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by the use of its own batteries paid or commercial business over its one wire now erected along said line of telegraph. And provided further that not more than one additional wire shall, pending this suit, be erected by complainant, and the respondent Union Pacific Railway Company may complete the erection of a fourth wire, now partly erected, to be used only for its own and not for commercial or paid business, and with this exception no additional wires shall be erected or appropriated by either party until the final determination of this suit.

It is further ordered that the respondent, the American Union Telegraph Company, have leave to file an answer and cross-bill herein, and that the respondent, the Union Pacific Railway Company, have leave to amend its answer.

SAM'L F. MILLER.

(No. 12.)

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF RAILROADS,

Washington, February 24, 1885.

SIR: The following resolution was passed by the Senate February 20, 1885, and has been referred to this office for report :

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the other railroad companies affected by the act approved July 1, 1862, granting subsidies in bonds and lands, have constructed and are maintaining and are operating their own lines of telegraph, and whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price, and other conditions, as provided in section 15 of the act above referred to" (should be section 15 of the act of July 2, 1864). I have to request that you furnish this office, at the earliest practicable moment, with full information as to whether the Central Pacific Railroad Company is operating its telegraph franchise, or whether such franchise has been, in whole or in part, transferred to any other company or corporation, but more particularly as to "whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price and other conditions."

If the Central Pacific Railroad Company has transferred its telegraph franchise to any other company or corporation, or has made any contract authorizing any other corporation to transact its telegraph business since the agreement with the Western Union Telegraph Company, dated December 14, 1877, I will thank you to furnish this office with a copy of same.

I have been particularly requested to answer this resolution before the adjournment of the present session of Congress, and will therefore be greatly obliged if you will furnish this information immediately.

Very truly, yours,

Mr. C. P. HUNTINGTON,

W. H. ARMSTRONG,

Vice-President Central Pacific Railroad Company, New York City.

Commissioner.

(No. 13.)

(Office Central Pacific Railroad Company, No. 23 Broad street, C. P. Huntington, Vice-President.] NEW YORK, February 25, 1885.

DEAR SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 24th instant advising me that there had been passed by the Senate and referred to your office for report the following resolution, viz:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the other railroad companies affected by the act approved July 1, 1862, granting subsidies in bonds and lands, have constructed and are maintaining and operating their own lines of telegraph, and whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price and other conditions, as provided in section 15 of the act above referred to," and requesting me to furnish immediately such information as may be requisite to enable you to answer this resolution so far as it relates to the Central Pacific Railroad Company before the adjournment of the present session of Congress.

Your request for an immediate answer in respect to this matter does not give me the opportunity of communicating with the persons more directly charged with the executive administration of the affairs of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; but,

S. Ex. 2-3

as I understood it, the Central Pacific Railroad Company has constructed and is maintaining and operating its own line of telegraph, and telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price and other conditions, as provided in section 15 of the act referred to.

In reply to your inquiry as to whether the Central Pacific Railroad Company has transferred its telegraph franchise to any other company or corporation, or has made any contract authorizing any other corporation to transact its telegraph business since the agreement with the Western Union Telegraph Company, dated December 14, 1877, I have to say that so far as I have any knowledge upon the subject, and as Í understood it, the Central Pacific Railroad Company has not transferred its telegraph franchise to any other company or corporation, nor has it made any contract with any other corporation in respect to the transaction of telegraphic business upon its lines since the agreement with the Western Union Telegraph Company, dated December 14, 1877, a copy whereof has been heretofore furnished you at your request.

If the rights and duties in respect to telegraph lines of the several Pacific railroad companies under the acts of Congress relating thereto are to be made a subject of inquiry in your office, I would respectfully call your attention to the opinion upon that subject of Judge Miller, of the United States Supreme Court (concurred in by Judge McCreary), which is reported in the 1st volume of McCreary's Reports.

I remain, yours, very truly,

Hon. W. H. ARMSTRONG,

Commissioner of Railroads, Washington, D. C.

C. P. HUNTINGTON,

Vice-President.

