evenue is insufficient for current wants
and this proposed further drain on the Treasury. The issue of bonds,
authorized by the bill to a very large and indefinite amount, would
seriously embarrass the refunding operations now progressing, whereby
the interest of the bonded debt of the United States is being largely
reduced. Second, I do not believe that any considerable portion of the
ex-soldiers who, it is supposed, will be beneficiaries of this
appropriation are applicants for it, but, rather, it would result more
in a measure for the relief of claim agents and middlemen who would
intervene to collect or discount the bounties granted by it. The passage
of this bill at this time is inconsistent with the measures of economy
now demanded by the necessities of the country.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 92: Pocket veto. This message was written in the President's
room at the Capitol, but failed to reach the House of Representatives
before the final adjournment of Congress. The original is filed at the
Executive Mansion.]

[Footnote 93: "An act to equalize the bounties of soldiers who served in
the late war for the Union."]

[The following messages were sent to the special session of the Senate
convened by proclamation (see p. 324) of February 17, 1875.]

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _March 8, 1875_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I nominate in the Medical Department, Army of the United States,
Benjamin F. Pope, assistant surgeon, to rank from May 14, 1867.

Note.--October 5, 1870, Assistant Surgeon B.F. Pope, United States Army,
applied for discharge to date December 31, 1870, under section 3, act of
July 15, 1870.

By letter from the Adjutant-General's Office, War Department, November
2, 1870, he was informed he could not be discharged as requested, as the
President had decided staff officers did not come under the provisions
of the act.

Subsequently the President decided that staff officers who applied and
could be spared could go out under the act. Accordingly, Assistant
Surgeon Pope was discharged, on his original application, to date
December 31, 1870, by special order of that date, this because time did
not permit to communicate with him, and the belief that his desire to
leave the service was unchanged.

He drew a year's pay and mileage under the order, came to Washington,
and on May 19, 1871, applied for revocation of the order of discharge on
the ground that, having been offici