Birmingham state herald., 1895-11-19
U. s. SUPREME COURT.
The Case Against the Union Pacific Railroad Company Setted-0ther important
 Cases Decided.


 thority of Johnson vs. Sayre, decided at the last term of the court, the supreme court of the United States today reversed the order of Judge Hughes of the federal court for the Eastern district of Virginia releasing James VanVranken from the custody of John F. McClensil, an officer of the United States navy.
 VanVranken was a clerk of Paymaster Bellows, who had been found guilty by naval court martial of converting to his own use $1223 of the funds entrusted to the paymaster and sentenced to impris- onment for a year. Judge Hughes re- leased VanVranken, holding that he was amenable to the civil courts for his crime and not to the military. This po- sition the supreme court said in the case of Johnson vs Sayre, involving precisely the same state of facts, was incorrect, and reversed the order of the release. In the meantime, however, VanVranken, 1t is said has taken himself out of the Jurisdiction of the naval authorities.
 The conviction and sentence of w. H. Clune, Isaac Ross and Phillip Stanwood in the United States court for the South ern district of California was affirmed today by the supreme court of the United States, the opinion being read by MT. Justice Brewer.
 The appellants were local officers in Los Angeles of the American Railway union and were indicted for conspiracy to obStruct the mails on the Southern Pacific railroad at the time of the great railway strike in the summer of 1894. They were sentenced by Judge Ross to Imprisonment in the countU-jail at Los Angeles for eighteen months and ap- pealed from that judgment. The only question of law considered " the court was one raised in the argument of the case, that 1t was incompetent for con- gress to impose heavier penalty for con- spiracy to commit a crime than that i'm posed for the commission of the crime itself. This Judge Brewer said was in- correct; the power exists to separate the conspiracy from the crime itself and to affix distinct and independent penalties to each. There was no error in the trial of the convicted men and the judgment of the court below was affirmed.
 The long pending case of the United States against the Union Pacific Railroad company and the Western Union Tele- graph company was settled today by the unanimous decision of the supreme court announced in an opinion delivered by Justice Harlan. The decision Is one of the most important that has been made by the supreme court, affecting the rela- tions of the government and the Pacific railroads, declaring as 1t does that con- gross has the right to add to- amend or alter the acts of 1S62-64 granting aids in bonds and land to the company for the construction of it's line. The proceeding involved in the present decision was brought by the attorney-general in pur- suance to the direction contained in the Anderson act of 1885, which required all companies engaged in operating railway or telegraph lines which had been aided in any way by the government to main tain and operate through their own re- spective corporate officers the telegraph lines for all purposes and to exercise by themselves alone the telegraph franchises rha c1at brought in the circuit court for the Eighth circuit, and originally heard by Justice Brewer, who declared the arguments between the Western Union and Union Pacific Telegraph company,by which the former held exclusive right to operate the government lines along the railroad of the latter, to be null and void and non- effective, and directed the Union Pacific to at once put an end to all relations between it and telegraph companies and to operate its own line of telegraphs. The case went to the circuit court of appeals, and Judges Caldwell and Thayer re- versed Judge Brewer in modified de- cree, but holding generally that the end sought by the government could be se- cured only by other legal means, and dismissng the bill for want of jurisdic- tion. The supreme. court, by it's decision today, reversed the decree of the court of appeals and affirmed that of Judge Brewer at circuit.
 The Opiiinon iurther HoiuS uhdt since the passage of the act of 1866 no tele- graph company can by contract with a railroad company operating one of the post roads of the United States over which interstate commerce is conducted acquire an exclusive right to such rail- roads for telegraph purposes.
 The cause was remanded to the circuit court with instructions to make sup plemental decree, enlarge the period in which the railroad companies may make such arrangements, adjustments and changes as shall become necessary by reason of annulling of the contracts by them to carry out the provisions of the |