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U. S. 628, a law requiring railroads to heat their passenger coaches but exempting roads of less than fifty miles in length was declared not unconstitutional and discriminatory. To like effect is Dow v. Beidelman, 125 U. S. 680, where a classification of railroads by their length in fixing the rate of passengers' fare was sustained.

In Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 688, a tax was graduated according to the amount and value of the property measured by miles, and was in lieu of taxes levied directly on the property. Held valid. In Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, 170 U. S. 283, legacies less than a certain amount were held legally exempt from taxation.

To these cases may be added others. They illustrate the power of the legislature of the State over the subjects of taxation and the range of discrimination which may be exercised in classifying those subjects when not obviously exercised in a spirit of prejudice and favoritism. Cook v. Marshall County, 196 U. S. 261, 274; Missouri v. Dockery, 191 U. S. 165. The cases decided subsequent to the decision in Bell's Gap Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, have applied its principle to many varying instances. Granting the power of classification, we must grant Government the right to select the differences upon which the classification shall be based, and they need not be great or conspicuous. Keeney v. New York, 222 U. S. 525, 536. The State is not bound by any rigid equality. This is the rule; its limitation is that it must not be exercised in "clear and hostile discriminations between particular persons and classes." See 223 U. S. 59, 62, 63. Thus defined and thus limited, it is a vital principle, giving to the Government freedom to meet its exigencies, not binding its action by rigid formulas but apportioning its burdens and permitting it to make those "discriminations which the best interests of society require."

We think the statute under review is within the rule.

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It is not arbitrary. It has a reasonable basis, resting on a real distinction. It is not a distinction based on mere size only, as contended by appellant, nor upon the mere amount of business done. There is a difference in the doing of the business and its results; a difference in the relation to the public. Indeed, the non-taxed companies, are subsidiary to the taxed companies, patrons, in a sense, of the taxed companies. The use of the untaxed property, as pointed out by the District Court, is "predominantly private, while the use of the taxed property is correspondingly public; the exempt property is used for the personal convenience of the owners, while the taxed property represents commercial investment for profit making purposes." To these differences the court added others: "(1) That the property exempted is only a trifling portion of the whole; (2) that the cost of assessing and collecting in this class would be disproportionate to the amount which would be realized; (3) that this property is in the incipient or development stage, while the taxed property is in the fully developed form." All were differences which could appeal to the legislature and determine a difference of treatment. To accomplish it they had to be united in a class, and, as happily said by Judge Denison in the Circuit Court, the companies were described “in terms of earnings instead of in terms of method and use." It seems, however, that by the selection of earnings as a basis of classification all of the differences we have enumerated are not exactly accommodated. Some small portion of the cooperative companies will be taxed and some small portion of the profit-making companies will be exempt. This result is not, we think, an impeachment of the basis of classification, as the cases we have cited illustrate. Besides, the appellant is not affected by the inexactitude.

The second question in the case is whether the purpose of act No. 49, of 1909, under which the appellant was

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assessed, is sufficiently expressed in its title. Prior to the passage of that act certain specified classes of corporations, such as railroad, express companies, etc., were taxed under the provisions of act No. 282 of the acts of 1905, supra.

The title of act No. 49 and § 1 are as follows:

"An act to amend the title and certain sections of Act No. 173 of 1901 relating to the taxation of railroads and express companies.

"Section 1. The title and sections 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 18 and 21 of Act No. 282 of the Public Acts of 1905, entitled 'An Act to provide for the assessment of the property of railroad companies, union station and depot companies, sleeping car companies, express companies, car loaning companies, stock car companies, refrigerator car companies, and fast freight line companies, and for the levy of taxes thereon by a State Board of Assessors, and for the collection of such taxes, and to repeal all acts or parts of acts contravening any of the provisions of this act,' are hereby amended to read as follows:

"TITLE. An act to provide for the assessment of the property, by whomsoever owned, operated or conducted, of railroad companies, union station and depot companies, telegraph companies, telephone companies, sleeping car companies, express companies, car loaning companies, stock car companies, refrigerator car companies, and fast freight companies, and all other companies owning, leasing, running or operating any freight, stock, refrigerator, or any other cars, not being exclusively the property of any railroad company paying taxes upon its rolling stock under the provisions of this Act, over or upon the line or lines of any railroad or railroads in this State, and for the levy of taxes thereon by a State Board of Assessors, and for the collection of such taxes, and to repeal all acts or parts of acts contravening any of the provisions of this act.'

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Opinion of the Court.

229 U. S.

The contention is that there is nothing in the title to indicate the intention of adding to the act of 1905 "new classes of business to those already taxed by the ad valorem method, so as to include telephone companies." It is hence further contended that the act is invalid, the constitution of the State providing that "no law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title."

There can be no doubt that the purpose of the act was to extend to telegraph and telephone companies the provisions of the act of 1905, which provided for the assessment of the property of certain companies and the levying of taxes thereon by the State Board of Assessors, and the method of collecting such taxes. Its title explicitly states that the purpose is to amend the title and the act relating to the taxation of railroad and express companies and the particular sections which consummate the purpose are referred to and declared in § 1 to be amended. The title, therefore, is a substantial compliance with the constitution of the State, and the brief of appellee shows thirty-eight examples of like kind in the laws of the State. This legislative and executive construction is entitled to weight, and, when considered in connection with the consequence of making those laws invalid as well as declaring the law under review invalid, would determine - against the construction urged by appellant even if we had doubt of the sufficiency of the title to give notice of the purpose of the legislation. See Attorney General v. Amos, 60 Michigan, 372; Grimm v. Secretary of State, 137 Michigan, 134; Common Council of Detroit v. Schmid, 128 Michigan, 379; People v. Howard, 73 Michigan, 10; City of Detroit v. Chapin, 108 Michigan, 136.

Decree affirmed.

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CITIZENS' TELEPHONE COMPANY OF JACKSON v. FULLER, AUDITOR GENERAL OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN.

No. 285. Argued May 2, 1913.-Decided June 10, 1913.

Decided on authority of preceding case.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Thomas P. Bradfield and Mr. Jacob Kleinhans for appellant submitted.

Mr. Roger I. Wykes, with whom Mr. Grant Fellows was on the brief, for appellee.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellant is a telephone company, located at the City of Jackson, State of Michigan, doing an extensive business. It brought this bill in equity to restrain the collection of a tax levied under the laws considered in the preceding case, Citizens' Telephone Co. v. Fuller, ante, p. 322. It is substantially like the bill in the latter case.

A demurrer was filed to the bill and, being overruled, an answer was filed. After hearing, a decree was entered dismissing the bill. This appeal was then taken.

The questions presented are the same as those presented in the preceding case and were submitted at the same time and on the same argument. On the authority of the opinion in that case the decree is

Affirmed.

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