The Forged Rent Voucher Behind a Guard Captain’s Refusal to Resign

Capt. Hilmer K. Brady, of Company D, First Regiment, N.G.W., has not yet complied with the request of his company for his resignation and now declares that he will not resign. This reduces the committee which has had charge of the movement against him to finding some new means of forcing him out or giving up the fight.

The members have not shown any hesitation about admitting that other and more serious charges could be made than overbearing conduct and too strict enforcement of discipline, but when an attempt was made to get them to tell what these charges were they have either shut up completely or put off the disclosure to some other day. The fact is the committee is in a predicament.

The facts in regard to the other charges have been learned by the Post-Intelligencer without the aid of the committee, and they explain the reluctance of the committeemen to trust their tongues. These facts relate to the statement made by some members of the company to a Post-Intelligencer reporter the other day that a voucher which had been tampered with had been discovered among the company's papers. The committee has all along denied that this voucher had anything to do with the demand for Capt. Brady's resignation—in fact, contrived to receive orders from Col. Green to say nothing about it—but other members of the company admit that it had a great deal to do with the matter.

Early this year Col. Hatfield, manager of the Armory, wondered why the rent of Company D's quarters had not been paid for the preceding October, November and December, and asked some of the members about it. They looked the matter up and found what appeared to be a voucher for that quarter's rent, bearing the signatures of Col. Hatfield and Capt. Brady. It was handed to Col. Hatfield, who immediately stated that it was a forgery, the date and number having been changed. It was compared with the stubs in the book, which are required to be exact duplicates, signatures and all. The alleged forgery was numbered and was the exact counterpart of No. 6 stub, except for the date and number. Voucher No. 6 should have paid the rent for the last three months of 1893, but would not have been signed by Capt. Brady, as he was not then a member of the company. It was then supposed that this stub was that of a spoiled voucher which had been signed by Col. Hatfield and not destroyed, another being filled in to take its place.

Brady acknowledged to the committee that he signed this voucher but said he must have done so under the impression that it was another one. There was no trace of any money having been drawn out of the treasury in payment of this voucher, and therefore nothing was done about the matter at the time.

It is in connection with this matter that the further charges are talked of, but the committee is evidently afraid that it cannot make out a case, for it is hanging back; and meanwhile Brady is consulting his lawyers in readiness to answer any attack that may be made.