Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/735

 728 FEDEBAIi BEFOBTEB. �built ; and if said arrangement be entered into, and the transfer to saM telegraph line be made in accordance there- with, to the line of said railroad and branches, such transfer shall, for ail purposes of this act, be held and considered a, fulfilment on the part of said railroad eompanies of the pro- visions of this act in regard to the construction of said line of telegraph." �The three telegraph eompanies here spoken of, together constituted, at the time this statute was passed, a continuons line of telegraph from the Missouri river to San Francisco ; and it was obvious that the building of another line parallel to that, and not far distant from it, would have a very injuri- ons eiïect upon the value of thô property of those telegraph eompanies; and it was to protect those eompanies, and to prevent the injury which would follow from the construction of another line between the same points, over an uninhabited region of country, that congress provided that, by an arrange- ment with the railroad company, if those eompanies should remove their wires along the line of that road so tbey could be used both for railroad purposes and the use of the general -public, then the obligation of the railroad company under the act of congress to build another line should no longer exist. The act of 1864, which we have just referred to, concerning the United States Telegraph Company, was clearly designed to give it a similar privilege, and if the arrangement was made, and that company should build or transfer its line to the line of the railroad company, the railroad company, in like manner, was released from the obligation to construct and build another line. I hold it, therefore, to be very clear that if the present telegraph line, as it is now operated and run by the Western Union Telegraph Company, can be traced to the authority of that adt of 1864, and the Western Unioh Tele- graph Company, in making that contract, exercised rightfully • the powers conferred upon the United States Telegraph Com- pany, that the contract is valid, although it forbids the rail- road company to convey commercial messages over the single wire which it has the right to control for its own business. It is said that the proof offered by complainants fails to ����