Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/741

 734 rEDERAIi BEPOBTEE. �flhould be held to be void. There are circumstances in con- nection with this contract which may or may not be held to take it ont of this principle. The first one of these circum- stances which strikes one impressively is that there was no attempt to conceal from the stookholders of the railroad Com- pany, nor from anybody interested in its affaira, this clause of the contract by which the executive officers were to have this special privilege in the use of the telegraph wires. There was, therefore, absent the indication which seereey in such case givea of a corrupt and improper motive. It is also to be observed that the benefits secured did not flow to the individual, but to the office, and that as soon as any one ceased to be a member of the executive office he ceased to have the privilege conferred by this contract ; and there is no evidence before the court that this privilege was enjoyed for any length of time by any one individual, or that it amounted in point of fact to a pecuniary sum whose influence would be at ail appreciable. �These propositions, and the facts which may be proved on the final hearing in regard to the terms under which these privileges were to be used, and the reasons why they were, as suggested by plaintiff's counsel, designed to relieve the rail- road Company itself of a burden which it would have borne if the telegraph company had not made these grants of privi- leges, ail lead me to doubt very much whether the contract will be finally held invalid on account of that clause in its original conception. For the same reason, then, that I bave already stated in regard to the other allegation of invalidity of the contract that the objection may be removed on the final hearing ; that it is not at ail clear to me that the objec- tion is a valid one, as the matter stands ; and on account of the great and important consequences which would flow from a dissolution of the injunction, — I do not think that, on this motion, the objection should be held to be fatal to the con- tract. �I wish again to recall the fact that four or five motionfî to dissolve this injunction have been made, and overruled as many times by as many as three or four different and very ����