Opinion of the Court. whenever it chose so to do, Congress, subject to the limitation that rights actually vested or transactions fully consummated could not be disturbed, intended to keep within its control the entire subject of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, through the agency of corporations created by it, or that had accepted the bounty of the Government. It was never intended that the railroad companies, accepting such bounty, should be able, by any contract or arrangement with telegraph companies, to discharge themselves, for all time and beyond the authority of Congress otherwise to provide, from the obligation to exercise, by their officers and agents exclusively, the telegraphic franchises received by them from the National Government. These principles are fully supported by former decisions, in which this court has determined the scope and effect of constitutional or statutory provisions that reserved to the legislat ure granting charters of incorporation, or enacting statutes under which private rights might be acquired, the power to alter, amend, or repeal such charters or statutes. Tomlinson v. Jessup, 15 Wall. 454, 457, 458; Miller v. State, 15 Wall. 478; Holyoke Company v. Lyman, 15 Wall. 500; Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, 720, 721; Greenwood v. Freight Co., 105 U. S. 13, 21; Close v. Glenwood Cemetery, 107 U. S. 466, 476; Spring Valley Water Works Co. v. Schottler, 110 U. S. 347, 352; Louisville Gas Co. v. Citizens' Gas Co., 115 U. S. 683, 696; Gibbs v. Consolidated Gas Co., 130 U. S. 396, 408; Sioux City Street Railway v. Sioux City, 138 U. S. 98, 108; Louisville Water Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 1, 12, 14; Hamilton Gas Light Co. v. Hamilton City, 146 U. S. 258, 270; N. Y. & N. E. Railroad v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 556, 567. What has been said in reference to the effect of the reservation in the act of 1862 of the right of adding to, altering, amending, or repealing its provisions, is applicable to the fourth section of the Idaho act of July 2, 1864, which permitted the several railroad companies referred to in the act of 1862 to make an arrangement with the United States Telegraph Company, such as was permitted by the nineteenth section of the act of 1862 to be made with the telegraph companies therein Opinion of the Court. named. The fourth section of the Idaho act was, in legal effect, nothing more than an amendment or enlargement of the nineteenth section of the act of 1862, by adding the name of another telegraph company to those mentioned in the latter section. It was suggested in argument that the objects of the act of 1862 could be fully accomplished by means of a telegraph company, incorporated by one of the States, and which, by placing its lines on the route of the railroad, could meet all the demands, as well of the railroad company, as of the Government and the general public. But this suggestion can have no weight in the present inquiry. For if, as intimated, the execution of the act of 1888 will result in no real good to the general public, and may even be injurious to the pecuniary interests which the Government has in the Union Pacific Railway and its branches, that is a question of public policy, with which the judiciary is not concerned, and the responsibility for which is with another branch of the Government. We perceive no escape from the conclusion that it is entirely competent for Congress to add to, alter, or amend the acts of 1862 and 1864, so as to require the Union Pacific Railway Company, possessing the rights and powers of its constituent companies, to maintain and operate, by and through its own officers and employés, telegraph lines, for railroad, governmental, commercial, and other purposes, and to exercise itself and alone all the telegraphic franchises conferred upon it. It is enjoying the bounty of the Government subject to the condition, among others, that it will perform these duties. whenever so required by Congress. It becomes necessary now to determine in what respects the agreements of 1866, 1869, 1871, and 1881, if kept and performed by the defendants, are inconsistent with the rights of the United States, and whether, by their necessary operation, they will interfere with the performance by the Union Pacific Railway Company of the duty imposed upon it by the act of 1888. Looking first at the agreement of October 1, 1866, between the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, and the Western Union Telegraph Company, it will be seen that the Western Union Telegraph Company does not, in that agree Opinion of the Court. ment, expressly undertake to meet the obligations imposed by the Pacific Railroad acts upon the railroad companies named in them, of constructing, maintaining, and operating both a railroad and telegraph line, on their respective routes, for the use equally of the Government and the public. It does undertake to perform, without charge to the railway company, what should be "decided by competent authority" to be the telegraphic obligations of the railroad company to the Government. 