he youngest of said children became
16 years of age.

In 1878, nine years after he became the second husband of the
beneficiary, Henry T. Mowatt died.

Though twenty-seven years have passed since the beneficiary ceased to
be the widow of the deceased soldier, and though she has been the widow
of Henry T. Mowatt for eighteen years, it is proposed by the bill under
consideration to again place her name upon the pension roll "as widow
of Alfred B. Soule, late major of the Twenty-third Regiment Maine
Volunteers."

Of course the propriety of the law which terminates the pension of a
soldier's widow upon her remarriage will not be questioned. I suppose no
one would suggest the renewal of such pension during the lifetime of her
second husband. Her pensionable relation to the Government as the widow
of her deceased soldier husband, under any reasonable pension theory,
absolutely terminated with her remarriage.

If she is to be again pensioned because her second husband does not
survive her, the transaction has more the complexion of an adjustment
of a governmental insurance on the life of the second husband than the
allowance of a pension on just and reasonable grounds.

Legislation of this description is sure to establish a precedent which
it will be difficult to disclaim, and which if followed can not fail to
lead to abuse.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 20, 1896_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 577, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Lydia A. Taft."

In 1858 the beneficiary named in this bill became the wife of Lowell
Taft, who afterwards enlisted in the Union Army as a private in a
Connecticut regiment and served from August, 1862, until June, 1865.
The records of the War Department show that he was captured by the
enemy June 15, 1863, and paroled July 14, 1863.

No application for a pension was ever made by him, though he lived until
1891, when he died at a soldiers' home in Connecticut.

No suggestion is made that he incurred any disability in the service or
that his death was in any manner related to such service.

In 1882, nearly twenty-four years after her marriage to the soldier
and seventeen years after his discharge from the Army, the beneficiary
obtained a divorce from him upon the grounds of habitual drunkenness
and failure to afford her a support.

It is now proposed, five years after the soldier's death, to pension as