It was a type of the construction company by which it was the custom to build railroads at that time.  The directors, believing that whatever money was to be made out of the Union Pacific must be collected during the construction period, organized a clever system for just this purpose.

An extravagant sum was to be paid to the Credit Mobilier for the construction work, thus securing for stockholders of the Union Pacific, who now controlled the Credit Mobilier, the bonds loaned by the United States Government.

The operations of the Credit Mobilier finally gave rise to one of the most serious political scandals in the history of the United States Congress.

The cost of all material was high, and it rose with leaps and bounds until it was prodigious.  Omaha had no railroad entering it from the east, and so all the supplies, materials, engines, cars, machinery, and laborers had to be transported from St. Louis up the swift Missouri on boats.  This in itself was a work calling for the limit of practical management and energy.  Out on the prairie-land, for hundreds of miles, were to be found no trees, no wood, scarcely any brush.  The prairie-land was beautiful ground for buffalo, but it was a most barren desert for the exigencies of railroad men.  Moreover, not only did wood and fuel and railroad-ties have to be brought from afar, but also stone for bridges and abutments.  Then thousands of men had to be employed, and those who hired out for reasonable money soon learned that others were getting more; having the company at their mercy, they demanded exorbitant wages in their turn.

One of the peculiar features of the construction, a feature over which Neale grew impotently furious, was the law that when a certain section of so many miles had been laid and equipped the Government of the United States would send out expert commissioners, who would go over the line and pass judgment upon the finished work.  No two groups of commissioners seemed to agree.  These experts, who had their part to play in the bewildering and labyrinthine maze of men’s contrary plans and plots, reported that certain sections would have to be done over again.

The particular fault found with one of these sections was the alleged steepness of the grade, and as Neale had been the surveyor in charge, he soon heard of his poor work.  He went over his figures and notes with the result that he called on Henney and absolutely swore that the grade was right.  Henney swore too, in a different and more forcible way, but he agreed with Neale and advised him to call upon the expert commissioners.

Neale did so, and found them, with one exception, open to conviction.  The exception was a man named Allison Lee.  The name Lee gave Neale a little shock.  He was a gray-looking man, with lined face, and that concentrated air which Neale had learned to associate with those who were high in the affairs of the U. P.

Neale stated that his business was to show that his work had been done right, and he had the figures to prove it.  Mr. Lee replied that the survey was poor and would have to be done over.