the bridge and its approaches, and the present company did not purchase under that decree the property free and clear of any of the provisions of the obligations imposed by the act of Congress. Credits Co. v. United States, 177 U. S. 311. Congress had the right under the reserved powers in the charter to regulate the manner of the use of the public highway for said public highway for reasonable compensation and that is what was done by this act. Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700; Canada Southern Railway v. International Bridge Co., 8 Fed. Rep. 192; New York & New England Railroad Company v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 567; Tomlinson v. Jessup, 15 Wall. 459; Miller v. State, 15 Wall. 498; Railroad Company v. Mane, 96 U. S. 510; Pearsall v. Great Northern Railway, 161 U. S. 646, 656.

It was a mere regulation of the use; and by taking the property under foreclosure it took it burdened with all of the easements to the full extent. Lake Erie & Western Ry. Co. v. Priest, 131 Indiana, 413; Midland Ry. Co. v. Fisher, 125 Indiana, 19; Central Trust Co. v. Kneeland, 138 U. S. 414; St. Joseph &c. Co. v. Chicago, &c. Co., 89 Fed. Rep. 648. Harris v. Youngstown Bridge Co., 90 Fed. Rep. 328; Fosdick v. Schall 99 U. S. 251; United States v. New Orleans Railway, 12 Wall. 362; Bear Lake Irrigation Co. v. Garland, 164 U. S. 16; Northern Pacific v. Townsend, 190 U. S. 267.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

The Mason City Company contends that its right to the use of the bridge and approaches was determined by the decision of this court in Union Pacific Railway Company et al v. Chicago &c., Railway Company, 163 U. S. 564. And further, that if mistaken in this contention it has that right under the statutes of the United States, and by the terms of a contract between the Union Pacific Railroad Company, on the one hand, and the city of Omaha and County of Douglass, Nebraska, on the

other. The case in 163 U. S. arose on two contracts, one between the Union Pacific Railway Company and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Company, and the other between the first named company and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company. The opinion of the Circuit Court, 47 Fed. Rep. 15, considered only the contracts, sustained them, and entered a decree for the plaintiffs, awarding the joint use of the bridge and its approaches. That decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 2 C. C. A. 174, and the case was thereupon brought on appeal to this court. Here the decision was rested not simply on the contracts but also on an obligation held to have been imposed on the defendant by the statutes of the United States, the court saying (p. 586):

"For the provisions of the Pacific Railroad acts relating to the bridge over the Missouri River, its construction and operation, imposed on the Pacific Company the duty of permitting the Rock Island Company to run its engines, cars and trains over the bridge and the tracks between Council Bluffs and Omaha, and we think that South Omaha was included."

This was followed by several paragraphs pointing out the statutes imposing the duty. Counsel for the Union Pacific Company in the case at bar earnestly contend that so much of that opinion, as referred to this statutory obligation, was obiter dictum, that the statutes were misconstrued, and also that the status of the present Union Pacific Company differs so much from that of the then defendant as to make the ruling inapplicable.

We are unable to yield our assent to these contentions. While the claim of the plaintiffs in that case was founded directly upon contracts, yet if there were a statutory duty to let them into the joint use of the bridge and its approaches that was enough to sustain a decree in their favor, and the contracts might be regarded as simply relieving the court of the work of settling minor matters, such as method of use, compensation therefor, and matter of control. Indeed, the alleged invalidity of the contracts was rested largely on the scope of the statutes,

and the duties to the Government and the public imposed thereby on the railroad company. Of course, where there are two grounds, upon either of which the judgment of the trial court can be rested, and the appellate court sustains both, the ruling on neither is obiter, but each is the judgment of the court and of equal validity with the other. Whenever a question fairly arises in the course of a trial, and there is a distinct decision of that question, the ruling of the court in respect thereto can, in no just sense, be called mere dictum. Railroad Companies v. Schutte, 103 U. S. 118, in which this court said (p. 143):

"It cannot be said that a case is not authority on one point because, although that point was properly presented and decided in the regular course of the consideration of the cause, something else was found in the end which disposed of the whole matter. Here the precise question was properly presented, fully argued and elaborately considered in the opinion. The decision on this question was as much a part of the judgment of the court as was that on any other of the several matters on which the case as a whole depended."

