ighly respected business men of Massachusetts,
were enjoined from voting at a stockholders' meeting held
in New York for the election of officers. The injunction
was issued by Judge Barnard, who was afterward impeached,
and removed from office. On the day of the stockholders'
meeting General Butler, counsel for the Ames faction, found
Judge Barnard at lunch, and got him so to modify the injunction
as to permit that the votes might be cast, the result of the
election not to be declared until the further order of the
Court. The other faction who had rested with fancied security
under their injunction were taken by surprise.

The Ames ticket had a majority. Thereupon one of the other
faction wrote a letter to Elihu B. Washburn, at Washington.
He was an influential member of the House of Representatives,
known as the "Watch Dog of the Treasury." The letter was put
in the post-office. It exposed the whole transaction. He
then informed his opponents what he had done. They knew very
well that if Washburn moved an investigation by the House
of Representatives, which was likely, the game was up. No
further bonds would come from the United States Treasury.
Judicial proceedings would in all likelihood be taken at once
to annul the charter, or restrain further action under it.
They instantly came to terms. The two factions agreed on
a Board of Directors. The letter to Washington was withdrawn
from the mail. Oakes Ames received a quantity of the stock
of the Credit Mobilier, which he was to distribute among influential
members of Congress at par, "putting it," according to his
testimony given before a Committee afterward, "where it would
do the most good." A list of members of the two Houses was
agreed upon, to whom the stock should be offered. It was
expected that they would pay for it at par. But there had
been already a large dividend assigned to it, which with the
dividend expected to be paid shortly, would amount to much
more than the nominal par value of the stock. So the purchase
of one of the shares was like purchasing for $1,000 a bank
account which already amounted to, or shortly would amount
to, more than double that sum.

A list of the men who were to be induced to take this stock
was made out with wonderful and prophetic sagacity. It contained
some of the ablest and most influential men in the two Houses
of Congress, representing different parts of the country.
It included men as conspicuous for in