(No. 14.)

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF RAILROADS,
Washington, February 24, 1885.

SIR: The following resolution was passed by the Senate February 20, 1885, and has been referred to this office for report:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the other railroad companies affected by the act approved July 1, 1862, granting subsidies in bonds and lands, have constructed and are maintaining and operating their own lines of telegraph, and whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price and other conditions, as provided in section 15 of the act above referred to" (should be section 15 of the act of July 2, 1864.)

I have to request that you furnish this office at the earliest practicable moment with full information as to whether the Union Pacific Railway Company is operating its telegraph franchise, or whether such franchise has been in whole or in part transferred to any other company or corporation, but more particularly as to “whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price and other conditions," as provided in section 15 of the act of July 2, 1864.

If the Union Pacific Railway Company has transferred its telegraph franchise to any other company or corporation, or has made any contract authorizing any other corporation to transact its telegraph business for the company, I will thank you to also furnish this office with a copy of such contract or agreement.

I have been particularly requested to answer this resolution before the adjournment of the present session of Congress, and will be therefore greatly obliged if you will furnish this information immediately.

Very truly, yours,

Hon. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Jr.,

W. H. ARMSTRONG,

Commissioner.

President Union Pacific Railway Company, Boston, Mass.

(No. 15.)

THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY,

(Equitable Building), Boston, February 25, 18-5.

SIR: I acknowledge receipt of yours of the 24th instant. In compliance with your request I transmit to you a copy of the only contract to which the inquiry contained therein can in any way apply, viz., that with the Western Union Telegraph Company, dated July 1, 1881.

It will be perceived that the contract provides for giving complete effect to the charter of the company so far as regards the transmission of messages, both for the public and for the Government. If this arrangement or channel of transmission shall in any instance prove not acceptable, the contract provides for the specific performance of all its telegraph duties by the company itself.

The contract is in substance a traffic or working arrangement, such as is made by this and all other railroad companies for the transportation of freight and passengers, and this with a view to increase for the benefit of the Government and itself the earnings of the telegraph lines.

It should be added, in relation to the Kansas Railway Company, that its duties and rights are somewhat peculiar, and they are explained and acted upon by Mr. Justice Miller in his opinion, in the case of -18.- (first McCrary Reports, p. 581). In reply to the specific inquiry on that point contained in your letter, I am advised that all telegraphic messages offered to the Union Pacific Railway Company are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations, without discrimination as to price or other conditions.

I remain, very truely, yours,

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Commissioner of Railroads, Washington, D. C.

Hon. W. H. ARMSTRONG,

(No. 16.)

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY,
New York, February 24, 1885.

DEAR SIR: I observe by the public prints that Senator Gorman, of Maryland, introduced a resolution in the Senate calling on the Secretary of the Interior to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railway Company and other Pacific companies which received subsidies have constructed and are maintaining and operating thereunder a line of telegraph, and whether telegraph messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons or corporations without discrimination as to the price or other conditions, as provided in section 15, of the act of July 1, 1862, meaning, doubtless, section 15 of the act of July 2, 1864.

I am advised that the Commissioner of Railroads has notified you that he has arranged that Mr. Bates, president and general manager of the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company, shall meet Mr. Armstrong, Commissioner of Railroads, in Washington, at an early day, in reference to matters embraced in the above Senate resolution. Under the circumstances, a statement of the rights of the Western Union Telegraph Company under existing statutes of the United States and contracts seem to be called for.

(1) In regard to the Kansas Pacific line.-There is but one line of telegraph on the road of the Kansas Pacific Company. That line of telegraph was constructed by the Western Union Telegraph Company as the successor of the United States Telegraph Company, under a contract with the Kansas Pacific Company made in the year 1866, which contract was authorized by the act of Congress approved July 2, 1864, entitled "An act for increasing the facilities of telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific States and the Territory of Idaho."

