There have been already presented to me for Executive action during the
present session of the Congress 206 special pension bills, of which I
have actually examined 115. The entire number of such bills that have
become laws during the four sessions of the Congress since March 4,
1893, is 391. Some of those presented at the present session are not
based upon the least pretext that the death or disability involved is
related to army service, while in numerous other cases it is extremely
difficult to satisfactorily discover such relationship.

There is one feature of this legislation which I am sure deserves
attention. I refer to the great number of special bills passed for
the purpose of increasing the pensions of those already on the rolls.
Of the 115 special pension bills which I have examined since the
beginning of the present session of the Congress, 58 granted or restored
pensions and 57 increased those already existing, and the appropriation
of money necessary to meet these increases exceeds considerably the
amount required to pay the original pensions granted or restored by the
remaining 58 bills.

I can not discover that these increases are regulated by any rule
or principle, and when we remember that there are nearly a million
pensioners on our rolls and consider the importunity for such increase
that must follow the precedents already made, the relation of the
subject to a justifiable increase of our national revenues can not
escape attention.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 22, 1897_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return herewith without my approval House bill No. 6902, entitled
"An act granting a pension to Mrs. Mary A. Viel."

This beneficiary was married in 1862 to Major W.D. Sanger, then in the
volunteer military service. He died in 1872, never having made any
application for pension. His widow made no application for pension, but
within three years after her husband's death, and in 1875, became the
wife of Paul Viel. Eight years thereafter he died, leaving her his
widow, and it is now proposed to pension her as the widow of the
soldier, Major Sanger, though she long ago by her own deliberate act
surrendered that title and all its incidents.

There is a further objection to granting this pension. I do not find
that any claim is made that the death of the soldier, who was the
beneficiary's first husband, was at all attributable to his army
service. Neither he nor his w