Report H1105B-Reconstruction Scandals

The Tweed Ring in New York, The Credit Mobilier Scandal and Black Friday.


The Tweed Ring in New York

The tweed ring was a small group of men gathered by William M. Tweed who controlled New York City's finances. Tweed was convicted of stealing between 40 million and 200 million dollars. With the rate of inflation that would be between 1.5 billion and 8 billion dollars today. Tweed was sentenced to twelve years in prison in 1873 which was reduced by a higher court to only one year. After he was released from prison he was arrested again on civil charges and sued for 6 million dollars by New York city. He was placed in a debtors prison until he could post 3 million dollars as bail. Tweed escaped and went to Spain and worked as a seamen on a ship. He was then recaptured and placed back in prison where he died 2 years later.
At meals Tweed would measure three inches from his stomach to the edge of the table and wouldn't stop eating until his stomach was touching the table.

The Credit Mobilier Scandal

The Credit Mobilier company was formed by George Francis Train Who was the vice president and in charge of publicity for the Union Pacific Railroad. The company was crated to limit the liability of its stockholders and to maximize the profits. The company gave cheap or free shares of stock to members of congress who would support additional funding. In 1872 the scandal was brought to the publics attention by Henry Simpson McComby. He claimed that $72 million in contracts had been given to the the mobilier company to build a railroad that only cost $53 million to create. The investors where left nearly bankrupt and it ruined the reputation of many of the congressmen who had accepted the bribes including James A. Garfield, Schuyler Colfax, James W. Patterson and Henry Wilson. During the investigation the discovered that the mobilier company had given stock to more then thirty members of both parties.


Black Friday

Black Friday also known as Deadly Friday also known as the Fisk-Gould scandal was when James Fisk and Jay Gould Tried to control the gold market on the New York gold exchange. During the American civil war the U.S. Government gave out greenbacks that where backed by nothing but credit. Most people believed that after the war the government would buy back the greenbacks with gold. Fisk and Gould tried to profit off of this by cornering the gold market. They hired Ulysses S. Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin to get close to grant to argue against him whenever they where talking about the government selling gold. His brother in law convinced Grant to appoint Daniel Butterfield as the united states assistant treasurer. Butterfield had agreed to tell Fisk and Gould when the government was planning to sell its gold. In 1869 they bought large amount of gold and stored it away causing gold prices to go higher. But then grant released the government gold into the market and prices dropped. Later investigation into the scandal was very limited because Grant's wife and brother in law could not testify.