CREDIT MOBILISE, DEFINED. 



475 



it was that the French entered upon some of the wildest 

 stock gambling the world has ever known. Transplanted 

 to America, the same system found a congenial home, and 

 made Wall Street a pandemonium its votaries a horde of 

 gamblers. It has well-nigh swamped the railroad system 

 of America, covering the nation and many of our publicists, 

 once in honorable repute, with a lasting disgrace. 



ts 



~ 



The Stalking-horse of Swindlers. 



The watered stock of a railroad may be a Credit Mobilier ; 

 the road itself may be one in the bad sense of the name; 

 the warehouseman who issues fraudulent certificates upon 

 grain in his elevator, is a sort of Credit Mobilier ; the so- 

 called fast transportation line that is run by a ring of rail 

 road managers at the expense of the transporters, is a Credit 

 Mobilier. In short, Credit Mobilier is a system of lending 

 a fiction and getting a reality. This is one of the principal 

 things that has ruined American credit abroad, and made 

 the name of certain American statesmen and financiers to 

 stink in the nostrils of all honest men, 



