Title 47Telegraphs, Telephones, and RadiotelegraphsRelease 119-73

§9 Subsidized companies required to construct and operate lines

Title 47 › Chapter CHAPTER 1— - TELEGRAPHS › § 9

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

Railroad and telegraph companies that got federal land, bonds, or credit to build railroad or telegraph lines must build, keep up, and run telegraph lines. They must do this with their own officers and employees, use the telegraph for railroad, government, business, and other purposes, and alone fulfil the rights and responsibilities the government gave them in the grant laws.

Full Legal Text

Title 47, §9

Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

All railroad and telegraph companies to which the United States has granted any subsidy in lands or bonds or loan of credit for the construction of either railroad or telegraph lines, which, by the acts incorporating them, or by any act amendatory or supplementary thereto, are required to construct, maintain, or operate telegraph lines, and all companies engaged in operating said railroad or telegraph lines shall, by and through their own respective corporate officers and employees, maintain, and operate, for railroad, governmental, commercial, and all other purposes, telegraph lines, and exercise by themselves alone all the telegraph franchises conferred upon them and obligations assumed by them under the acts making the grants as aforesaid.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

47 U.S.C. § 9

Title 47Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73