UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN BELL T1·:r.12rHONn oo. 25
expense, or at the expense of users to whom it furnishes telephones, all needed
lines of wires, and furnishes all batteries and other appliances; the telephones
as they have been in fact furnished not being intended to be used, or adapted
to be used, without such wires, batteries, and appliances. The licensee cor-
· poration selects the customer who is to use such telephones, and iixes the
price charged to him; but no matter what price it charges, nor whether it
puts the telephones to use, or lets them lie unused in its store~house, it agrees
to pay, and does pay, to the American Bell Telephone Company the said stip-
ulated price per month for each instrument.
" The whole of the business connected with the telephones, from the time
the licensee corporation received them from the American Bell Telephone
Company at its general oiiice or factory, in Boston, Massachusetts, until it re-
turns them to said company, is done at the risk and expense of the licensee
corporation, under its direction and control, and by ofiicers and agents ap-
pointed and paid by it. The American Bell Telephone Companydoes not
direct or control, and has not the right to direct or control, such business;
does not participate in the profits thereof; aud is not responsible for, and does
not bear the burden of, the losses thereof. It does not select nor dismiss such
officers and agents, nor pay them, nor bear any of the burden of payment to
them for their salaries. It does not, in fact, by itself, or any odicer or agent
employed by it, use telephones in the state of Ohio. It has not in fact, and _
at no time since the tiling of this bill nor long before, used, or had a right to
use, any telephone existing, nor any telephone line existing, in the state of
Ohio, and it has never itself built or operated a telephone line in the state of
Ohio. It does not select what individual users shall be furnished with tele-
phones and lines, nor control their selection. It does not solicit business, nor
direct who shall be solicited, and has not the power or right to do either. It
is not responsible to the individual user for bad service, and does not receive
complaints therefor. It does not, and for many years last past it has not,
(and it is believed that it never has,) demanded or received any money from
any individual user of telephones in the state of Ohio.
" In originally arranging for such conduct of the telephone business in the
state of Ohio, (and elsewhere in the United States,) the American Bell Tele-
phone Company sometimes found a licensee corporation disposed to under-
take one branch or subdivision of the several branches into which it has been
found convenient to divide the telephone business; as, for example, one
licensee corporation might undertake the construction and operation of a
telephone exchange in one town, another licensee corporation in another
town, and another licensee corporation the business of building lines to con-
nect these two exchanges. In such cases, the American Bell Telephone Com-
pany stipulated for and reserved, for example, in each exchange license, the
right to construct connecting lines, and connect them with the exchange, and
other similar rights to make connections and through lines; but it contem-
plated that such other lines would be built and operated by other licensee cor-
porations, and therefore made such stipulations and reservations in favor of
its appointees or assigns as well as itself, and provided that, when its ap-
pointees or assigns undertook such work, they should become pro tzmto the
contracting parties, and the American Bell Telephone Company should not
be responsible for their misfeasance or non-feasanoe. And further, for the
same purpose, it established such regulations that diiferent licensee corpora-
tions needing to interchange business or connect lines should do so in a cou-
venient manner, without the power of either to obstruct the same by mere
self-will; but it has not otherwise undertaken to regulate such business. In
fact, it has not itself, in the state of Ohio, undertaken or carried on such
business, but the same has been entirely undertaken and carried on and per-
formed by its various licensee corporations. In many cases one licensee cor-
poration has successively undertaken to extend its business as aforesaid into
the other branches and connecting exchanges or lines.