Clemens probably intended to draw on this account for his portrayal of corrupt politicians in The Gilded Age. The Crédit Mobilier of America was a banking corporation chartered (under a different name) in 1863, through which the capitalists who were building the transcontinental railway (Union Pacific Railroad) pocketed exorbitant profits from 1867 to 1869 from government financing that greatly exceeded actual construction costs. Legislation permitting these actions had been passed in 1867 and 1868 by senators and representatives who had been bribed with gifts of valuable railroad stock. The Crédit Mobilier scandal became public late in the 1872 presidential campaign, and was investigated by House and Senate committees during the winter of 1872–73. Although the Senate ultimately took no punitive action, and the House censured only two of its members, the reputations of many politicians were damaged by the allegations of corruption (DAH, 2:84–85; Smith, 289–90; Annual Cyclopaedia 1873, 671–80).