On the 14th day of February, 1880, nearly eighteen years after his resignation, the beneficiary filed his claim for pension based upon hemorrhoids, the result of diarrhea and fever.
He denied upon this application that he was unsound prior to enlistment, and filed evidence to support his denial. One of the witnesses, a surgeon, who testified to incurrence of disability in the service, on a special examination stated that he so testified, having satisfied himself of the fact by personal interviews with the beneficiary.
I do not think in the circumstances surrounding this case that the beneficiary should at this late day be permitted to impeach and set aside the medical certificate procured by himself and containing his own statements, upon which he secured exemption from further military service.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 13, 1888.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without approval House bill No. 6371, entitled "An act granting a pension to Jesse M. Stilwell."
On the 6th day of May, 1885, twenty years after this beneficiary was discharged from the Army, he filed an application in the Pension Bureau for a pension, alleging that in December, 1863, one year and eight months before his discharge, a comrade assaulted him with a stick while he was sitting in front of his tent preparing for bed and injured his back. He alleged that the assault was unprovoked and unexpected.
The claim was rejected upon the facts stated, upon the ground that any injury incurred was not the result of military duty.
Unless the Government is to be held as an insurer against injuries suffered by anyone in the military service, no matter how incurred, and also as guarantor of the good and peaceable behavior toward each other of the soldiers at all times and under all circumstances, this is not a proper case for the allowance of a pension.