Not long after Mr. Ames informed Mr. Scofield he could have the stock, but could not give him a certificate for it until he could get a larger certificate dividend. Mr. Scofield received the bond dividend of 80 per cent., which was payable January 3, 1868, taking a bond for $1,000 and paying Mr. Ames the difference. Mr. Ames received the 60 per cent. cash dividend on the stock in June, 1868, and paid over to Mr. Scofield $600, the amount of it.
Before the close of that session of Congress, which was toward the end of July, Mr. Scofield became, for some reason, disinclined to take the stock, and a settlement was made between them, by which Mr. Ames was to retain the Credit Mobilier stock and Mr. Scofield took a thousand dollars Union Pacific bond and ten shares of Union Pacific stock.
The precise basis of the settlement does not appear, neither Mr. Ames nor Mr. Scofield having any full date in reference to it; Mr. Scofield thinks that he only received back his money and interest upon it, while Mr. Ames states that he thinks Mr. Scofield had ten shares of Union Pacific stock in addition. The committee do not deem it specially important to settle this difference of recollection. Since that settlement Mr. Scofield has had no interest in the Credit Mobilier stock and derived no benefit therefrom.
MR. JOHN A. BINGHAM, OF OHIO.
In December, 1867, Mr. Ames advised Mr. Bingham to invest in the stock of the Credit Mobilier, assuring him that it would return him his money with profitable dividends. Mr. Bingham agreed to take twenty shares, and about the 1st of February, 1868, paid to Mr. Ames the par value of the stock, for which Mr. Ames executed to him some receipt or agreement. Mr. Ames received all the dividends on the stock, whether in Union Pacific bonds, or stock, or money; some were delivered to Mr. Bingham and some retained by Mr. Ames. The matter was not finally adjusted between them until February, 1872, when it was settled, Mr. Ames retaining the twenty shares of Credit Mobilier stock, and accounting to Mr. Bingham for such dividends upon it as Mr. Bingham had not already received. Mr. Bingham was treated as the real owner of the stock from the time of the agreement to take it, in December, 1867, to the settlement in February, 1872, and had the benefit of all the dividends upon it. Neither Mr. Ames nor Mr. Bingham had such records of their dealing as to be able to give the precise amount of those dividends.
MR. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The committee find from the evidence that in the early part of the second session of the Fortieth Congress, and probably in December, 1867, Mr. Ames agreed with Mr. Kelley to sell him ten shares of Credit Mobilier stock at par and interest from July 1, 1867. Mr. Kelley was not then prepared to pay for the stock, and Mr. Ames agreed to carry the stock for him until he could pay for it. On the third day of January, 1868, there was a dividend of 80 per cent. on Credit Mobilier stock in Union Pacific bonds. Mr. Ames received the bonds, as the stock stood in his name, and sold them for 97 per cent. of their face. In June, 1868, there was a cash dividend of 60 per cent., which Mr. Ames also received. The proceeds of the bonds sold, and the cash dividends received by Mr. Ames, amounted to $1,376. The par value of the stock and interest thereon from the previous July amounted to $1,047; so that, after paying for the stock, there was a balance of dividends due Mr. Kelley of $329. On the 23d day of June, 1868, Mr. Ames gave Mr. Kelley a check for that sum on the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Kelley received the money thereon.
The committee find that Mr. Kelley then understood that the money he thus received was a balance of dividends due him after paying for the stock.
All the subsequent dividends upon the stock were either in Union Pacific stock or bonds, and they were all received by Mr. Ames. In September, 1868, Mr. Kelley received from Mr. Ames $750 in money, which was understood between them to be an advance to be paid out of dividends. There has never been any adjustment of the matter between them, and there is now an entire variance in the testimony of the two men as to what the transaction between them was, but the committee are unanimous in finding the facts above stated. The evidence reported to the House gives some subsequent conversations and negotiations between Mr. Kelley and Mr. Ames on this subject. The committee do not deem it material to refer to it in their report.