Opinion of the Court.

This court further held that the question of the cash valuation of the company's property was a question of fact, the determination of which was committed to the state board of tax commissioners; and that the decision of the board could not be overthrown by evidence going only to show that the fact was otherwise than as so found and determined. 154 U. S. 434, 435.

By § 69 of the statute of Indiana of 1891, telegraph companies, incorporated under the laws of any other State, besides being taxable upon their tangible property in Indiana in the same manner as other tangible property was taxed, were required to make annual returns of their receipts from business in the State, including the proportion of gross receipts for business done in connection with the lines of other companies; and to pay a tax of one per cent on such receipts.

The supplemental and amendatory statute of March 6, 1893, c. 171, now in question, repealed that section of the statute of 1891, and substituted provisions very like those of the statutes of Massachusetts, above considered, for the taxation of the telegraph property, and not essentially different from those of the statute of Indiana of 1891 for the assessment of railroad. property, except in being more favorable to the company by expressly providing for a deduction of the value of real property outside the State from the total valuation.

By 1 of the statute of 1893, every telegraph company, whether incorporated under the laws of Indiana, or of any other State, engaged in telegraph business in Indiana, was required to return annually to the auditor of the State a statement of its whole capital stock, the par value of its shares, their market value, or, if they had no market value, the actual value thereof; its principal place of business; its real estate, machinery and appliances, subject to local taxation in each county and township within the State; its real estate outside the State and not directly used in the conduct of its business, and the sums at which such real estate was assessed for local taxation; the mortgages upon the whole or any part of its property; the whole length of all its lines, the length of its lines outside the State of Indiana, and the length of its

Opinion of the Court.

lines in each county and township within the State. By §§ 6, 7, the state board of tax commissioners, "after examining such statements, and after ascertaining the value of such properties therefrom, and from such other information as they may have or obtain," and requiring books and papers to be produced, and witnesses to be examined "in case they shall deem it necessary to enable them to ascertain the true cash value of such property," were required to value and assess the property of each company by ascertaining the true cash value of its entire property, for that purpose taking the aggregate value of its shares, if they had a market value, or if they had none, the actual value thereof or of the capital of the company; then, for the purpose of ascertaining the true cash value of the property within the State, (first ascertaining and deducting the assessed value for taxation, in the localities where the same was situated, of its real estate outside the State, and not specifically used in its general business,) taking the proportion of the whole aggregate value of its property, as above ascertained, which the length of its lines within the State bore to the total length of its lines; and deducting therefrom the assessed value for taxation of real estate, machinery and appliances within the State and subject to local taxation in the counties and townships.

The Supreme Court of Indiana considered the present case to be governed by the decisions of this court in the cases of the Railroad Companies v. Backus, above cited; and, after referring to some of the passages above quoted from those decisions, added: "All that is thus forcibly and convincingly said as to the taxation of interstate railroad property is equally applicable to the taxation of interstate telegraph property. It is not easy to see how one mile of appellant's telegraph line connecting Chicago with New York could be of less value than any other mile of the same line. Cut out one mile, even though it be through a swamp or under a lake, and the value of the whole line is practically destroyed. The property is a unit, valuable as a whole and by reason of its several connections, and not by virtue of any part taken by itself. No way, therefore, by which the value of the lines in this State

Opinion of the Court.

can be determined seems so just and equitable as to take that proportion of the whole value which the mileage in this State bears to the whole mileage." 141 Indiana, 294, 295.

In that court (as now in this) the telegraph company insisted that the statute of 1893, in applying the mileage basis of valuation to the lines of telegraph, compelled the state board of tax commissioners to add large outside values to the values of the Indiana portions of the lines, because the parts of the company's property outside the State were proportionately of greater value than the parts within the State. To which that court answered: "The act, it is true, provides a method of valuation, the mileage method, as a basis for the taxation of certain property within the State of Indiana. But this is simply a means for determining the true cash value of the property within the State; and if in the case of appellant's property, or in any other case, it is shown to the board, or is discovered by them, that still further deductions should be made, on account of larger proportional values outside of the State, or for any other reason, then the board must make such deductions, so that, finally, only the property within the State of Indiana shall be assessed, and that at its true cash value." 141 Indiana, 297.

