Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/365

125 U. S. 680, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1028, a statute of a state, classifying its railroad corporations by the length of their lines, and fixing a different maximum rate that might be charged for transporting passengers by each class, was sustained. In Railway Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. 8. 205, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1161, a statute making railway companies liable to a servant for injuries received by the negligence of a fellow servant, was held not to violate the amendment. In commenting upon these cases, counsel for the appellant use the following language, which we think fairly state the conclusions to be drawn from them: “These decisions establish beyond dispute the principle that the legislature may classify persons, and enact laws applicable to each class, each law operating, in respect both of the privileges conferred and the liabilities imposed, upon the members of its particular class only, and not upon the members of any. other class. They establish the further principle that railroad corporations may be placed in a class by themselves, and be subject to new and additional burdens and liabilities.” No other conclusion is possible in view of these cases, which, upon the point now under discussion, are binding upon this court. Indeed, the power to classify railroads for purposes of taxation was expressly recognized in the Kentucky Railroad Tax Case, 115 U. S. 321, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 57, where a statute was upheld which provided a different method for ascertaining the value of railroad property from that provided for other property. The power to classify railroads, banks, and other corporations for purposes of taxation, and to accept from them, in lieu of the customary taxes, a specified percentage of their gross earnings, has over and over again been affirmed, and cannot now be questioned. 1 Desty, Tax’n, 145; Cooley, Tax’n, 69; Bank v. Knoop, 16 How. 369; Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331; Bank v. Skelley, 1 Black 436; Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 206; Daughdrill v. Insurance Co., 31 Ala. 91; State v. Railroad Co., 45 Md. 361; Worth v. Railroad Co., 89 N. C. 291; Wright v. Sill, 2 Black 544; Gardner v. State, 21 N. J. Law 557; State vy. Commissioner, 37 N. J. Law 240, State Lottery Co. v. New Orleans, 24 La. Ann. 86; LeRoy v. ilroad Co., 18 Mich. 233; St. Louis v. Bank, 49 Mo. 574;