roads and bridges, and agrees not to "furnish for any competing line any facilities or assistance that it may lawfully withhold." The Western Union is guaranteed the use of the railway company's depots and stations as against any other telegraph company, and the employees of the Union Pacific are forbidden to work for or have any connection with any other telegraph company. The claims of the Western Union under the nineteenth section of the act of July 1, 1862, and the fourth section of the Idaho Act are not admitted by the Union Pacific, and the contract provides that during its continuance they are to remain in abeyance.

For the maintenance and extension of existing telegraph lines along the railroads of the Union Pacific system, and for the construction and maintenance of new lines of telegraph along extensions of the railroads of the system, the railway company is to supply all the labor except a foreman, and the railway company and the telegraph company are to share equally the cost of poles, wires, insulators and other material. This arrangement, however, extends only to the erection of three wires for the exclusive use of each party between Council Bluffs and Ogden, two between Kansas City and Denver and one on the other roads of the system. If either party wishes more wires, it must erect them wholly at its own. expense. The telegraph company is to furnish the instruments, batteries, blanks and stationery for public business, and the railway company is to afford free freight transportation for telegraphic materials and supplies, and free passenger transportation for officers of the Western Union traveling on the company's business and for all employees of the Western Union traveling on business concerning the telegraphs along the Union Pacific. The telegraph business of the Union Pacific beyond its own lines the Western Union agrees to do without charge to the amount of $25,000 per year for the first 3400 miles of railroad owned or controlled by the Union Pacific and occupied by telegraph lines under the provisions of this contract, and to the amount of six dollars per year for every additional mile of railroad so owned or controlled and occupied.

Business in excess of this shall be paid for at half commercial day rates. Besides, the Western Union agrees to give the Union Pacific, for corporation purposes, the use of a wire from Omaha to Kansas City, connecting with the Union Pacific stations along the way. The payment of all taxes on telegraph property owned by either party is assumed by the Western Union. Both parties may retain their present telegraph offices, and either party may establish as many new offices as it wishes, subject to the following conditions: If the Western Union has no office in a given place and the railroad company has one, the Western Union may not establish another within a mile of the railway company's office without the consent of the railway company. If, however, the telegraph business of this locality is confined to the mile limit and the railway company's service is not satisfactory, the Western Union may enter the limit with an office of its own, if the consent of the arbitrators to whom the matter shall be referred can be obtained.

The railway company agrees that its employees shall not compete with the telegraph company's offices in the transaction of commercial telegraph business at any point where the telegraph company may now or hereafter have an office separate from the railway company's office, by cutting rates or by active efforts to divert business from the telegraph company.

A superintendent of all the telegraph lines on the Union Pacific, whether owned by railway or telegraph company, is to be "appointed and paid jointly," with the expectation that he will endeavor to serve and harmonize the interests of both parties. In fact,

it is mutually understood and agreed that all of the telegraph lines and wires covered by this contract, whether belonging to or used by the telegraph company or the railway company. . . shall form part of the general system of the telegraph company.

The preamble recites as one of the purposes of the contract that of

fulfilling the obligations of the railway company to the government of the United States and the public in respect of the telegraph service required by the act of Congress of July 1, 1862, and the amendments thereto.

And with a very obvious reference to the ground of unfaithfulness to charter obligations on which the superseded contracts had been declared void, the new instrument provides that the railway company shall transmit, at rates fixed by itself, all commercial messages presented at its offices. One-half of the receipts of such business, however, are to be turned over to the Western Union. The provision that the Union Pacific shall fix its own rates would seem to apply only to the main line between Council Bluffs and Ogden; but the provision is of little importance, since the Union Pacific is bound by the contract not to cut rates.

This contract is drawn for twenty-five years, but it cannot be terminated at the end of that time, or even at a later date, except by a year's previous notice. Disputes as to its true intent and meaning are to be settled by arbitration. If the Union Pacific fails to keep this contract, then the superseded contracts with the individual roads shall again come into force.

