According to its articles of incorporation, the Contract and Finance Company was formed for the purpose of engaging in and carrying on the business of constructing, purchasing, leasing, selling, holding, maintaining, operating, and repairing railroads, wagon and transit roads, steamboats, vessels, telegraph lines, and rolling stock of railroads; the purchasing, holding, hypothecating, and selling of bonds and stocks issued by railroad and other companies or corporations; the purchasing and using of iron and other materials for railroad and telegraph lines; the borrowing and loaning of money; the conducting of an express and stage business, and any and all other kinds of business connected with or pertaining to railroads and telegraph lines; the transportation of persons and property, on land and water; and the purchasing, holding, leasing, and selling of real estate of all kinds. The capital stock was set at $5,000,000. Failure to Attract Outside Capital It is the unanimous testimony of the associates that the real and only reason for forming the Contract and Finance Company was that outside capital might be induced to come in. Huntington says that when the company was organized, he went with new energy to capitalists in the East to induce them to take a share in the risks and profits of construction. Yet from the point of view of attracting outside capital, the Contract and Finance Company was a complete failure. William and Commodore Garrison, of New York, A. A. Selover, Moses Taylor, and William E. Dodge, among others, considered the matter, but all concluded that the risk was too great. In California, Stanford applied to D. O. Mills, W. C. Ralston, Haggin and Tevis, Michael Reese—in short, to everybody whom he thought he might possibly induce to take an interest—but in vain.[115] The result of the failure to secure outside subscriptions to the Contract and Finance Company was that the associates had to take up the stock of that company themselves. Crocker was made president at an early date, and apparently took the bulk of the stock in the first instance. Then, when it was evident that no outside investors would come in, he put the stock back, and Stanford, Hopkins, Huntington, and E. B. Crocker took equal shares with him—each subscribing for 10,000 shares out of the 50,000 outstanding.[116] Later a little stock was disposed of to outsiders, but when the Contract and Finance Company got into the courts the associates bought this back.