Congress and the King of Frauds: Corruption and the Credit Mobilier Scandal at the Dawn of the Gilded Age
On September 4, 1872, under the headline "King of Frauds," the New York Sun published the birth announcement of the Gilded Age. In a blockbuster expose, the Sun revealed that Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts had peddled valuable stock in a Union Pacific contractor with the unlikely name of Credit Mobilier to other members of Congress to win support for the railroad's interests on Capitol Hill. The ramifications of the explosive but deeply flawed scoop proved profound. The story spawned three congressional investigations. The House debated whether to expel two members caught up in the scandal, while a Senate committee recommended the expulsion of a Republican senator from New Hampshire. The scandal validated anxieties about corruption as new divisions challenged the primacy of the sectional issues that had riven American politics since the 1850s. Few other political scandals have had such significant repercussions.