The validity of this new contract became a subject of legislative consideration, when a new rival of the Western Union, the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company, began to seek connections beyond the Missouri River. Now, however, in distinction from the situation when the American Union had the same design, the Union Pacific Railway was favorable to the Western Union's monopoly. The matter on this occasion never got into the courts, but was settled, as in the earlier case, by consolidation of the telegraph companies. Before the settlement was reached, however, the general subject of the relation of the bond-aided roads to their telegraphs had undergone considerable investigation.

In consequence of a resolution of the United States Senate, passed February 20, 1885, asking for information as to the telegraphic business of the bond-aided roads, the commissioner of railroads gave a hearing, February 27, to representatives of

the corporations interested.1 A year later, February 26, 1886, the House of Representatives passed a resolution empowering the committee on post-offices and post-roads

to ascertain whether additional legislation is needed to prevent a monopoly of telegraphic facilities; to secure to the Southern, Western, and Pacific States the benefits of competition between the telegraph companies; and to protect the people of the United States against unreasonable charges for telegraphic services.

The committee conducted an investigation in March and April and made a report to the House on the 22d of the following December.2 The testimony taken was quite voluminous, but it was almost all given by counsel and officers of the Union Pacific, the Western Union and the Baltimore and Ohio. In fact, the controversy between the rival telegraph companies was the source both of the hearing before the commissioner of railroads and of this investigation by the House committee. Nevertheless, valuable information was brought out concerning the telegraph of the Union Pacific, and some light was thrown on the legal aspects of this company's relations to the government and to the Western Union.

The difficulties of the Baltimore and Ohio arose from the fact that the Western Union refused to take its business to points beyond the Missouri at less than the regular rates to individual customers. But access to the western territory under conditions that would admit of competition with the Western Union would be gained, if the bond-aided roads could be induced or compelled to make traffic arrangements with the Baltimore and Ohio for an exchange of general telegraph business on the same terms and conditions as to rates, accounts and mechanical connections as were enjoyed by the Western Union. Accordingly, the Baltimore and Ohio demanded such arrangements for itself, but the Union Pacific refused to make them, maintaining that its duty to the Baltimore and Ohio was only its duty to an individual customer.

1 Senate Ex. Doc., 48th Cong., 2d sess., No. 105.
2 House Reports, 49th Cong., 2d sess., No. 3501.
8 Ibid., pp. 251-257.

The Baltimore and Ohio based its claim to equal treatment with the Western Union, first, on the fifteenth section of the act of July 2, 1864. This section required the companies

to operate and use said roads and telegraph for all purposes of communication, travel and transportation, so far as the public and the government are concerned, as one continuous line; and in such operation and use, to afford and secure to each equal advantages and facilities as to rates, time and transportation, without any discrimination of any kind in favor of the road or business of any or either of said companies, or adverse to the road or business of any or either of the others.

Discussion made clear, and the counsel of the Baltimore and Ohio were compelled to admit, that the obligation here imposed applied to the bond-aided roads and telegraphs only as among themselves, and not in their relations to outside roads and telegraphs. Discrimination within the meaning of this prohibition had arisen in years past, but none such was complained of now. Neither was it claimed that the further requirement of the section - to receive and transmit all messages of like character by whomsoever offered had been violated.

It being admitted that the statute did not require the bond-aided telegraphs to form continuous through lines with every connecting telegraph, a decision of the United States Supreme Court was cited to show that there was no such requirement by common law.

At common law a carrier is not bound to carry except on his own line, and we think it quite clear that if he contracts to go beyond, he may, in the absence of statutory regulations to the contrary, determine for himself what agencies he will employ. His contract is equivalent to an extension of his line for the purposes of the contract, and if he holds himself out as a carrier beyond that line, so that he may be required to carry in that way for all alike, he may, nevertheless, confine himself in carrying to the particular route he chooses to use. He puts himself in no worse position by extending his route with the help of others, than he would occupy if the means of transportation employed were all his own. He certainly may select his own agencies and his own associates for doing his own work.'

1 D. & N. O. R. R. vs. A. T. & S. F. R. R., 110 U. S., 667.