Grover Cleveland

Veto Message

October 16, 1888

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 9106, entitled "An act granting a pension to Peter Liner."

The beneficiary named in this bill enlisted as a sergeant in the Regular Army in 1871, and he alleges that he served a previous term of enlistment, commencing in 1866.

While on a march from one post to another on the frontier, in September, 1874, the beneficiary was severely wounded by the bursting of a gun, necessitating the amputation of three of his fingers.

The reports of this occurrence develop the fact that the gun which burst in his hands was a shotgun, and that the accident happened while the beneficiary was hunting "for his own pleasure or benefit."

His wound was a severe one, and the injured man was probably a good and faithful soldier, but it seems quite clear to me that it would be extending the pension theory to an unwarrantable limit to hold the Government responsible for such an accident.

GROVER CLEVELAND

Grover Cleveland, Veto Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/205340

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