It appears that after he had served a number of years in a cavalry regiment, and having been once discharged for reenlistment, he was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps and was in that service at the time of his death.
In these circumstances the rejection of the beneficiary's claim on the ground stated is held, under present rulings of the Pension Bureau, to have been erroneous, and such claim can now be favorably adjudicated upon proof of continued widowhood of the applicant and the lack of other means of support than her daily labor.
If such proof is supplied, she would be entitled to a pension dating from July 14, 1890, which would be much more advantageous than the relief afforded by the bill herewith returned.
If the beneficiary can justly claim a pension dating from her application to the Pension Bureau in 1890, the benefits accruing to her therefrom should not be superseded by this special legislation, which allows relief only from the date of its enactment.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 28, 1895.
To the House of Representatives:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 8681, entitled "An act authorizing the Arkansas Northwestern Railway Company to construct and operate a railway through the Indian Territory, and for other purposes."
The contemplated route of this railway, so far as it is disclosed in the bill, would run from a point in the southwestern corner of the State of Missouri, across the northeastern corner of the Indian Territory, to a point in the southeastern part of the State of Kansas. This route necessarily runs through the lands of the Cherokee Indians or through the small reservations of the Quapaws, the Peorias, the Ottawas, the Wyandottes, and the Senecas.
There is no provision in the bill requiring the consent of the Indians whose lands are to be thus traversed.