Pension to Reed, Marinda Wakefield

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

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 26, 1889.

To the House of Representatives:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 10791, entitled "An act granting a pension to Marinda Wakefield Reed."

This beneficiary filed an application for pension in November, 1876, alleging that her husband, William A. Reed, died in September of that year of consumption contracted in the line of military duty.

The records show that the soldier was in hospital in the year 1864 for chronic diarrhea and intermittent fever.

On the 5th day of November, 1864, he was injured in a railroad accident while on his way home to vote at the Presidential election of that year.

The beneficiary claimed in August, 1885, in support of her application for pension that those injuries resulted in consumption, from which the soldier died, and the favorable report of the House committee to which the bill herewith returned was referred seems to proceed upon the same theory.

Nothing appears which satisfactorily connects this injury, which was received in November, 1864, with death from consumption in 1876.

Another difficulty in the case is found in the fact that when the soldier was injured he was clearly not engaged in any military duty nor was his injury in any degree attributable to military service.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

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

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