Editing James A. Garfield (section)

===Crédit Mobilier scandal; salary grab===
The [[Crédit Mobilier of America scandal]] involved corruption in the financing of the [[Union Pacific Railroad]], part of the [[transcontinental railroad]] which was completed in 1869. Union Pacific officers and directors secretly purchased control of the [[Crédit Mobilier of America]] company, then contracted with it to undertake construction of the railroad. The railroad paid the company's grossly inflated invoices with federal funds appropriated to subsidize the project, and the company was allowed to purchase Union Pacific securities at [[par value]], well below the market rate. Crédit Mobilier showed large profits and stock gains, and distributed substantial dividends. The high expenses meant Congress was called upon to appropriate more funds. One of the railroad officials who controlled Crédit Mobilier was also a congressman, [[Oakes Ames]] of [[Massachusetts]]. He offered some of his colleagues the opportunity to buy Crédit Mobilier stock at par value, well below what it sold for on the market, and the railroad got its additional appropriations.{{sfn|Caldwell|1965|pp=219}}

[[File:Keppler Credit Mobilier Hari-Kari.png|thumb|right|upright=1.25|Editorial cartoon: [[Uncle Sam]] directs U.S. Senators and Representatives implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scheme to commit [[Hara-Kiri]].]]

The story broke in July 1872, in the middle of the presidential campaign. Among those named were Vice President [[Schuyler Colfax]], Massachusetts Senator [[Henry Wilson]] (the Republican candidate for vice president), Speaker [[James G. Blaine]] of Maine, and Garfield. Greeley had little luck taking advantage of the scandal. When Congress reconvened after the election, Blaine, seeking to clear his name, demanded a House investigation. Evidence before the special committee exonerated Blaine. Garfield had said in September 1872 that Ames had offered him stock but he had repeatedly refused it. Testifying before the committee in January, Ames said he had offered Garfield ten shares of stock at par value, but that Garfield had never taken them or paid for them, though a year passed, from 1867 to 1868, before Garfield had finally refused. Appearing before the committee on January 14, 1873, Garfield confirmed much of this. Ames testified several weeks later that Garfield agreed to take the stock on credit, and that it was paid for by the company's huge dividends.{{sfn|Caldwell|1965|pp=224–226}} The two men differed over $300 that Garfield received and later paid back, with Garfield deeming it a loan and Ames a dividend.{{sfn|Peskin|1978|pp=354–359}}

Garfield's biographers have been unwilling to exonerate him in the scandal. Allan Peskin writes, "Did Garfield lie? Not exactly. Did he tell the truth? Not completely. Was he corrupted? Not really. Even Garfield's enemies never claimed that his involvement in the affair influenced his behavior."{{sfn|Peskin|1978|p=362}} Rutkow writes, "Garfield's real offense was that he knowingly denied to the House investigating committee that he had agreed to accept the stock and that he had also received a dividend of $329."{{sfn|Rutkow|2006|p=34}} Caldwell suggests Garfield "told the truth [before the committee, but] certainly failed to tell the whole truth, clearly evading an answer to certain vital questions and thus giving the impression of worse faults than those of which he was guilty."{{sfn|Caldwell|1965|p=230}} That Crédit Mobilier was a corrupt organization had been a badly kept secret, even mentioned on the floor of Congress, and editor Sam Bowles wrote at the time that Garfield, in his positions on committees dealing with finance, "had no more right to be ignorant in a matter of such grave importance as this, than the sentinel has to snore on his post."{{sfn|Peskin|1978|p=362}}

Another issue that caused Garfield trouble in his 1874 reelection bid was the so-called "[[Salary Grab Act|Salary Grab]]" of 1873, which increased the compensation for members of Congress by 50%, retroactive to 1871. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Garfield was responsible for shepherding the appropriations bill through the House; during the debate in February 1873, Massachusetts Representative [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin Butler]] offered the increase as an amendment, and despite Garfield's opposition, it passed the House and eventually became law. The law was very popular in the House, as almost half the members were [[lame duck (politics)|lame ducks]], but the public was outraged, and many of Garfield's constituents blamed him, though he personally refused to accept the increase. In a bad year for Republicans, who lost control of the House for the first time since the Civil War, Garfield had his closest congressional election, winning with only 57% of the vote.{{efn|Garfield typically won two or three times his Democratic opponents' votes.{{sfn|Peskin|1978|pp=148, 244, 277, 292}}}}{{sfnm|Caldwell|1965|1pp=233–236|Rutkow|2006|2pp=34–35}}