CR DIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA

CR É DIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA, the classic case of corruption in the Gilded Age, concerned conflict of interest and institutional duplicity. When in 1862 Congress chartered the Union Pacific Railroad with a federal subsidy for a transcontinental railroad, it also established the Cr é dit Mobilier, a separate corporation for the rail-road's construction, to attract private investors. Huge profits were made. Stockholders in the Union Pacific and the Cr é dit Mobilier, who were usually the same people, paid themselves outrageous profits. A cynic might say that the first construction site was at the U.S. Treasury.

Within six years Representative Oakes ...