Susquehanna Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. United Telephone & Telegraph Co.

WOOLLEY, Circuit Judge.

This case had its rise in the early days of the telephone, when numberless local corporations, not realizing the operative and commercial scope of the invention, built short lines and established small systems in limited areas. They did this largely on borrowed money. The outcome of these adventures, as their history shows, was feeble success or complete failure, resulting ultimately in receiverships or absorption by' larger concerns. After purchase or merger, properties thus acquired, being already pledged for money borrowed, were usually pledged again by the absorbing…