10. Whom the parties regarded as competent to decide as to the nature and extent of such obligations, does not appear from the agreement. The effect of this stipulation, as between the railway company and the telegraph company, was to excuse the latter from performing any services for the Government, until competent authority decided that such service was due from the former. But passing this point, as one not controlling in the case, it is evident that the effect, if not the object, of the agreement was to give the telegraph company the absolute control of all telegraphic business on the route of the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division. The provision that the railway company should transport for the telegraph company, free of charge, all the persons engaged, and material required, in the construction, repairing, and maintaining the telegraph line for which the agreement provided, while exacting from other telegraph companies, for persons engaged and for property intended to be used, in building a telegraph line on the railway company's roadway, the usual rates for passengers and freight, SS 4, 5; the stipulation that the railway company should not give permission. to another telegraph company to construct or operate any telegraph line upon the lands or roadway of the railway company, without the consent in writing of the telegraph company, § 5; the provision that the railway company should not, without the consent of the telegraph company, transmit commercial or paid business from any station where the latter had an office; and the provision that the railway company should account for and pay over to the telegraph company, at the tariff rates established by the latter, all sums received by Opinion of the Court. the railway company for messages sent from points where the telegraph company had no separate office, if such sums were not sufficient to meet the expenses of a separate telegraph office, § s these provisions, to say nothing of others, all plainly indicate that the object of the agreement was to grant to the Western Union Telegraph Company, as against all other telegraph companies, the exclusive right to control the railway company's roadway for telegraphic purposes, so far as that could be done without interfering with the ordinary operations of the railway company. This agreement of October 1, 1866, enabling the Western Union Telegraph Company to exclude all other telegraph corporations from the roadway of the railway company, if not void as against public policy, independently of specific statutory provisions, was inconsistent with the act of Congress of July 24, 1866, 14 Stat. 221, c. 230, entitled "An act to aid in the construction of telegraph lines, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes." The substantial provisions of this statute have been preserved in sections 5263 to 5268, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes. By the act of June 8, 1872, 17 Stat. c. 335, pp. 308, 309, reproduced in section 3964 of the Revised Statutes, all the waters of the United States, during the time the mail is carried thereon, and all railroads or parts of railroads in operation, are post roads. And by the above statute of 1866 Congress declared that any telegraph company then organized, or which might thereafter be organized, under the laws of any State of the Union should have the right to construct, maintain, and operate lines of telegraph through or over any portion of the public domain of the United States, over and along any of the military or post roads of the United States which had been or might thereafter be declared such by act of Congress, and over, under, or across the navigable streams of the United States; the lines of telegraph to be so constructed and maintained as not to obstruct the navigation of streams and waters, or interfere with the ordinary travel on military or post roads. "And any of said companies," the act declared, "shall have the right to take and use from such public lands the necessary Opinion of the Court. stone, timber, and other materials for its posts, piers, stations, and other needful uses in the construction, maintenance, and operation of said lines of telegraph, and may preëmpt and use such portion of the unoccupied public lands, subject to preemption through which its said lines of telegraph may be located as may be necessary for its stations, not exceeding forty acres for each station; but such stations shall not be within fifteen miles of each other." The remaining sections of that act were as follows: "§ 2. That telegraphic communications between the several departments of the government of the United States and their officers and agents shall, in their transmission over the lines of any of said companies, have priority over all other business, and shall be sent at rates to be annually fixed by the Postmaster General. § 3. That the rights and privileges hereby granted shall not be transferred by any company acting under this act to any other corporation, association, or person: Provided, however, The United States may at any time, after the expiration of five years from the date of the passage of this act, for postal, military, and other purposes, purchase all the telegraph lines, property, and effects of any or all of said companies at an appraised value, to be ascertained by five competent, disinterested persons, two of whom shall be selected by the Postmaster General of the United States, two by the company interested, and one by the four so previously selected. § 4. That before any telegraph company shall exercise any of the powers or privileges conferred by this act, such company shall file their written acceptance with the Postmaster General of the United States of the restrictions and obligations required by this act." It is clear that the essential part of the agreement of 1866 is prohibited by this act of July 24, 1866. As that act gave every telegraph company, organized under state laws, and accepting its provisions, the right to erect its poles and wires upon the post roads of the United States, the agreement of the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, that it would not permit, except with the consent of the Western Union Telegraph Company, other telegraph companies to use its roadway, |