Pension to Holsey, Robert

The following data is extracted from Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 22, 1886.

To the Senate:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 1288, entitled "An act granting a pension to Robert Holsey."

This claimant enlisted in 1862, and though he appears to have been sick on two occasions during his term of service, he remained with his company until it was mustered out in 1865.

This soldier was really sick during the time he remained in the Army, and in this respect his claim for a pension has a better origin than many that are presented. But the fact must be recognized, I suppose, that every army ailment does not necessarily result in death or disability.

In 1882, seventeen years after his discharge, this soldier filed his declaration for a pension, alleging that in 1863 he contracted intermittent fever, affecting his lungs, kidneys, and stomach.

A board of surgeons, upon an examination made in 1882, find disease of kidneys, but no indication of lung and stomach trouble; and a medical referee reported in 1885 that there had been no disease of the stomach and lungs since the filing of the claim, and that the difficulty affecting the kidneys had no relation to the sickness for which the claimant had been treated while in the Army.

I am of the opinion that a correct conclusion was reached when the application for pension in this case was denied by the Pension Bureau.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

Source: Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland

  Go Back