The state court distinctly held that the statute of 1893, being supplementary to and amendatory of the statute of 1891, must be construed in connection therewith, and be treated as a part of one and the same general tax act; that the duties and powers of the state board of tax commissioners, as defined and prescribed in the statute of 1891, were not abridged or changed, in any respect, by the statute of 1893; and therefore, interpreting the statute of 1893 in the light of the provisions of the statute of 1891, (which have been cited above,) concluded "that in the act of 1893 the legislature provided the mileage method as the basis for the assessment of telegraph and other like property, both as to lines situated partly within and partly without this State, and also as to lines running through several counties or other subdivisions of the State; but that it was not the intention of the legislature, nor is it the meaning of that act, that any property

Opinion of the Court.

outside of the State should be assessed by importation of values or otherwise, or that any property should be assessed at more or less than its true cash value. Construing the acts of 1891 and 1893 together, it will therefore be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the state board has deducted from the total valuation of all interstate property such values, if any, of extra-state property as will leave the remaining property, within and without the State, as near as may be, of equal proportional value." "The act of 1893 provides, generally, for a mode of ascertaining the true cash value of that part of interstate telegraph and other property which is within the State of Indiana, to wit, the mileage method. But should there be particular cases where that method must be modified in order to reach the necessary result, namely, the true cash value of such part of the property as is within the jurisdiction of the State, the law of 1893 itself supplies the means of doing so." 141 Indiana, 285, 297-300.

The statute of Indiana of 1893 regarding telegraph companies, therefore, as construed and applied by the Supreme Court of the State, like the statute of 1891 regarding railroad companies, while it takes, as the basis of valuation of the company's property within the State, the proportion of the value of its whole capital stock which the length of its lines within the State bears to the whole length of all its lines, makes it the duty of the state board of tax commissioners, to make such deductions, on account of a greater proportional value of the company's property outside the State, or for any other reason, as to assess its property within the State at its true cash value only; and is therefore governed by the same considerations upon which the provisions of the statute of 1891 for taxing railroad companies were held to be constitutional by the decisions of this court in the Indiana Railroad cases, above cited.

The bill in the present case was filed before those decisions were rendered; and is so drawn as to make it somewhat difficult to distinguish matters of fact alleged with such clearness and precision as to be admitted by the demurrer, from the

Opinion of the Court.

argumentative statements, and the conclusions of law, which are freely scattered throughout the bill.

The bill alleges that the state board of tax commissioners, in fixing the valuation of the plaintiff's property in Indiana, (deducting the value of real estate, machinery and fixtures subject to local taxation within the State,) at the sum of $2,297,652, and at the rate of $357 per mile of telegraph line, placed upon that property, beyond its true cash value, as measured by the cost of replacing the same, making reasonable allowances for deterioration, additional values of the plaintiff's business, property and good will, both in and out of the State, and franchises granted by the United States, by the State of New York and by foreign countries. This allegation is made by way of preliminary and inducement to the concluding statement of the paragraph, that "in witness thereof" the tax commissioners entered upon their record a certificate and statement, which is set forth, and which has no tendency to prove anything of the kind, but merely shows an assessment and valuation made by the state board of tax commissioners, "after full consideration," and "in accordance with the act of the general assembly of the State of Indiana, approved March 6, 1893." Moreover, the cost of the property, or of its replacement, is by no means a true measure of its value; the bill, while it elsewhere states the value of the plaintiff's real estate in other States, and of its stocks and bonds of other companies, nowhere undertakes to fix the value of its franchises from the United States, the State of New York, and foreign countries; and the tax commissioners, by the authorities already cited, had the right and the duty, in estimating the value of the plaintiff's property in Indiana, to take into consideration those franchises and the other elements mentioned in this paragraph of the bill.

The bill further alleges that the state board of tax commissioners did not attempt to specify or describe the plaintiff's real estate, machinery and appliances subject to local taxation. But the statute did not require of them any such specification or description; nor does the plaintiff appear to have requested them, or to have done anything towards assisting them to do so.