The Ames brothers, Oliver and Oakes, were involved in this political scandal:
The Ames brothers, Oliver and Oakes, were key figures in a nineteenth-century railroad scandal known as the Credit Mobilier. Oakes was a congressman from Massachusetts. His brother was a director of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, chartered by Congress to lay tracks west from Omaha and span the continent. The Union Pacific funneled construction contracts to a corporation called Credit Mobilier, which had the same members and stockholders as the railroad. Credit Mobilier overcharged, reaping a profit estimated as high as $44 million, and in 1873 the House censured Oakes Ames for selling corporation stock to lawmakers at cut-rate prices to ward off a congressional investigation.
