The capitalists behind the project now had franchises, gifts and loans actually or potentially worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. But to get the money appropriated from the National Treasury, it was necessary by the act that they should first have constructed certain miles of their railroads. The Eastern capitalists had at home so many rich avenues of plunder in which to invest their funds—money wrung out of army contracts, usury and other sources— that many of them were indisposed to put any of it in the unpopulated stretches of the far West. The banks, as we have seen, were glutting on twenty, and often fifty, and sometimes a hundred per cent.; they saw no opportunity to make nearly as much from the Pacific railroads.
THE CREDIT MOBILIER JOBBERY.
All the funds that the Union Pacific Railroad Company could privately raise by 1865 was the insufficient sum of $500,000. Some greater incentive was plainly needed to induce capitalists to rush in. Oakes Ames, head of the company, and a member of Congress, finally hit upon the auspicious scheme. It was the same scheme that the Vanderbilts, Gould, Sage, Blair, Huntington, Stanford, Crocker and other railroad magnates employed to defraud stupendous sums of money.
Ames produced the alluring plan of a construction company. This corporation was to be a compact affair composed of himself and his charter associates; and, so far as legal technicalities went, was to be a corporation apparently distinct and separate from the Union Pacific Railroad Company. Its designed function was to build the railroad, and the plan was to charge the Union Pacific exorbitant and fraudulent sums for the work of construction. What was needed was a company chartered with comprehensive powers to do the constructing work. This desideratum was found in the Credit Mobilier Company of America, a Pennsylvania corporation, conveniently endowed with the most extensive powers. The stock of this company was bought in for a few thousand dollars, and the way was clear for the colossal frauds planned.
The prospects for profit and loot were so unprecedentedly great that capitalists now blithely and eagerly darted forward. One has only to examine the list of stockholders of the Credit Mobilier Company in 1867 to verify this fact. Conspicuous bankers such as Morton, Bliss and Company and William H. Macy; owners of large industrial plants and founders of multimillionaire fortunes such as Cyrus H. McCormick and George M. Pullman; merchants and factory owners and landlords and politicians—a very edifying and inspiring array of respectable capitalists was it that now hastened to buy or get gifts of Credit Mobilier stock. [Footnote: The full lists of these stockholders can be found in Docs. No. 77 and No. 78, Reports of U. S. Senate Committees, 1872-73. Morton, Bliss & Co. held 18,500 shares; Pullman, 8,400 shares, etc. The Morton referred to—Levi P. Morton—was later (1888-1892) made Vice President of the United States by the money interests.]
The contract for construction was turned over to the Credit Mobilier Company. This, in turn, engaged subcontractors. The work was really done by these subcontractors with their force of low-paid labor. Oakes Ames and his associates did nothing except to look on executively from a comfortable distance, and pocket the plunder. As fast as certain portions of the railroad were built the Union Pacific Railroad Company received bonds from the United States Treasury. In all, these bonds amounted to $27,213,000, out of much of which sum the Government was later practically swindled.
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."