[Footnote 31: See pp. 469-470.]
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _January 18, 1889_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 9296, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Bridget Carroll."
This bill proposes to pension the beneficiary therein named as the
dependent mother of Patrick Carroll, who was enrolled as a sergeant in
the Regular Army in 1881, this being, as it is stated, his second term
of enlistment.
In September, 1886, being absent from his command at Fort Warren, Mass.,
he was drowned while sailing in a small boat with two companions.
The beneficiary is aged and in need of assistance, but there is no
pretense that the soldier's death was in the least degree related to his
military service.
I am sure no one could fail to be gratified by an opportunity to join in
according aid to this dependent old mother of a faithful soldier, but I
can not believe that such a departure as is proposed should be made from
the just principles upon which pension legislation ought to be
predicated.