Mark Summers, The Era of Good Stealings (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), 50-51.
Fogel, Union Pacific, 66-73.
When the road was completed, the bookkeepers of the Credit Mobilier put the actual cost to contractors of the Union Pacific at $50,720,958.94 and their profit at $42,825,328.34, but the profit was calculated on the basis of the securities being sold at par. Calculations that discounted the stock and bonds yielded a profit of $11,891,903. A third calculation has the government bonds and first mortgage bonds paying for the road. There remained the income bonds, land grant bonds at par and 36 million shares of stock discounted 70% as profit.
Fogel calculates the average accumulated investment in both the Union Pacific and Credit Mobilier at $2,704,000 and the lower level of profit from the Credit Mobilier at $13m with the upper level at $16,501,760. He did not distinguish between the promoters' investment in the Union Pacific and their investment in the Credit Mobilier.
Fogel, Union Pacific, 70-73.
According to the best estimates of accountants who later examined the Central Pacific's books, Crocker and Company had received $13,657,624.70 in securities and cash, while the Contract and Finance Company had received $32, 615,452. These figures represented the discounted value of stock. In the case of Crocker & Company, the par value of the stock was $14,701, 710.22 and in the case of the Contract and Finance Company $23,726,000. The discounted value of the Crocker & Co. stock was $5,121,609; it was all turned over to the Contract and Finance Company. The accountants put the discounted version of stock held by the Contract and Finance Company at $8,889,452.
Heywood Fleisig, "The Central Pacific Railroad and the Railroad Land Grant Controversy," Journal of Economic History 35 (Sept. 1975): 555-56 .
Poor, Manual, 564, 682 .
"The Railroad Problem in American Politics," August 1, 1874, in Crane, ed., Newton Booth of California, 161.