Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-09
TELEGRAPH TOLLS.
President Noryin Green Comes Back at
the POstmaster-General.
He calls that officials Attention to His Igno-
rance OF Law, and Insists that Rate
of One Mill is Too Low

!
! ing response:
! Hon. John Wanamaker, Postmaster General.
DEAR SIR-Acknowledging7 the receipt
of your letter of August ,, beg to say
much regret that the publication of my
letters to you to which you refer was
rendered necessary by The extraordinary
| statements "'on information furnished
this (your) department. contained in
! your letter of July Is and extensively
| printed in the newspapers the following
| day. You again refer to the privileges
! aud benefits derived by this company
4 through the acts of congress, and es-
! pecially-the act of 1866 and you say
"Under these grants the company has
claimed the right to use, without COM
pensation of any kind ;, as right of way
all the highways of the country on the
ground of their being post roads. 1t has
| brOadened this claim to the extent that
| the streets of cities and towns are also
| post roads and therefore open and free to
its occupancy and use. The courts have
| sustained it in this claim -
| Either you or we are very badly in
| formed by our respective legal advisors
as TO what has been claimed by the tele-
graph company and held by the courts in
respect to the scope and authority of
that grant. 4 have had occasion from
time to time to go through the records in
great many cases, but do not recall
any Instances i'll whichF such claim has
been made and sus tanned by the courts
What we understand the government did
give us in the act of 1866 was franchise
and right to do telegraph business in all
the states, and this franchise was given
FOL
parties who might accept it, and sub
sequentIyy. by what was known as the
Butler amendment, it was especially ex-
tended to all railroad companies. But
the act never assumed to give us and
could not give us the right to plant our
poles on any but lands actually belong
ing to the government, and that right
we have very rarely exercised except
when the government waEtedf lis to eX-
tend lines, for the conveniences of the
government, into its navy yards and
military posts and stations or to
Its department quarters' in the
city of Washington. Had ,syou carefully
read the decision in the Pensacola tele-
graph case, to which you refer, you
would not have fallen MIG such &
grievous error on this point. Chief Jus
tice Waite in the body of the opinion
thus defines the scope Of the act of 1866
under considerations;
No question arises as to the authority
of congress to provide for the appropria-
ton Of private property to the uses Of
the telegraph, for no such attempt has
been made. The use of public property
alone issgranted. If private property is
required it must, so far as the present
legislation rs concerned. be obtained by
private Arrangement with its owner. No
compulsory proceedings are authorized.
State sovereignty under the constitution
is not interfered with; only national
privileges are granted. -
The decision IN this case therefore was
that the state of Florida could not pro-
hibit the Western Union telegraph COM
pany from erecting and operating its lines
of telegraph in that state after
it had acquired a right of way for its
plant from q railroad company of that
state, but did not hold that it was ex-
empt from the obligation to buy or con-
denim, under the state statutes, the
I! property necessary to enable it to build
ITS lines. The railroads are post roads as
we'll 's3some of the highways, and if the
government gives US the right of way on
post roads, why should we have to pay
the railroad companies for it? We have
u
way from the parties who own them,
whether railroad companies turnpike and
plank road companies, or individual land
owners, and in case of streets and high
ways we have to obtain license from the
city, county or state authorities or con-
denim under authority of state laws. |
sincerely wish that your ideas of the law,
that we Ssre-in fact occupying many thou
sands of post roads and are privileged to
accept all the highways in the United
States under the grants OF that act, may
prove sound in law, but we have not re-
lied on that grant and are satisfied that
the courts would not sustain your views.
Our occupancy of the streets is always by
license of the local authorities or of the
state, and in the case of the elevated
railroad company in the city of New
York, to which you refer, we pay the
companies who own the structure Tor the
right to string our wires thereon.
; The act 20 which you refer gives the
telegraph companies accepting it the
right to take stone and timber from the
public lands and to pre-empt and enter
not exceeding forty acres, and since the
passage of that act the railroads across
the continent have afforded ample facili-
ties for transportation of cedar poles
which is more durable and economical
than the native timber that might posi-
bly, be found accessible on unOccupied
government lands.
AS to the presumption of forty acres OF
land for station, we have found that
wherever telegraph station was needed
there were no occupied government
lands, and if we were to establish a sta
ton on any forty acres of unoccupled
government lands it would be in local
itY that would yield no revenue. 1t is
true, therefore, that we have never
taken a stone or stick of timber, or ap-
propriated foot OF public land under
that law. The franchise granted this
company, in common with other parties.
was not supposed to be solely for our
benefit, but to secure convenient facili-
ties TO the public. The effect of estab-
fishing our right to do business in Pensa-
cola was to wipe out charge of 81 for a
ten-word message for distance of forty
five miles over line that claimed the
exclusive franchise under the state
law and the establishment of a branch
office in the navy yard at that
port which TO this day we are operating
for the benefit of the government at a
loss, the business of that Office not being |
sufficient to pay the salary of the opera
tor.
Second, we seem to be getting nearer
together SIS il is the power and duty of |
the postmaster general to name the rate |
of tolls to be paid on government mes