Mrs. De
Krafft to draw a pension at the rate of $30 each month from the date of
the approval of the bill.

On the 26th day of February, 1886, under the provisions of the general
pension law, she was allowed a pension of this exact sum, but the
payments were to date from November 10, 1885.

I am so thoroughly tired of disapproving gifts of public money to
individuals who in my view have no right or claim to the same,
notwithstanding apparent Congressional sanction, that I interpose with
a feeling of relief a veto in a case where I find it unnecessary to
determine the merits of the application. In speaking of the promiscuous
and ill-advised grants of pensions which have lately been presented to
me for approval, I have spoken of their "apparent Congressional
sanction" in recognition of the fact that a large proportion of these
bills have never been submitted to a majority of either branch of
Congress, but are the result of nominal sessions held for the express
purpose of their consideration and attended by a small minority of the
members of the respective Houses of the legislative branch of
Government.

Thus in considering these bills I have not felt that I was aided by the
deliberate judgment of the Congress; and when I have deemed it my duty
to disapprove many of the bills presented, I have hardly regarded my
action as a dissent from the conclusions of the people's
representatives.

I have not been insensible to the suggestions which should influence
every citizen, either in private station or official place, to exhibit
not only a just but a generous appreciation of the services of our
country's defenders. In reviewing the pension legislation presented to
me many bills have been approved upon the theory that every doubt should
be resolved in favor of the proposed beneficiary. I have not, however,
been able to entirely divest myself of the idea that the public money
appropriated for pensions is the soldiers' fund, which should be devoted
to the indemnification of those who in the defense of the Union and in
the nation's service have worthily suffered, and who in the day of
their dependence resulting from such suffering are entitled to the
benefactions of their Government. This reflection lends to the bestowal
of pensions a kind of sacredness which invites the adoption of such
principles and regulations as will exclude perversion as well as insure
a liberal and generous application of grateful and benevolent designs.