Veto Message

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 7108, entitled "An act granting a pension to Andrew J. Wilson."

It appears that this man was drafted and entered the service in February, 1865, and was discharged in September of the same year on account of "chronic nephritis and deafness."

In 1882 he filed his application for a pension, alleging that in June, 1865, from exposure, he contracted rheumatism. Afterwards he described his trouble as inflammation of the muscles of the back, with pain in the kidneys. In another statement, filed in December, 1884, he alleges that while in the service he contracted diarrhea and was injured in one of his testicles, producing a rupture.

Whatever else may be said of this claimant's achievements during his short military career, it must be conceded that he accumulated a great deal of disability.

There is no doubt in my mind that whatever ailments he may honestly lay claim to, his title to the same was complete before he entered the Army.

GROVER CLEVELAND