edge upon which others must rely, then legislation properly steps in to impose conditions upon its exercise. The concluding clause of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment simply requires that such legislation shall treat alike all persons brought under subjection to it. The equal protection of the law is afforded when this is accomplished. From the adjudications it is evident that the Fourteenth Amendment does not limit the subjects in relation to which the police power of the state may be exercised for the protection of its citizens. That this power should be applied to railroad companies is reasonable and just. The statute of Iowa placed an absolute liability upon them for injuries to cattle committed in the operation of their roads by reason of the want of proper guards against accidents. If, therefore, the company omits those means, the omission may well be regarded as evidence of such culpable negligence as to justify punitive damages where injury is committed; and if punitive damages in such cases may be given, the legislature may prescribe the extent to which juries may go in awarding them. Minneapolis and St. L. Ry. Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26.

§ 389. Reasonableness of railroad rates. By the second section of the act of the state of Minnesota, approved March 7, 1887, to regulate common carriers, it was provided that all charges made by a common carrier for the transportation of passengers or property shall be equal and reasonable. Under this provision, the carrier has a right to make equal and reasonable charges for such transportation. In the present case, the return alleged that the rate of charge fixed by the Commission provided by the law was not equal or reasonable, and the supreme court held that the statute deprived the company of the right to show that judicially. The question of the reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation by a railroad company, involving as it does the element of reasonableness both as regards the company and as

regards the public, is eminently a question for judicial investigation, requiring due process of law for its determination. If the company is deprived of the power of charging reasonable rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus, in substance and effect, of the property itself, without due process of law, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States; and in so far as it is thus deprived, while other persons are permitted to receive reasonable profits upon their invested capital, the company is deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418.

§ 390. Assessing railroads to meet expenses of state railroad commission. The South Carolina railroad law of 1882, authorizing assessment and tax upon railroad companies to meet the expenses and salaries of the state railroad commissioners, is not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. Requiring that the burden of a service deemed essential to the public, in consequence of the existence of the railroad corporations and exercise of privileges obtained at their request, should be borne by the corporations in relation to whom the service is rendered, and to whom it is useful, is neither denying to them the equal protection of the laws nor making any unjust discrimination against them, all railroad corporations in the state being treated alike in this respect. If the tax were levied to pay for services in no way connected with the railroads, whilst railroad corporations were at the same time subjected to taxation upon their property equally with other corporations for such expenses, and other corporations were not taxed therefor, there would be just ground of complaint of unlawful discrimination against the railroad corporations, and of their not receiving the equal protection of the laws. But there is nothing of this nature in the tax in question.

Due Process-12

The railroad commissioners are charged with a variety of duties in connection with railroads, the performance of which is of great importance in the regulation of those instruments of transportation. It is evident that their duties, when properly discharged, must be in the highest degree beneficial to the public. That the state has the power to prescribe the regulations mentioned there is no question. Railroads are the recipients of special privileges from the state, to be exercised in the interest of the public, and assuming those obligations, their business is deemed affected with a public use, and to the extent of that use is subject to legislative regulation. The mode or manner of regulation is a matter of legislative discretion. When exercised through commissioners, their services are for the benefit of the railroad corporations as well as of the public. Both are served by the required supervision over the roads and means of transportation, and there seems to be no sound reason why the compensation of the commissioners in such case should not be met by the corporations, the operations of whose roads and the exercise of whose franchises are supervised. In exacting this there is no encroachment upon the Fourteenth Amendment. Requiring that the burden of a service deemed essential to the public, in consequence of the existence of the corporations and the exercise of privileges obtained at their request, should be borne by the corporations in relation to whom the service is rendered, and to whom it is useful, is neither denying to the corporations the equal protection of the laws nor making any unjust discrimination against them. Charlotte, C. & A. R. Co. v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386.

§ 391. Taxation of railroads-Law of Georgia. The law of Georgia providing a system of taxation of railroad property in each of the counties of the state through which said railroads run, and for other purposes, does not violate that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which declares that

"no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." A railroad company has not any constitutional right to have its transitory property assessed for taxation in the county in which is its principal office; the distribution, among the several counties, of such property, for taxation, is not such a discrimination against the railroad as denies to it the equal protection of the laws. The mode of distribution of the unlocated or transitory personal property of a railroad company, for the purpose of taxation, is a matter of regulation by the state legislature, which in no way involves a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The objection raised against the statute was that the act in question discriminated against the railroad company in not taxing its unlocated or intangible personal property at the place of the railroad company's domicil or principal office, while the intangible personal property of all other persons is taxed in and by the county in which the owner resides and has his domicil. Changing the situs of such unlocated property of a railroad company, and distributing it to the counties through which the road extended, in no way violated the rule of uniformity or discriminated against the railroad company.

There was no claim that the rate of taxation levied by any county on the assessed value of the property within its limits was greater than on other property; nor was the valuation different from that placed upon other property. Plaintiff in error had no constitutional right to have its rolling stock, and other unlocated personal property, taxed in the county where it had its principal office, and giving such property a different situs, by distributing it among the counties through which the road extended, was no unjust discrimination and violated no constitutional rights. Distributing such property proportionately between the counties traversed by the road, it thereby became subject to the same rate of taxation as other property in the respective counties. This involved no inequality, and no failure to extend to the plaintiff in

error the equal protection of the laws. Columbus Southern R. Co. v. Wright, 151 U. S. 470.

§ 392. Requiring railroad companies to bear entire expense of abolishing grade crossings. The inhibitions of the Constitution of the United States upon the impairment of the obligation of contracts, or the deprivation of property without due process of law or of the equal protection of the laws, by the states, are not violated by the legitimate exercise of legislative power in securing the public safety, health and morals. There is no unjust discrimination and no denial of the equal protection of the laws in regulations applicable to all railroad corporations alike; nor is there necessarily any denial nor an infringement of the obligation of contracts in the imposition upon them in particular instances of the entire expense of the performance of acts required in the public interest. The statute in question is directed to the extinction of grade crossings as a menace to public safety, and is therefore within the exercise of the police power of the state. It was argued that the existing grades of railroad crossings were legally established, in accordance with the then wishes of the people, but, with the increase in population, crossings formerly safe had become no longer so; that the highways were chiefly for the benefit of the local public, and it was the duty of the local municipal corporation to keep them safe; that this law applied to railroad corporations treatment never accorded to other citizens in allowing the imposition of the entire expense of change of grade, both costs and damages, irrespective of benefits, on those companies, and in that respect, and in the exemption of the town from its just share of the burden, denied to them the equal protection of the laws. The Supreme Court of the state held that as railroad crossings are in the nature of nuisances, the legislature had a right to cause them to be abated, and to require either party to pay the whole or any portion of the expense. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that railroad cor