because it is within the jurisdiction of the state. There is no inconsistency in the state's recognizing at the same time that the property of the corporation, that which gives the plaintiff's stock its value, is taxed or untaxed, as the case may be. There is no inconsistency in recognizing that it is untaxed because it cannot be reached. Shares of stock may be within a state, and the property of the corporation outside it. A large latitude is allowed to the state for classification upon any reasonable basis. Kidd v. Alabama, 188 U. S. 730.

§ 450. State taxation of local managers of foreign packing houses. The equal protection of the laws is not denied a managing agent of a nonresident meat-packing house by the imposition, under a Georgia statute of a license tax on the domestic business conducted by him, since such act applies to managing agents of both domestic and foreign houses. There is no discrimination in favor of the agents of domestic houses, and, while it may be suspected that the act was primarily intended to apply to agents of ultra state houses, there is no discrimination upon the face of the act, and none, so far as the record shows, upon its practical administration. As has been frequently held, the state has the right to classify occupations and to impose different taxes upon different occupations. Such has been constantly the practice of Congress under the internal revenue law. What the necessity is for such tax, and upon what occupations it shall be imposed, as well as the amount of the imposition, are exclusively within the control of the state legislature. So long as there is no discrimination against citizens of other states, the amount and the necessity of the tax are not open to criticism in the Federal Supreme Court. Kehrer v. Stewart, 197 U. S. 60.

§ 451. Excluding foreign corporation. The equal protection of the laws is not denied by a state statute, passed in the exercise of its power over foreign corporations,

incorporating a local benevolent society with the same name as that of a voluntary state association whose charter had been withdrawn by the foreign corporation that issued it, and conferring upon such society the exclusive right of granting subcharters in the state. No doubt a law specially directed against a foreign corporation might be unconstitutional, for instance, as depriving it of its property without due process of law. But when the so-called property consists merely in the value that there might be in extending its business or membership into a state, that property, it hardly needs to be said, depends upon the consent of the state to let the corporation come into the state. A state has the right to exclude a foreign corporation and to forbid its constituting branches within its limits. As it had the right before the corporation got in, so it had the right to turn it out after it got in. It follows that the state could impose the more limited restriction that simply forbade the granting of charters to subordinate branches. It is contended that the restrictions upon the foreign corporation which flow from the charter granted to the domestic corporation amount to the denial of the equal protection of the laws to a person within its jurisdiction. But the power of the state as to foreign corporations does not depend upon their being outside of its jurisdiction.

Those within the jurisdiction, in such sense as they can ever be said to be within it, do not acquire a right not to be turned out except by general laws. A single corporation might be expelled by a special act, and equally could be restricted in the same way. National Council v. State Council, 203 U. S. 151.

§ 452. Notice to nonresidents-Validity of tax sales. Nonresident owners of land within the levee district created by the Arkansas act of February 15, 1893, are not denied the equal protection of the laws or the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States because § 11 of that act, as amended in 1895, while requiring per

sonal service of summons upon resident owners or occupants for at least twenty days before rendering a decree of sale for unpaid levee taxes, provides for constructive service by publication upon nonresident owners of only four weeks. The court held there was no doubt of the power of the state so to discriminate. Personal service upon nonresidents is not always within the state's power. Its process is limited by its boundaries. Constructive service is at times a necessary recourse. The land stands accountable to the demands of the state, and the owners are charged with the laws affecting it and the manner by which those demands may be enforced. This accountability of the land and the knowledge the owners must be presumed to have had of the laws affecting it is an answer to the contention of the insufficiency of service.

Certainly it was not so insufficient that it can be said that a difference in the time allowed for such service was not the equivalent of that allowed to resident owners. Ballard v. Hunter, 204 U. S. 241.

§ 453. Discrimination between residents and nonresidents. The distinction between resident and nonresident owners of abutting property in the act of May 19, 1896, creating a drainage system for the District of Columbia, in that the coercion of the law as to making connections with a sewer is by criminal punishment in the case of residents, whereas, against nonresident owners, the District does the work in case of their neglect, and assesses the cost against the property as a tax, does not invalidate the statute for discrimination, even assuming that Congress is forbidden to enact discriminating legislation. Whether Congress is expressly or impliedly prohibited to discriminate in its legislation, the prohibition cannot be stricter or more extensive than the Fourteenth Amendment is upon the states. It has been repeatedly decided that the amendment does not take from the states the power of classification, and that such classification need not be either logically appropriate or scientifically accu

rate. The problems which are met in the government of human beings are different from those involved in the examination of the objects of the physical world, and assigning them to their proper associates. A wide range of discretion, therefore, is necessary in legislation to make it practical, and the courts cannot be made a refuge from ill-advised, unjust, or oppressive laws. The act in controversy makes a distinction in its provisions between resident and nonresident lot owners, but this is a proper basis for classification. Regarded abstractly as lot owners, no legal difference may be observed between residents and nonresidents; but, regarded in their relation to their respective lots under regulating laws, the limitations upon jurisdiction, and the power to reach one and not the other, important differences immediately appear. The law treats all resident owners alike and all nonresidents alike. It is contended that nonresident lot owners are not treated the same as resident owners in like situation, because against resident owners the coercion of the law is by criminal punishment, while against nonresident owners the remedy is by civil proceedings. The District does the work that the nonresident owners neglect, and charges the expense thereof on their property. This is a distinction, a discrimination, it may be called, but it has even more justification than that sustained in Field v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 194 U. S. 618. The statute under consideration in the case at bar enjoins a duty on both resident and nonresident lot owners, a duty necessary to be followed to preserve the health of the city. There is a difference only in the manner of enforcing it,—a difference arising from the different situation of the lot owners, and therefore competent for Congress to regard in its legislation. In other words, under the circumstances presented by the record, the distinction between residents and nonresidents is a proper basis for classification. It might not be under other circumstances. District of Columbia v. Brooke, 214 U. S. 138.

§ 454. Taxing shares of foreign corporations. The Indiana statute taxing shares of foreign corporations when owned by inhabitants of the state does not deny the owner the equal protection of the laws because, in the case of domestic corporations, it is the property, and not the shares, which is taxed. This case is practically disposed of by Kidd v. Alabama, 188 U. S. 730, where the real matter of complaint, that the property of the corporation presumably is taxed in Tennessee, is answered. Objection is made that the statute works a discrimination against stock in corporations of other states, contrary to principles often recognized. The most serious aspect of this objection is that the statutes of Indiana do not make allowance if a foreign corporation has property taxed within the state. The plaintiffs in error did not show that this was their case, and therefore they could not complain on that ground. The principle of substantial equality of taxation is not violated in this case. Darnell v. Indiana, 226 U. S. 390.

§ 455. Excise tax on foreign corporations. A foreign corporation which has paid all the local taxes theretofore assessed against it, and has a leasehold for storerooms in the state, is not denied the equal protection of the laws by the exaction under the authority of Massachusetts Pub. Stat. 1909, chap. 490, of an excise tax upon the privilege of doing business within the state, although domestic corporations may be favored under the statute. This case is distinguished from Southern Ry. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, in that there was no acquisition of permanent property such as was shown in the Greene case. There is no question of the continued authority of the state to tax a foreign corporation for the privilege of doing business within its borders, which authority the state possesses so long as it does not violate rights secured by the Federal Constitution. Even if domestic corporations are favored the statute is not invalid for no limitation upon the power of a state to exclude foreign corporations