It was a congressional perquisite to be allowed to move the passage of so many bills; enactment followed as a matter, of course.

President Cleveland made a pointed reference to this process in a veto message of June 21, 1886.

He observed that the pension bills had only "an apparent Congressional sanction" for the fact was that "a large proportion of these bills have never been submitted to a majority of either branch of Congress, but are the results of nominal sessions held for the express purpose of their consideration and attended by a small minority of the members of the respective houses of the legislative branch of government." Obviously, the whole system of pension legislation was faulty.

Mere individual effort on the part of the President to screen the output of the system was scarcely practicable, even if it were congruous with the nature of the President's own duties; but nevertheless Cleveland attempted it, and kept at it with stout perseverance.

One of his veto messages remarks that in a single day nearly 240 special pension bills were presented to him.