EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, March 9, 1896. To the Senate: I transmit herewith, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 24th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to the claim of the legal representatives of Lieutenant George C. Foulke against the Government of the United States. GROVER CLEVELAND. To the Senate: EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 9, 1896. I transmit herewith, in response to the Senate's resolution of February 6, 1896, addressed to the Secretary of State, copies, in translation, of the decrees or orders of the Governments of Germany, France, Belgium, and Denmark placing restrictions upon the importation of certain American products. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, March 13, 1896. To the Senate: I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of March 2, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of correspondence touching the arrest in Havana of Marcus E. Rodriguez, Luis Someillau y Azpeitia, and Luis Someillau y Vidal, citizens of the United States. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, March 13, 1896. To the House of Representatives: In response to the resolution of the House of Representatives of Feb ruary 13, 1896, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and accompanying papers, relating to the claim of Bernard Campbell agains the Government of Hayti. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 14, 1896 To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, the House of Repre sentatives concurring, I return herewith the enrolled joint resolution (S. R. 116) authorizing the Public Printer to print the Annual Report of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in quarto form and to bind it in one volume. GROVER CLEVELAND. To the Senate of the United States: EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, April 15, 1896. In response to the resolution of March 24, 1896, requesting that the Senate be furnished with the correspondence of the Department of State between November 5, 1875, and the date of the pacification of Cuba in 1878 relating to the subject of mediation or intervention by the United States in the affairs of that island, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, forwarding such papers as seem to be called for by the resolution in question. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, April 30, 1896. To the House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, in response to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, addressed to the Secretary of State, a report of that officer, accompanied by copies of the correspondence in regard to the imprisonment of Mrs. Florence E. Maybrick. To the Senate: GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, May 16, 1896. I transmit herewith, in response to the resolution of the Senate dated the 9th instant and addressed to the Secretary of State, a report of that officer, accompanied by copies of printed documents containing the information desired respecting the historical archives deposited in the Department of State. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, May 23, 1896. To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 16th instant, a report of the Secretary of State, to which are attached copies in English and Spanish of the original text of a protocol executed January 12, 1877, between the minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Court of Spain and the minister of state of His Majesty the King of Spain. It being, in my judgment, incompatible with the public service, I am constrained to refrain from communicating to the Senate at this time copies of the correspondence described in the third paragraph of said resolution. GROVER CLEVELAND. To the House of Representatives: EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 28, 1896. In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th instant, the Senate concurring, I return herewith the bill (H. R. 5731) entitled "An act to regulate the practice of medicine and surgery, to license physicians and surgeons, and to punish persons violating the provisions thereof in the District of Columbia." To the House of Representatives: GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 3, 1896. In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2d instant, the Senate concurring, I return herewith the bill (H. R. 3279) entitled "An act to authorize the reassessment of water-main taxes or assessments in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes." To the Senate: GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 8, 1896. I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of May 9, 1896, directing that "the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General cause a careful and thorough inquiry to be made regarding the number of aliens employed in their respective Departments, and to communicate the result of said inquiry to the Senate at the earliest practicable day." GROVER CLEVELAND. VETO MESSAGES. EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 28, 1896. To the House of Representatives: I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 2769, entitled "An act to authorize the leasing of lands for educational purposes in Arizona." This bill provides for the leasing of all the public lands reserved to the Territory of Arizona for the benefit of its universities and schools, "under such laws and regulations as may be hereafter prescribed by the legislature of said Territory." If the proposed legislation granted no further authority than this, it would, in terms at least, recognize the safety and propriety of leaving the desirability of leasing these lands and the limitations and safeguards egulating such leasing to be determined by the local legislature chosen by the people to make their laws and protect their interests. Instead of stopping here, however, the bill further provides that until such legislative action the governor, the secretary of the Territory, and the superintendent of public instruction shall constitute a board for the leasing of said lands under the rules and regulations heretofore prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior. It is specifically declared that it shall not be necessary to submit said leases to the Secretary of the Interior for approval, and that no leases shall be made for a longer term than five years nor for a term extending beyond the date of the admission of the Territory to statehood. Under these provisions the lands reserved for university and school purposes, whose value largely depends upon their standing timber, and in which every citizen of the Territory has a deep interest, may be leased and denuded of their timber by officers none of whom have been chosen by the people, and without the sanction of any law or regulation made by their representatives in the local legislature. Even the measure of protection which would be afforded the citizens of the Territory by a submission to the Secretary of the Interior of the leases proposed, and thus giving him an opportunity to ascertain whether or not they comply with his regulations, is especially withheld. It was hardly necessary to provide in this bill that these lands might be leased "under such laws and regulations as may be hereafter prescribed by the legislature of said Territory" if the action of the legislature was to be forestalled and rendered nugatory by the immediate and unrestrained action of the officers constituted "a board for the leasing of said lands" pending such legislative consideration. These are inconsistencies which are not satisfactorily accounted for by the suggestion that the time that would elapse before the legislature could consider the subject would be important. The protests I have received from numerous and influential citizens of the Territory indicate considerable opposition to this bill among those interested in the preservation and proper management of these school lands. GROVER CLEVELAND. To the Senate: EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 21, 1896. I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 894, entitled "An act granting a pension to Nancy G. Allabach." This bill provides for the payment of a pension of $30 a month to the beneficiary named as the widow of Peter H. Allabach. This soldier served for nine months in the Army during the War of the Rebellion, having also served in the war with Mexico. He was mustered out of his last service on the 23d day of May, 1863, and died on the 11th of February, 1892. M P-VOL VIII-46 During his life he made no application for pension on account of disabilities. It is not now claimed that he was in the least disabled as an incident of his military service, nor is it alleged that his death, which occurred nearly twenty-nine years after his discharge from the Army, was in any degree related to such service. His widow was pensioned after his death under the statute allowing pensions to widows of soldiers of the Mexican War without reference to the cause of the death of their husbands. Her case is also, indirectly, one of those provided for by the general act passed in 1890, commonly called the dependent-pension law. It is proposed, however, by the special act under consideration to give this widow a pension of $30 a month without the least suggestion of the death or disability of her husband having been caused by his military service, and solely, as far as is discoverable, upon the ground that she is poor and needs the money. This condition is precisely covered by existing general laws; and if a precedent is to be established by the special legislation proposed, I do not see how the same relief as is contained in this bill can be denied to the many thousand widows who in a similar situation are now on the pension rolls under general laws. To the Senate: GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 21, 1896. I return herewith without my approval Senate bill No. 249, entitled "An act granting a pension to Charles E. Jones." The beneficiary named in this bill was a photographer who accompanied one of the regiments of the Union Army in the War of the Rebellion. He was injured, apparently not very seriously, while taking photographs and when no battle was in actual progress. He was not enlisted, and was in no manner in the military service of the United States. Aside from the question as to whether his present sad condition is attributable to the injury mentioned, it seems to me the extension of pension relief to such cases would open the door to legislation hard to justify and impossible to restrain from abuse. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 25, 1896. To the House of Representatives: I herewith return without my approval House bill No. 1094, entitled "An act granting a pension to Francis E. Hoover." It is proposed by this bill to grant a pension of $50 a month to the beneficiary named, who served as a private for about one year and nine months in the Union Army during the War of the Rebellion. I do not understand it is claimed in any quarter that the present helpless condition of this soldier is at all attributable to his army service. |