bounty received by him upon either
enlistment.
He was finally mustered out on the 19th day of September, 1865.
He first applied for a pension under the general law in May, 1869,
alleging that in April, 1862, he was run over by a wagon and injured
in his ankle. This accident occurred during his first enlistment; but
instead of the injury having been then regarded a disability, he was
discharged from such enlistment less than two months thereafter on
account of chronic bronchitis.
It appears from the committee's report that his application was rejected
and that another was afterwards made, alleging that the claimant had
been afflicted with typhoid fever contracted in May, 1862, resulting in
"rheumatism and disease of the back in region of kidneys."
This application was also rejected, on the ground that any disability
that might have arisen from the cause alleged "had not existed in a
pensionable degree since the date of filing the claim therefor," which
was February 10, 1885.
There still remained an appeal to Congress, and probably there were not
wanting those who found their interests in advising such an appeal and
who had at hand Congressional precedents which promised a favorable
result. That the parties interested did not miscalculate the chances
of success is demonstrated by the bill now before me, which, in direct
opposition to the action of the Pension Bureau, grants a pension to
a man who, though discharged from enlistment for a certain alleged
disability, made two applications for a pension based upon two distinct
causes, both claimed to exist within two months prior to such discharge,
and both different from the one upon which he accepted the same, and
notwithstanding the fact that the proposed beneficiary, after all these
disabilities had occurred, passed an examination as to his physical
fitness for reenlistment, actually did reenlist, and served till finally
mustered out at the close of the war.
If any money is to be given this man from the public Treasury, it should
not be done under the guise of a pension.