Further, we see no reason to question the conclusion announced in the former opinion. Chap. 67 of the Laws of Congress, 1871, 16 Stat. 430, granting power to issue bonds for the construction of the bridge, provided that "for the use and 'protection of said bridge and property, the Union Pacific Railway Company shall be empowered, governed, and limited by the provisions of the act entitled 'An act to authorize the construction of certain bridges, and to establish them as post roads,' approved July twenty-five, eighteen hundred and sixtysix, so far as the same is applicable thereto."

The act referred to in this quotation (14 Stat. 244) authorized the construction of nine bridges, as to the first of which (a bridge across the Mississippi River at Quincy) it was stated that "when constructed all trains of all roads terminating at said river, at or opposite said point, shall be allowed to cross said bridge for reasonable compensation, to be made to the owners of said bridge."

To the seven provided for by succeeding sections authority is granted "upon the same terms, in the same manner, under the same restrictions, and with the same privileges as is provided for in this act in relation to the bridge at Quincy, Illinois."

The remaining one of the nine bridges (that over the Mississippi River at St. Louis) was to be constructed by the St. Louis and Illinois Bridge Company, "subject to all the conditions contained in said act of incorporation and amendments thereto, and not inconsistent with the following terms and provisions contained in this act."

It is insisted that the act of 1871 makes applicable to the Omaha bridge only the two or three provisions in the act of 1866 common to all the bridges named therein, and as the section authorizing the bridge at St. Louis contained no direction for its use by terminating railroads, that requirement, although imposed on all the other bridges, was not brought into the act of 1871, and is inapplicable to the Omaha bridge. Counsel for the Union Pacific Company have also called our attention to a few statutes authorizing the construction of bridges which contain no provision in respect to use by other railroad companies. As against this, counsel for the Mason City Company have cited over 350 acts, to be found in the several statutes of Congress, from the fifteenth to the thirty-second volume, in each of which there is a direction for use by other companies. Obviously, that was the general policy of Congress, and the few exceptions thereto were dictated by the peculiar circumstances of the cases.

Bearing in mind this general policy of the Government, we think it a fair construction of the act of 1871 that incorporating, as it did, the provisions of the act of 1866, it must have intended to incorporate not merely those in terms applied to all the bridges, but also one in harmony with that general policy and applied to substantially all, and this, although in reference to a single bridge, other and special directions were made. Aside, therefore, from any reliance upon the doctrine of stare decisis, the act of 1871 must be considered as requiring the

Union Pacific Company to permit the trains of all roads terminating at the Missouri River at Omaha to use its bridge up to the fair limits of capacity, and on payment of reasonable compensation.

It may be remarked in passing that it is expressly conceded in this case by the Union Pacific Company that there is no question of the reasonableness of the compensation tendered, or the capacity of the bridge and approaches for the service asked by the Mason City Company.

The final question is this: Is the status of the present Union Pacific Railroad Company, the appellant, so different from that of the company to which it is a successor as to render inapplicable the decision in the Rock Island case and to nullify the requirements of the act of 1871?

What are the facts? The acts of Congress, July 1, 1862, 12 Stat. 489; July 2, 1864, 13 Stat. 356, creating the Union Pacific Railroad Company, authorized it to mortgage its road for $16,000 a mile, (increased to $48,000 a mile in the mountainous districts), and loaned the credit of the United States for an equal amount, secured by a second lien on the property. The initial point of the main line of the Pacific Railroad was fixed on the Iowa bank of the Missouri River opposite the city of Omaha. Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Hall et al., 91 U. S. 343. On March 1, 1865, the Union Pacific Railroad Company executed its first mortgage, conveying its entire line from the western boundary of the State of Iowa to its western terminus. This mortgage in terms included the road "heretofore constructed or hereafter to be constructed." The act of 1871 authorized a mortgage of not exceeding two and a half million of dollars to raise money for the construction of the bridge. This mortgage was executed, the money raised and the bridge built. The act of 1862, section 18, provided that "the better to accomplish the object of this act, namely, to promote the public interest and welfare by the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, Congress may,

at any time, having due regard for the rights of said companies