ruction of the work.

The bill in effect directs the court to ignore the contract entirely,
except as payments under it are to be treated as credits, and to allow
the contractors the cost of the work, and that without reference to
their own negligence or want of skill in executing the work. There would
seem to be no object in the Government's making a contract for work if
the contract is only to be binding upon the parties in the event that
the contractor realizes a profit.

I can not give my approval to the proposition applied here, which if
allowed here should be given general application, that every contractor
with the Government who during the early days of the war failed to
realize, by reason of increase in the cost of labor and materials, a
profit upon the contract shall now have access to the Court of Claims
to recover upon the _quantum meruit_ the cost of the work.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 1, 1890_.

_To the Senate_:

I return without my approval Senate bill No. 1857, "for the relief of
Charles P. Chouteau, survivor of Chouteau, Harrison & Valle."

This claim has been once presented to the Court of Claims and fully
heard. This bill authorizes a rehearing. I find upon examination that
every fact connected with the case necessary to the determination of the
question whether the claim should be appropriated for has already been
found and stated by the Court of Claims in a published opinion. Judgment
was given against the claimant upon the ground that a settlement had
been made and a receipt given in full. If in the opinion of Congress
this receipt, given under the circumstances which accompanied it, should
not be held a bar to such further appropriation as is equitable, all the
facts have been found that can be necessary to determine the question
what further payment should be made to the contractors. There can be no
reason, as it seems to me, for a retrial of the case in the Court of
Claims in the absence of any showing of newly discovered evidence. The
result would only differ from the result already obtained in that under
the bill which I return the court would enter a judgment instead of a
finding, and the judgment could only be paid after Congressional action.

The finding which has already been made, as I have said, is a complete
basis for any such action as Congress may think should be taken in the
premises.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 7, 1890_.

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