The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-03-31

TheUnion Pacific Western Union Contract Void
WASHINGTON, March 3O.-Justice Brewer,
OF the supreme court, sitting as Judge OF
the circuit court of the district embracing
Nebraska, has rendered decision declar-
ing illegal the contract under which the
telegraph lines of the Union Pacific rail-
road are operated by the Western Union,
and directs the road hereafter to operate
its own lines.
This suit was brought by the United
States under the act of Congress passed
in 1888, declaring all railroads which
had received government aid and were
equired under their charter to nam
tain telegraph lines shall henceforward
maintain and exercise by themselves alone
all telegraph franchises conferred upon
them. Under this act the government
sought to have cancelled ana annulled the
contract made July, 1881, between the
Western Union and Union Pacific, by
which, as claimed, the telegraph franchises
granted the railway company by charter
acts were not mere right TO place tele-
graph wires along the railroads for their
own use. A telegraph wire is as much
part of the railroad as its depots or wreck
ing trains. What was meant was q tele-
graph line for public and commercial use
is as independent and complete in itself as
though not built along the railroad right
of way or used at all in connection with
it's operation. The contract between the
telegraph company and the railroad. JUS
tice Brewer says, operates to transfer this
telegraph franchise to the former and was
intended that it be the exclusive beneficiary
thereof The contract provisions meant
that the Geographic business should be ex
ercised by the Western Union alone and
that no other company, railway or tele-
graph, should touch it. The purpose as
disclosed in every line of the contract was
pubic and commercial use of the telegraph
wires should belong to the Western Union,
leaving the railway only so much use of
them as is necessary for its own business.
Justice Brewer said he had no doubt this
transfer was beyond the authority con-
ferred by the granting acts of 1862 and
1864, but if there were any doubt 1t had
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 exerc SO all the duties of its tel
egraph franchise. TIE justice said be was
inclined to assume the contentious of
counsel for the corporations and that
the contract was peculiarly bene-
fetal to the railway and that
the public interests in fact were
subserved by placing the commercial tele-
graph DuSlu0SS III Iu6 uauuS Ol UQ0 LGl0-
graph company was sustainable, but the
court could not by reason of this fact de-
cline to enforce the plain mandate of the
government which created the corporation
aud gave it its powers. 1t was for Con-
gress, not the courts, to decide the ques-
ton of policy.
In accordance with its opinion the court
directed an order to be entered setting
aside the contract of 1881 putting an end to
the relations created by and subsistiug
under it between the two companies, with
mandatory injunction upon the railway
hereafter by its own agents and employees,
not through the instrumentslity of the
Western Union, to exercise al its duties
created by its telegraphic franchises, and
directing the Western Union to vacate all
Offices of the railway, with leave to the
! Western Union to apply for and have
stated an account between it aud the rail
way as to the value of its property along
the line and jointly used by the two COM
panies and for such other relief as equity
and good conscience require.