I am inclined to think it would have been a fortunate thing if in this case it could have been demonstrated that a man could thrive so well with the chronic diarrhea for fifty-two years as its existence in the case of this good old gentleman would prove. We should then, perhaps, have less of it in claims for pensions.
The fact is, in this case there is no disability which can be traced to the forty days' military service of fifty-four years ago, and I think little, if any, more infirmity than is usually found in men of the age of the claimant.
Entertaining this belief, I am constrained to withhold my signature from this bill.
I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5414, entitled "An act granting a pension to Maria Cunningham."
The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted January 29, 1862, and was discharged January 20, 1865.
He applied for a pension in 1876, alleging a shell wound in the head. His claim was rejected on the ground that there appeared to be no disability from that cause. No other injury or disability was ever claimed by him, but at the time of his examination in 1876 he was found to be sickly, feeble, and emaciated, and suffering from an advanced stage of saccharine diabetes.
His widow filed an application for a pension in 1879, alleging that her husband died in December, 1877, of spinal disease and diabetes, contracted in the service.
Her claim was rejected because evidence was not furnished that the cause of the soldier's death had its origin in the military service.
There seems to be an entire absence of proof of this important fact.
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4797, entitled "An act granting a pension to Robert H. Stapleton."
This claimant filed an application for pension in the Pension Bureau in 1883, alleging that while acting as lieutenant-colonel of a New Mexico regiment, on February 21, 1862, the tongue of a caisson struck him, injuring his left side. A medical examination made in 1882 showed a fracture of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh ribs of the left side.
If these fractures were the result of the injury alleged, they were immediately apparent, and the delay of twenty-one years in presenting the claim for pension certainly needs explanation.