That the Idaho act authorized the making of the contract for the construction of this line of telegraph, and that the contract of 1866, under which this line of telegraph was constructed, is settled by the opinion of Mr. Justice Miller of the Supreme Court, in the case of the Western Union Telegraph Company against the Union Pacific Railway Company and the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, reported in 1 McCrary's Reports, 581, a copy of which opinion I annex hereto. In that opinion Mr. Justice Miller used this language: "The act of 1864, to which we have just referred concerning the United States Telegraph Company, was clearly designed to give it a similar privilege (to that contained in the nineteenth section of the act of July 1, 1862); and if the arrangement was made and that company should build or transfer its line to the line of the railway company the railroad company in like manner was released from the obligation to construct and build another line. I hold it, therefore, to be very clear that if the present line of telegraph, as it is now operated and run by the Western Union Telegraph Company, can be traced to the authority of that act of 1864, and the Western Union Telegraph Company in making that contract (to wit, the contract of 1866) exercised rightfully the powers conferred upon the United States Telegraph Company, that the contract is valid, although it forbids the railway company to convey commercial messages over the single wire which it has the right

to control for its own business." Our rights under this contract thus judicially sustained have never been released.

(2) On the main stem of the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha to Ogden, as on the Central Pacific Railroad, the Western Union Telegraph Company owns and operates a separate and distinct line of telegraph, established on said roads under the authority of section 19 of the act of July 1, 1862, the said Western Union Telegraph Company being the successor of the Pacific Telegraph Company, the Overland Telegraph Company, and the California State Telegraph Company therein mentioned. The Union Pacific Railway Company having also its separate and distinct line, for the purpose of economizing the expenses of maintenance and avoiding the unnecessary expense of duplicate offices at small stations, a contract was entered into for the maintenance of said lines at joint expense and for the operation of the wires of the Western Union Telegraph Company by the agents and operators of the railway company at small stations, such agents and operators being, for the purpose of operating the wires of the Western Union Telegraph Company, also the agents and operators of said company, thereby saving the expense of two sets of employés where one can render service.

Whilst it may be a proper obligation of the Union Pacific Railway Company to transmit over its own wires messages for all parties on the same terms and conditions, I beg to protest against the Union Pacific Company transmitting or being required to transmit messages over its own wires on the saine terms that are made to the Western Union Company for doing only a part of the service by the railroad company and over the wires provided by and belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company.

Such assumed equality would mean a great advantage to ar y other telegraph company, which would thereby be enabled to compete with the Western Union Company on the same footing as to revenues without having invested any capital for providing the necessary facilities for doing a telegraph business.

The Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, now merged by consolidation into the Western Union Telegraph Company, paid in 1871 to the Union Pacific Railway Company $1.780,000 of its capital stock as a compensation and indemnity for an additional wire to be constructed by the railway company to accommodate the business of said Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, then a competitor of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The messages of the Union Pacific Railway Company pertaining to its own railroad business having largely increased, occupy almost continuously the wire facilities owned by that company, and very frequently there is an overflow of such messages that have to be transmitted and are transmitted free of cost to the railroad company over the wires of the telegraph company.

To afford to any other telegraph company facilities for handling commercial business involves either that the railroad company shall at its own expense provide an additional wire for such business or that so much of its railway messages as will overflow by reason of such commercial business shall be transmitted over the wires of the Western Union Company and at the cost of that company.

The Western Union has two distinct classes of rights in respect of this line of telegraph, not common to any other company: First, it is the successor of the three telegraph companies mentioned in the nineteenth section of the act of July 1, 1862, which section authorized their lines of telegraph to be put along and upon the line of railroad as they now are.

Second, it is the successor by consolidation in 1881 of all the rights of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, which rights have been the subject of judicial decision by the United States circuit court for Nebraska, in the case of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company against the Union Pacific Railway Company, reported in 1 Federal Reporter, 745. The court there held that the Union Pacific Railway Company, having received from the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company $1, 780,000 of the capital stock of that company, which it retained, that the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company was entitled to an injunction to prevent the railway company from taking possession of the line of telegraph constructed by itself, until the rights and equities of all the parties under the contract, held to be ultra vires, were adjusted. Southern Pacific, Central Branch Union Pacific Railway Company vs. Western Union Telegraph Company (1 McCrary, 551), Southern Pacific, Western Union vs. Union Pacific Railway Company (1 McCrary, 558).

