EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 24, 1886_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 857, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Dudley B. Branch."
This claim is based upon the allegation, as appears by the committee's
report, that the person named in the bill has a hernia, and that on the
9th day of June, 1862, while in the military service and in the line of
duty, "in getting over a fence he fell heavily, striking a stone or hard
substance, and received the hernia in his left side."
In December, 1875, thirteen and a half years thereafter, he filed an
application for a pension, which was rejected by the Pension Bureau on
the ground that there was no record of the alleged hernia, and the
claimant was unable to furnish satisfactory evidence of its origin in
the service.
The fact is stated in the committee's report that late in the year 1863
this soldier was transferred to the Invalid Corps, and the records show
that he was thus transferred for a disability entirely different from
that upon which he now bases his claim. He was mustered out in
September, 1864, at the end of his term of service.
I am convinced that the rejection of this claim by the Pension Bureau
was correct, and think its action should not be reversed.
I suppose an injury of the description claimed, if caused by violence
directly applied, is quite palpable, its effect usually immediate, and
its existence easily proved. The long time which elapsed between the
injury and the claimant's application for a pension may be fairly
considered as bearing upon the merits of such application, while the
fact that the claimant was transferred to the Invalid Corps more than
a year after he alleges the injury occurred, for an entirely different
disability, can not be overlooked. In the committee's report the
statement is found that the beneficiary named in the bill was in two
different hospitals during the year 1863, and yet it is not claimed that
the history of his hospital treatment furnishes any proof of the injury
upon which his claim is now based.