70 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR. 



a land grant of 12,800 acres a mile, and, where there 

 were States, there were bonds, with interest guaranteed 

 by the State and gifts of real estate from cities, where 

 cities existed; and there were even millions of net 

 earning applied to construction. The means to build 

 the road were not grudgingly bestowed Meanwhile, 

 of the real cost of construction but little is correctly 

 known ; absolutely nothing indeed of the western divi- 

 sion, or Central Pacific. Managed by a small clique in 

 California, the internal arrangements of this company 

 were involved in absolute secrecy. The eastern division 

 was built, however, by an organization known as the 

 Credit Mobilier, which received for so doing all the un- 

 issued stock, the proceeds of the bonds sold, the gov- 

 ernment bonds, and the earnings of the road in fact, 

 all its available assets. Its profits were reported to 

 have been enormous, and they made the fortunes of 

 many, and perhaps of most of those connected with it. 

 Who, then, constituted the Credit Mobilier ? It was 

 but another name for the Pacific Railroad ring. The 

 members of it were in Congress ; they were trustees for 

 the bondholders, they were directors, they were stock- 

 holders, they were contractors; in Washington they 

 voted the subsidies, in New York they received them, 

 upon the Plains they expended them, and in the Credit 

 Mobilier they divided them. Ever-shifting characters, 

 they were ubiquitous now engineering a bill, and now 

 a bridge they received money into one hand as a cor- 

 poration, and paid it into the other as a contractor. As 

 stockholders they owned the road, as mortgagees they 

 had a hen upon it, as directors they contracted for its 

 construction, and as members of the Credit Mobilier 

 they built it. What is the community to pay for it ? 



