GREAT CORRUPTION AND VAST THEFTS.
Charges of enormous thefts committed by Credit Mobilier Company, and of corruption of Congress, were specifically made by various individuals and in the public press. A sensational hullabaloo resulted; Congress was stormed with denunciations; it discreetly concluded that some action had to be taken. The time-honored, mildewed dodge of appointing an investigating committee was decided upon.
Virtuously indignant was Congress; zealously inquisitive the committee appointed by the United States Senate professed to be. Very soon its honorable members were in a state of utter dismay. For the testimony began to show that some of the most powerful men in Congress were implicated in Credit Mobilier corruption; men such as James G. Blaine, one of the foremost Republican politicians of the period, and James A. Garfield, who later was elevated into the White House. Every effort was bent upon whitewashing these men; the committee found that as far as their participation was concerned "nothing was proved," but, protest their innocence as they vehemently did, the tar stuck, nevertheless.
As to the thefts of the Credit Mobilier Company, the committee freely stated its conclusions. Ames and his band, the evidence showed, had stolen nearly $44,000,000 outright, more than half of which was in cash. The committee, to be sure, was not so brutal as to style it theft; with a true parliamentarian regard for sweetness and sacredness of expression, the committee's report described it as "profit."
After holding many sessions, and collating volumes of testimony, the committee found, as it stated in its report, that the total cost of building the Union Pacific Railroad was about $50,000,000. And what had the Credit Mobilier Company charged? Nearly $94,000,000 or, to be exact, $93,546,287.28. [Footnote: Doc. No. 78, Credit Mobilier Investigation: xiv.] The committee admitted that "the road had been built chiefly with the resources of the Government." [Footnote: Ibid., xx.] A decided mistake; it had been entirely built so. The committee itself showed how the entire cost of building the road had been "wholly reimbursed from the proceeds of the Government bonds and first mortgage bonds," and that "from the stock, income bonds, and land grant bonds, the builders received in cash value $23,366,000 as profit—about forty-eight per cent. on the entire cost." [Footnote: Ibid., xvii.]
The total "profits" represented the difference between the cost of building the railroad and the amount charged—about $44,000,000 in all, of which $23,000,000 or more was in immediate cash. It was more than proved that the amount was even greater; the accounts had been falsified to show that the cost of construction was $50,000,000. Large sums of money, borrowed ostensibly to build the road, had at once been seized as plunder, and divided in the form of dividends upon stock for which the clique had not paid a cent in money, contrary to law.