History Of The Credit Mobilier Scandal

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The Credit Mobilier scandal took place in 1872 it involved Union Pacific Railroad and Credit Mobilier of America Construction Company. Also it involved fake of contracts and post war corruption. Major stockholders in the railroad formed a company and called it and Credit Mobilier of America. Thomas Durant thought of a money making machine that would make him so rich. It was an idea to make a railroad that would make more profit than the Union Pacific Company. Thomas and his friends knew they could get people to invest in the new company to make money quick. He thought he could make more money by constructing a railroad instead of running a railroad. It was going to be the eastern part of the first transcontinental railroad. Thomas knew that there was gonna be …show more content…

They told him that they weren’t gonna let him finish the railroad and let someone else finish the job that he stared. Awhile later they changed their mind and allowed him to finish the railroad that he started. When Thomas Durant started building the railroad again it made them a lot of money. People started getting suspicious of what the company was doing. The New York Sun wrote a story about the things going on in the company was against the law. They wouldn’t also allow the re-election of Ulysses Grant because they were totally against him. Since the New York Sun reported the scandal most of all the investors nearly went bankrupt. They found out they gave some of their shares to more than 30 people in the company after they questioned 13 congress men. Also they only reported that they made only a small amount of money when really they made over 40 million dollars in total profits alone. That’s the money Thomas Durant made with his railroad aka money making machine and also more through out time. 180 million dollars were missing out of capital stock when the government checked the yearly