The Credit Mobilier of America was a finance company in charge of financing the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States, with the name of the Union Pacific Railway. Imagined and conceived on the model of the French Mobilier Credit, it sank into a national scandal in 1872, two years after the connection between the two oceans was finished. History
During the construction of the first transcontinental railway, the owners of the two railway companies secured their own benefits with corrupt agreements and black money used to corrupt government officials. The latter granted subsidies and donated to the companies the land where the roads were built, which allowed them to resell these lands to immigrants at low prices. The participation of numerous speculative groups led to widespread corruption and influence peddling.
The tandem in charge of the Furniture Credit of America was composed by George Francis Tren and Thomas Clark Duran (1820-1885). The Movable Credit of America charged all the invoices and the product of the emissions of actions and obligations, as well as the subsidies and sales of land, which formed the strong box of the society.Revealed by the journalist Charles Adams, of New York Sun, the scandal brought down the shares of the Union Pacific Railway and then the fall into bankruptcy.
According to the historian Richard White, the system of corruption set in motion has "captured dozens of members of Congress, a secretary of the Treasury, two vice-presidents, an important presidential candidate, and a potential president, which has caused a scandal which refers to four presidential elections. »
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