s are engaged in his office.

The rooms used as a post-office are now furnished the Government free of
expense, and the rent paid for the quarters occupied as a land-office
amounts to $300 annually.

Upon the facts presented I am satisfied that the business of the
Government at this point can be well transacted for the present without
the construction of the proposed building.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 31, 1886_.

_To the Senate_:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2160, entitled "A bill
granting a pension to Mary J. Hagerman."

The husband of this proposed beneficiary enlisted in 1861 and was
wounded by a gunshot, which seriously injured his left forearm. In 1864
he was discharged; was afterwards pensioned for his wound, and died in
August, 1884.

Dr. Hageman, who attended the deceased in his last illness, testifies
that he was called to attend him in August, 1884; that he was sick with
typhomalarial fever, and that upon inquiry he (the physician) found that
it was caused by hard work or overexertion and exposure. He was ill for
about ten days.

The application of his widow for pension was rejected in 1885 on the
ground that the fatal disease was not due to military service.

I am unable to discover how any different determination could have been
reached.

To grant a pension in this case would clearly contravene the present
policy of the Government, and either establish a precedent which, if
followed, would allow a pension to the widow of every soldier wounded
or disabled in the war, without regard to the cause of death, or would
unjustly discriminate in favor of the few thus receiving the bounty of
the Government against many whose cases were equally meritorious.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 31, 1886_.

_To the Senate_:

I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 1421, entitled "An
act granting a pension to William H. Weaver."

The claimant named in this bill enlisted August 12, 1862, and was
mustered out of service June 12, 1865. During his service he was treated
in hospital for diarrhea and lumbago, and in the reports for May and
June, as well as July and August, 1864, he is reported as absent sick.

He filed his application for pension in November, 1877, alleging that in
March, 1863, he contracted measles, and in May, 1864, remittent fever,
and that as a result of the two attacks he was afflicted with weakness
in the limbs and eyes