Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/739

 733 FEDEEAIi BBPOETEB. �debt, was resîsted by the Central Pacific Eailroad Company, organized under the laws of Californda, on the ground that congress could impose no such obligation upon that road. This proposition, though urged upon the court very forcibly, and much relied upon in Judge Pield's dissenting opinion, ■was overruled by the court; and it ia lield that, in accepting grants made by congress to those roads, it bound itself by ail the provisions of the act of congress for the governmeut of the companies. �Another ground of objection to the contract between the Western Union Telegraph Company and the railroad Com- pany under which this telegraph line -was built, which ob- jection goes to the validity of the whole contract, relates to a clause in it by which the telegraph company bound itself to carry over its line private and family messages of its execu- tive officers without charge to them. The principle ou which this objection re»3t3 is that this clause, securing a private advantage to certain ofScers of the railroad comxjauy, was in effect a bribe to secure from them the contract to the advantage of the telegraph company and the disadvantage of the railroad company. In one of the opinions delivered by -Judge Mc- Crary, on the motions before him to dissolve or modiîy this injunction, he expressed the opinion that the clause in the contract, as it stood on its face, without any explanation of it, was fatal to the validity of the entire contract. I am not prepared now to either affirm or deny the soundness of that proposition. �The language of the contract on that subject is as follows : "Fourth. The business of said railway, includingits construc- tion, lands, and ail business of the company, and the family, private, and the social messages of the executive officers, shall be transmitted without charge between ail telegraph stations on the line pf said railway, and also between ail such stations and the city of St. Louis, Missouri, and over ail other lines in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, now owned or controlled, or that may hereafter be owned or con- troUed, by the Western Union Telegraph Company : provided, as far as said lines in Colorado and New Mexico are con- ����