this claim which suggest suspicion as to its
merit. In any view of the matter, I regard the claimant as seeking
equitable relief. He is not entitled to dictate the rule by which his
claim is to be adjusted, and he should be quite satisfied if the
officers of the Government charged with the settlement of such matters
are permitted by the Congress to afford equitable relief according to
such rules and methods as are best calculated to reach fair results.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 15, 1888_.

_To the Senate_:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 3306, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Mary K. Richards."

The beneficiary named in this bill applied for a pension on the 14th day
of November, 1878, and the same was rejected in April, 1879. Her claim
has lately been reexamined, and since the passage of the bill herewith
returned she has been allowed a pension by the Pension Bureau, it having
been there determined that the former rejection was a manifest error.

With this action of the Pension Bureau I entirely concur.

I therefore venture, notwithstanding the persistent misrepresentations
of my action in similar cases, to disapprove this bill, upon the ground
that this deserving beneficiary will receive under the action of the
Pension Bureau a much larger sum than she would if such action was
superseded by the enactment of the proposed special statute in her
behalf.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 15, 1888_.

_To the Senate_

I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 3208, entitled "An
act granting a pension to William S. Bradshaw."

The beneficiary mentioned in this bill was mustered into the military
service as first lieutenant on the 28th day of October, 1861.

About eight months afterwards, and in June, 1862, he resigned from the
service, his resignation being based upon a surgeon's certificate which
he procured, and which is as follows:

William S. Bradshaw having applied for a certificate to accompany his
resignation, I do hereby certify that I have carefully examined this
officer and find that his disease is of a chronic pleuritic character,
contracted (previous to his entering the service) four years since from
an injury received in shoeing a fractious horse, in consequence of which
he was laid up for a number of weeks with a severe attack of pleuritis;
that he has never been able to endure severe labor since; that since