26 FEDERAL nnronrnn.
"The more effectively to carry out said course of dealing, and to enable it
sto enforce its rights and protect its interests as licensor, not itself carrying
on the telephone business in the state of Ohio, and to do this without destroy-
’ ing or dismembering the telephone system, we the serious inconvenience of the
individual users, in case of default or failure on the part of the licensee cor-
poration, the American Bell Telephone Company retains the technical legal
title to said telephones; and has the right, in case of default, or if said course
of dealingis not dulycarried out, to take possession of lines and instruments
temporarily or permanently, and thereafter to withdraw them from ope1·a-
tion, or cause them to be operated by itself or through other licensees, or
pursue various remedies at law and in equity to collect from each individual
user what he would otherwise have paid to the licensee corporation, or other-
V wise to step into the shoes of the licensee corporation, and then, retaining its
stipulated royalty or license fee, to account for the overplus to the licensee
corporation, or otherwise, according to=law; but no such steps have ever in
fact been taken in ·the state of Ohio. » ,
i “The license contracts to and with the licensee corporations, in respect of
instruments to be used on private lines, contemplated that the whole business
of selecting and soliciting customers for private lines. of communicating with
them, demanding and collecting all payments from them, and doing all busi-
ness in connection with them, should be performed by the licensee corpora»
tion as itsown business, at its own discretion, at its own expense, for its own
~ pront or loss, and at its own risk, and in its own right; and that (except in
case ofga cancellation of said contract for default) the American Bell Tele-
phone Company should neither demand nor receive, in respect of instruments y
usedon private lines, any payment whatever, except the monthly royalties "
to’be-paid to it at its oiiice, in Boston, Massachusetts, by the licensee corpora-
tion, as already stated, and whether the instruments furnished to the licensee
corporation were by it furnished to an individual user or not; and the busi-
ness, in fact, has been and is so conducted.
"The license contract also contemplated, but solely as a convenient means
for enabling the parties to exercise the rights arising thereunder, that, in re-
spect of each set of instruments for such private line, a special license should
also be furnished by the American Bell Telephone Company to the licensee
corporation, and by it countersigned and granted over to such individual users
as it might so select. So far as such special licenses have been furnished,
they have been furnished_ by the American Bell Telephone Company to its
licensee corporation in bulk, with the blanks unfilled, and the particular tel-
ephones not designated the1·ein, to be used by the licensee corporation as its -
property, and of right, and not as an agent, nor liable to be revoked at pleas-
ure by the American Bell Telephone Company, even before they were fur-
nished to individual users by the licensee corporation.
" As a matter of fact, the licensee corporations have not, with any consid-
erable degree of accuracy, returned to the American Telephone Company
duplicates of such special licenses when used, nor reported the names of the
private-line users to whom such special licenses have been furnished; but the
course of dealing at the present time is, and for a period long before the be-
ginning of this suit has been, for the licensee corporation to receive all its
telephones from the American Bill Telephone Company at Boston,Massachu-
setts, and to pay the stipulated royalties thereon under a general classifica-
tion thereof; according to their intended uses; but without discrimination as
to the particular customers to whom they might be furnished. and without
being precluded from using, for private lines, telephones ordered for ex-,
changes, or vice versa, when holding separate license contracts for both these
PUPPOSGS. •
"These, and all other provisions of detail in the license contracts, and in
the dealings between the American Bell Telephone Company and licensee cor-
porations, are intended and used to provide for and secure the licensee cor-