While these litigations were pending and undetermined, the existing contract between the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Union Pacific Railway Company was entered into, which contract does not disable the Union Pacific Railway Company from receiving and transmitting all commercial messages which may be offered to it; and in point of fact the Union Pacific Railway Company does receive and transmit without objection from the Western Union Telegraph Company, from all persons and corporations alike, all messages received by it upon the same terms and conditions and without any discrimination whatever.

An examination of the telegraph service along the lines of your railway will satisfy you that under the existing contract the service has been greatly improved to the public and the revenues of the railway company from such service greatly en

hanced, whilst, in addition to the share of tolls on telegraph business awarded to the railway company, the Union Pacific Railway Company receives also a telegraph service for railroad business over the lines of the Western Union Telegraph Company off of its roads and all over the country to the amount of $25,000 per annum, which, without such contract, it would have to pay for in money.

Very respectfully, yours,

Hon. CHARLES F. ADAMS, Jr.

President Union Pacific Railway Company, Boston, Mass.

NORVIN GREEN,

President.

(No. 17.)

Hearing before the Commissioner of Railroads.

INTERIOR DDPARTMENT,

OFFICE OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONER, Washington, D. C., February 27, 1885-11 a. m.

Hearing of gentlemen representing parties in interest, in relation to Senate resolution directing the Secretary of the Interior to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railway Company and other railroad companies affected by the act approved July 1, 1869, &c., have constructed and are maintaining and operating their own lines of telegraph, &c.

Present: Hon. Jere Wilson, representing the Union Pacific Railway Company; General Wager Swayne, representing the contract between the Union Pacific Railway Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company; Messrs. D. H. Bates, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company, and E. J. D. Cross, W. H. Clarke, and J. C. Reiff, representing the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company, and Mr. W. A. Allen, representing the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company.

Commissioner ARMSTRONG. The following resolution passed by the Senate of the United States, February 20, 1885, was referred to this office, and is as follows:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to inform the Senate whether the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the other railroad companies affected by the act approved July 1, 1862, granting subsidies in bonds and lands, have constructed and are maintaining and operating their own lines of telegraph, and whether telegraphic messages are accepted and transmitted for all persons and corporations without discrimination as to price, and other matters, as provided in section 15 in act above referred to."

When this resolution was referred to this office, I communicated the fact to both the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railway Company, and was also informed by Senator Gorman that Mr. Bates would be here to represent the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company; and I stated both to the Central and Pacific Railroads that if they desired to be present for any presentation of statements or facts on the subject, I would be very glad to have them do so.

I desire to state that I disclaim of sitting in a judicial capacity, or as exercising any judicial functions upon this question. This is a hearing only for the purpose of ascertaining the facts which will enable me to report to Congress the situation and the facts as they are, for their determination and consideration.

Mr. CROSS. I would like to inquire of the Commissioner if there is any particular order in which he wishes the matter presented to him.

Mr. SWAYNE. As far as I am concerned, I have no suggestion to make. I do not know what I am here to explain. I suppose the commissioner is here to ascertain facts, and I suppose we are here in pursuance of some complaint on the part of the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company, and if that is so I shall be glad to address myself to it.

Mr. CROSS As Mr. Bates is familiar with all the correspondence between the Baltimore and Ohio Company and the Union Pacific Railroad Company, I think he will in a very few words give a full statement of the trouble.

Mr. BATES. Mr. Commissioner and gentlemen, the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company has built, acquired, and is operating a system of telegraph lines covering quite a large area of country, and extending from Baltimore, on the east, to Galveston, on the southwest, and embracing within that area the majority of the principal. cities and trade centers, and taking in upon the different routes, of course, very many smaller places, and has connections with lines which reach Kansas City and Dallas, Tex., and has in contemplation other lines which, when finally completed, will place the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company at all the points of intersection of what

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