Ames was not the only member of the Company engaged in placing stock where it would benefit the corporation. Doctor Durant, President of the Pacific Railway, was engaged in securing his friends in the same way, and he received a portion of the stock to be used in this manner. Mr. Henry S. M’Comb of Delaware was also interested in a scheme to put in his claim for a part of the stock which was being used as a corruption fund for his friends. The claim involved him in a quarrel with Ames, and the stock he claimed was assigned to Ames. In 1872, the quarrel reached such a pitch that M’Comb made the facts public and published a list of the Congressmen with whom Ames had said he had placed his stock, giving the number of shares sold to each. This list included Schuyler Colfax, Vice President of the United States; Henry Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts; James W. Patterson, Senator from New Hampshire; John A. Logan, Senator from Illinois; James G. Blaine, Member of the House from Maine, and Speaker; W. D. Kelly of Pennsylvania; James A. Garfield of Ohio; James Brooks of New York; John A. Bingham of Ohio; Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts; and others who were not in Congress at the time of the exposé. A storm of excitement was created over the country at the prominence of the names. As a rule, all implicated denied emphatically having ever owned or purchased Crédit Mobilier stock. They declared themselves incapable of holding the stock, saying that it would be a crime against morality and decency to be connected in any way with the Crédit Mobilier. It was a mistake on the part of Congressmen to deny their connection with the Crédit Mobilier. Frank acknowledgment of purchase and the statement that they had relinquished it as soon as its true character was known would have saved their faces before the world. They would have escaped with being regarded as silly, but the denials caused Ames to announce that the charges were true, and that he could and would prove them so. And he did. When Congress assembled in December, 1872, Blaine, the Speaker, wishing to vindicate himself, claiming his character had been unjustly assailed, asked the House to appoint a committee to investigate the charges brought by Ames and M’Comb and bring in a report of their findings. Mr. Poland, of Vermont, was made Chairman. Efforts to keep the investigation secret failed, as the indignant public demanded and obtained an open trial. The committee’s report to the House failed to sustain the denials of members as to ownership of stock, although it acquitted all but one of the charge of having been bribed. It fastened the ownership upon all but Mr. Blaine, and showed them all as convicted of falsehood. In several cases, their denial was met by the production of their checks, as was true in the case of Colfax. Blaine denied it, and the committee report sustained his denial.