Los Angeles herald., 1892-03-31
The Western Union Receives
a Knockout.
One Of Its Big Contracts Is
Nullified.
The Union Pacific Must Operate Its
Own Telegraph Lines.
Justice Brewer SO Decides In the United
States Circuit Court - Argument
in the Whisky Trust Cases
Begun.
Associated Press Dispatches.

Associated Press Dispatches.
WASHINGTON, March so. - Justice
Brewer of the supreme court, sitting as
Judge of the circuit court for the dis
trict embracing Nebraska, rendered q
decision declaring illegal the contract
under which the telegraph lines of the
Union Pacific Railroad company are
operated by the Western Union, and
directs the road hereafter to operate it's
own lines.
This suit was brought by the United
States under the act of congress, passed
in 1883, declaring that all railroads
which received government aid, and
were required under their charter to
maintain telegraph lines, shall hence
forth maintain and exercise by them
selves alone all the telegraph fran
chises conferred upon them. Under
this act the government sought to have
cancelled and annulled the contract
made July 1. 1881, between the Western
Union and Union Pacific, by which, as
claimed, the telegraphic franchises
granted the railway company were i'm
properly transferred to the telegraph
company.
The telegraphic franchise granted the
was not the mere right to place tele-
graphic wires along the railroad for its
own use. Telegraph wires are as much
part OF railroad as depots or wreck
ing trains. What was meant was tel
egraph line for public and commercial
uses, as independent and complete in
itself, as though not built along the
railroad right-of-way or used at ali in
connection with its operation.
The contract between the telegraph
company and the railroad, Justice
Brewer says, operates to transfer this
telegraphic franchise to the former, and
was intended to make it the exclusive
beneficiary thereof. The contract pro-
visions mean that telegraphic business
should be exercised by the Western
Union alone, and that no other COM
pany, railway or telegraph, should
touch it. The purpose, as disclosed in
every line of the contract, was that the
public and commercial use of the tele-
graph wires should belong to the West
ern Union, leaving to the railway only
such use of them as was necessary for
their own business.
Justice Brewer said he had no doubt
this transfer was beyond the authority
conferred by the granting acts of 1862
and 1864, but if there were any doubt it
has been removed by the act of 1888,
!, passed in the exercise of the reserved
| power to alter or amend the charter
commanding the railway to exercise all
the duties of it's telegraphic franchise.
The justice said he was inclined to as
| sumo, in the contentious of counsel for
the corporations, that the contract was
pecuniarily bent fetal to the railway,
and that the fact that the public inter
ests were subserved by placing the COM
mercial telegraph business in the hands
of the telegraph company was sustaina.
BILE, but the court could not, by reason
OF this fact, decline to enforce the plain
mandate of the government, which cre
ated the corporation and gave it its
power. 1t was for congress, not the
courts, to decide the question of policy.
In accordance with this opinion, the
court decided that an order be entered
setting aside the contract OF 1881, put
ting an end to the relations created by
and subsisting under it, between the
two companies, with mandatory in
junction upon the railway hereafter,
by its own agents and employees, not
through the instrumentality of the
Western Union, to exercise all it's lu-
ties created by it's telegfaphic fran
chises, and directing the Western Union
to vacate ali the offices of the railway,
with leave to the Western Union to
apply to have stated account with the
railroad as to the value of the property
jointly owned and used by the two
companies, and such other relief as
equity and good conscience require.
Attorney-General Miller expressed
his qualification at the decision of JUS
tice Brewer for the government in the
suit against the Union Pacific and West.
ern Union Telegraph companies. He
said there number of cases against the
Pacific roads dependent upon the same
principle.
The case is likely to be appealed to
the supreme court.