EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 18, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 2282, entitled "An act to
pension Mrs. Theodora M. Piatt."
The deceased husband of the beneficiary named in this bill served
faithfully and well in the volunteer service, and after his discharge as
major entered the Regular Army and was on the retired list at the time
of his death, which occurred on the 17th day of April, 1885. At that
time he seems to have been engaged in the practice of the law at
Covington, Ky.
He does not appear to have contracted any distinct and definite
disability in his army service, though his health and strength were
doubtless somewhat impaired by hardship and exposure.
It is conceded that he committed suicide by shooting himself with a
pistol.
A coroner's inquest was held and the following verdict was returned:
Benjamin M. Piatt came to his death from a pistol bullet through the
brain, fired from a pistol in his own hand, with suicidal intent,
while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity, caused by morbid
sensitiveness of wasted opportunities and constantly brooding over
imaginary troubles and financial difficulties.
It is said in support of his widow's claim for pension that, being lame
as a result, in part at least, of his military service, he, by reason of
such lameness, fell from a staircase a few months before his death, the
injury from which affected his mind, causing insanity, which in its turn
resulted in his suicide.
Much interest is manifested in this case, based upon former friendship
and intimacy with the deceased and kind feeling and sympathy for his
widow. I should be glad to respond to these sentiments to the extent of
approving this bill, but it is one of the misfortunes of public life and
official responsibility that a sense of duty frequently stands between a
conception of right and a sympathetic inclination.
The verdict returned upon the coroner's inquest, founded upon a friendly
examination of all the facts surrounding the melancholy death of this
soldier, made at the time of death and in the midst of his neighbors and
friends, both by what it contains and by what is omitted, together with
the other facts developed, leads me to the conclusion that if a pension
is granted in this case no soldier's widow's application based upon
suicide can be consistently rejected.