United States v. Railway & Telegraph Cos. promote the public interest and welfare by the construction of" said railroad and telegraph line, and keep the same in working order, and to secure to the government at all times (but particularly in time of war) "the use and benefits of the same for postal, military and other purposes," sec. 18; these and other provisions are wholly inconsistent with the idea that the Union Pacific Railroad Company could have fulfilled its obligations to the government by simply constructing a railroad, without making any provision whatever for [the construction, maintenance or operation of a telegraph line, thereby leav ing all communication by telegraph, along its route, to the absolute control of private corporations deriving no corporate authority from the National Government, and whose operations would not ordinarily be subjected to national supervision. The same observations are applicable to the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Great Western Railroad Companyafterwards, and successively, as has been stated, the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, and the Kansas Pacific Railway Company. That corporation was authorized to construct not simply a railroad, but a railroad and telegraph line, between certain points, upon the same terms and conditions as were prescribed in the act for the construction of a railroad and telegraph line by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The purpose of Congress, as indicated in the act of 1862, to provide for the construction of telegraph lines by the companies named in it, in connection with their respective railroads, was unchanged at the time of the passage of the amendatory act of July 2, 1864, c. 216. The latter act, as we have seen, gave authority to the companies authorized to participate in the construction of the roads that were to connect the Missouri river with the Pacific ocean to place a first mortgage on their respective railroads and telegraph lines, and made the mortgage held by the United States United States v. Railway & Telegraph Cos. subordinate to it. Sec. 10. It did more. It required those companies to operate and use their roads and telegraph for all purposes of communication, travel and transportation, so far as the public and government were concerned, "as one connected, continuous line," and without discrimination against either road-a requirement that would not have been made if Congress had not intended that each company receiving aid from the government should itself maintain and operate or control, or should provide for the maintenance, on its own route, and under its own control, of a telegraph line for the accommodation of both the government and the general public. What we have said as to the objects that Congress intended to accomplish by aiding the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean is based upon sections one to eighteen, inclusive, of the act of July 1, 1862, and upon the provisions of the amendatory acts of July 2, 1864, c. 216, and June 20, 1874, 18 Stat. 111, c. 331. If we look alone to those sections and provisions, the conclusion must be that any company named in the act of 1862, and receiving the aid therein granted by the government, was required itself, and through its own officers and employes, to construct, maintain and operate both a railroad and telegraph line, and could not assign or transfer to any other corporation its franchises in that regard. But there is a section in the act of 1862 showing that, for the benefit of certain telegraph companies that had already expended large sums in the construction of telegraph lines, Congress was willing, in a named contingency, to relieve the railroad companies receiving governmental aid, from at least, any present obligation to construct telegraph lines on their respective rights of way. That contingency is indicated in the nineteenth section of the act of 1862, which provides: United States v. Railway & Telegraph Cos. "That the several railroad companies herein named are authorized to enter into an arrangement with the Pacific Telegraph Company, the Overland Telegraph Company and the California State Telegraph Company, so that the present line of telegraph between the Missouri river and San Francisco may be moved upon or along the line of said railroad and branches as fast as said roads and branches are built; and if said arrangement be entered into, and the transfer of said telegraph line be made in accordance therewith to the line of said railroad and branches, such transfer shall, for all purposes of this act, be held and considered a fulfilment on the part of said railroad companies of the provisions of this act in regard to the construction of said line of telegraph. And, in case of disagreement, said telegraph companies are authorized to remove their line of telegraph along and upon the line of railroad herein contemplated without prejudice to the rights of said railroad companies named herein." A similar provision relating to the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the United States Telegraph Company and its associates was embodied in the fourth section of the act of Congress, commonly known as the Idaho act, of July 2, 1864, c. 220, 13 Stat. 373, entitled "An act for increased facilities of telegraph communication between the Atlantic and Pacific States and the Territory of Idaho." By the latter act the United States Telegraph Company and their associates were authorized to erect a line or lines of magnetic telegraph between the Missouri river and San Francisco on such routes as they might select, to connect with its lines then constructed and being constructed through the States of the Union. It was given the use of such unoccupied land of the United States as was necessary for right of way, and materials, and for the establishing of stations along said line for repairs, not exceeding at any station one quarter-section of land, and such stations not United States v. Railway & Telegraph Cos. to exceed one in fifteen miles on the average of the whole line, unless said lands should be required by the government of the United States for railroad or other purposes. Sec. 1. Under the direction of the president of United States it was authorized to erect a telegraph line from Fort Hall to Portland, Oregon, and from Fort Hall to Bannock and Virginia City, in the Territory of Idaho, with the same privileges as to the right of way, and so forth, as provided in the first section; the United States to have priority in the use of said lines of telegraph to Oregon and Idaho. Sec. 2. It was authorized to send and receive despatches, on payment of the regular charges for transmission, over any line then or thereafter to be constructed by the authority or aid of Congress, to connect with any line or lines authorized or erected by the Russian or English governments, and all despatches received by its line or lines were to be transmitted in the order of their reception, and the answers delivered to the United States Telegraph Company for transmission over their lines to the office whence the original message was sent, whenever so directed by the sender thereof. Sec. 3. By the fourth section it was provided: "The several railroad companies authorized by the act of Congress of July one, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, are authorized to enter into arrangements with the United States Telegraph Company so that the line of telegraph between the Missouri river and San Francisco may be made upon and along the line of said railroads and branches as fast as said roads and branches are built, and if said arrangements be entered into and the transfer of said telegraph line be made in accordance therewith to the line of said railroads and branches, such transfer shall, for all purposes of the act referred to, be held and considered a fulfilment on the part of said railroad companies of the provision of the act in regard to the construction of a telegraph line; and, in case of disagreement, said telegraph company are authorized to remove United States v. Railway & Telegraph Cos. their line of telegraph along and upon the lines of railroad therein contemplated, without prejudice to the rights of said railroad companies.' Referring to the nineteenth section of the act of 1862, Mr. Justice MILLER, in Western Union Tel. Co. v. Union Pacific Railway, 3 Fed. Rep. 721, 728 (1 McCrary, 581, 588), said: "The three telegraph companies here spoken of, together constituted, at the time this statute was passed, a continuous line of telegraph from the Missouri river to San Francisco; and it was obvious that the building of another line parallel to that, and not far distant from it, would have a very injurious effect upon the value of the property of those telegraph companies; and it was to protect those companies and to prevent the injury which would follow from the construction of another line between the same points, over an uninhabited region of country, that Congress provided that, by an arrangement with the railroad company, if those companies should remove their wires along the line of that road so they could be used both for railroad purposes and the use of the general public, then the obligation of the railroad company under the act of Congress to build another line should no longer exist." In reference to the fourth section of the Idaho act, the same eminent justice said: "It does not admit, in my opinion, of any reasonable doubt that if the United States Telegraph Company mentioned in that statute, or any company which had the same rights and authorities on that subject that that company had, entered into an agreement with the Pacific Railroad Company, or any of its branches built under the authority of the original act of 1862, which secures the proper construction and operation of a line of telegraph along its road for the benefit of the public, that it is absolved from the obligation imposed upon it by the act of 1862, to construct and operate such a telegraph line. It was manifestly the design of this act of 1864 to enable the United States Telegraph Company to |