Charles Evans Hughes

“ The Western Electric Company not only manufactured apparatus for the licensees of the Bell system but engaged in other large operations and it cannot be merely assumed or conjectured that the net earnings on the entire business represent the net earnings from the sales to the Bell licensees generally or from those to the Illinois Company. ”

“ The court found that the Illinois Company owns and operates all the property in the city of Chicago used in interstate calls and connects with the property owned by the American Company at the city limits. In the method used by the Illinois Company in separating its interstate and intrastate business, for the purpose of the computations which were submitted to the court, what is called exchange property, that is, the property used at the subscriber's station and from that station to the toll switchboard, or to the toll trunk lines was attributed entirely to the intrastate service. ”

“ The record shows, however, that the license to use various patented devices, the patents covering which are the property of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, together with engineering, financial and advisory services, are of great actual value to the Chicago Telephone Company such value being evidenced in part by the actual annual saving effected over and above the operating costs should such devices and services not be available. ”

“ If a single individual or corporation, having a number of technical staffs, engaged directly in local public services within several States, each State would be entitled to regulate the transactions within its own domain according to its own conception of public policy, provided there were no infringement of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, and, if the latter were invoked by reason of the action of any State, it would still be necessary to consider the local enterprise separately and to make whatever apportionments were necessary in that view. ”

“ Much of this research and planning work has been done for the Bell System companies by a central organization of a few carefully selected engineers and accountants, and in this way it has been done better and more economically than if each of the numerous operating companies had been left to its own initiative. The independent telephone companies have also profited from this work.' Telephone and Railroad Depreciation Charges, Proposed Report of August 15, 1929. ”

“ The revenue of $29,850,303 received under the cntr acts during 1926 only slightly more than offset the estimated cost of over $29,250,000.'↑ With respect to these changes the American Company stated in its report for 1927: 'As the business grows and the country grows, conditions change. In the early days of the telephone business it seemed essential that telephone instruments be owned and maintained by a central organization. ”