im to have diarrhea for a
good many years. On the contrary, he claimed to be affected with
constipation, and said he had never had diarrhea of late years, except
at times when he had taken medicine for constipation.

I am inclined to think it would have been a fortunate thing if in this
case it could have been demonstrated that a man could thrive so well
with the chronic diarrhea for fifty-two years as its existence in the
case of this good old gentleman would prove. We should then, perhaps,
have less of it in claims for pensions.

The fact is, in this case there is no disability which can be traced to
the forty days' military service of fifty-four years ago, and I think
little, if any, more infirmity than is usually found in men of the age
of the claimant.

Entertaining this belief, I am constrained to withhold my signature from
this bill.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return herewith without approval House bill No. 5414, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Maria Cunningham."

The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted January 29,
1862, and was discharged January 20, 1865.

He applied for a pension in 1876, alleging a shell wound in the head.
His claim was rejected on the ground that there appeared to be no
disability from that cause. No other injury or disability was ever
claimed by him, but at the time of his examination in 1876 he was found
to be sickly, feeble, and emaciated, and suffering from an advanced
stage of saccharine diabetes.

His widow filed an application for a pension in 1879, alleging that her
husband died in December, 1877, of spinal disease and diabetes,
contracted in the service.

Her claim was rejected because evidence was not furnished that the cause
of the soldier's death had its origin in the military service.

There seems to be an entire absence of proof of this important fact.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4797, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Robert H. Stapleton."

This claimant filed an application for pension in the Pension Bureau in
1883, alleging that while acting as lieutenant-colonel of a New Mexico
regiment, on February 21, 1862, the tongue of a caisson struck him,
injuring his left side. A medical examination made in 1882 showed a
fracture of the ninth, t