Grover Cleveland

Veto Message

September 24, 1888

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 8310, entitled "An act provide for the disposal of the Fort Wallace Military Reservation, in Kansas."

This bill provides that a portion of this reservation, which is situated in the State of Kansas, shall be set apart for town-site purposes, and may be entered by the corporate authorities of the adjoining city of Wallace.

The second section of the bill permits the Union Pacific Railroad Company to purchase within a limited time a certain part of the military reservation, which is particularly described, at the rate of $30 per acre.

I am informed that this privilege might, by reason of a faulty description of the lands, enable the railroad company to purchase at the price named property in which private parties have interests acquired under our laws.

It is evident that the description of the land which the railroad company is allowed the option of purchasing should be exact and certain for the interest of all concerned.

Section 4 of the bill grants a certain portion of the military reservation heretofore set apart by the military authorities as a cemetery to the city of Wallace for cemetery purposes.

There should, in my opinion, be a provision that no bodies heretofore interred in this ground should be disturbed, and that when the same is no longer used as a cemetery it should revert to the Government.

GROVER CLEVELAND

Grover Cleveland, Veto Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/205280

Simple Search of Our Archives