as falling within the inhibition of the Constitution. Corporations and companies engaged in interstate commerce should bear their proper proportion of the burdens of the governments under whose protection they conduct their operations, and taxation on property, collectible by the ordinary means, does not affect interstate commerce otherwise than incidentally, as all business is affected by the necessity of contributing to the support of government. Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 688.

As to railroad, telegraph and sleeping-car companies, engaged in interstate commerce, it has often been held by this court that their property, in the several States through which their lines or business extended, might be valued as a unit for the purposes of taxation, taking into consideration the uses to which it was put and all the elements making up aggregate value, and that a proportion of the whole fairly and properly ascertained might be taxed by the particular State, without violating any Federal restriction. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530; Massachusetts v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 141 U. S. 40; Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway, 142 U. S. 217; Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, &c. Railway Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421; Cleveland, Cincinnati, &c. Railway Co. v. Backus, ibid. 439; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Taggart, 163 U. S. 1; Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18. The valuation was, thus, not confined to the wires, poles, and instruments of the telegraph company; or the roadbed, ties, rails, and spikes of the railroad company; or the cars of the sleeping-car company; but included the proportionate part of the value resulting from the combination of the means by which the business was carried on, a value existing to an appreciable extent throughout the entire domain of operation. And it has been decided that a proper mode of ascertaining the assessable value of so much of the whole property as is situated in a particular State is, in the case of railroads, to take that part of the value of the entire road which is measured by the proportion of its length therein to the length of the whole; Pittsburgh, &c. R. Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421, 429; or taking as the basis of assessment such proportion of the capital stock of a sleeping-car company as the number of miles of railroad over which its cars are run in a particular State bears to the whole number of miles traversed by them in that and other States; Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18; or such a proportion of the whole value of the capital stock of a telegraph company as the length of its lines within a State bears to the length of all its lines everywhere, deducting a sum equal to the value of its real estate and machinery subject to local taxation within the State. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Taggart, 163 U. S. 1.

Doubtless there is a distinction between the property of railroad and telegraph companies and that of express companies. The physical unity existing in the former is lacking in the latter; but there

is the same unity in the use of the entire property for the specific purpose, and there are the same elements of value arising from such

use.

The cars of the Pullman Company did not constitute a physical unity, and their value as separate cars did not bear a direct relation to the valuation which was sustained in that case. The cars were moved by railway carriers under contract, and the taxation of the corporation in Pennsylvania was sustained on the theory that the whole property of the company might be regarded as a unit plant, with a unit value, a proportionate part of which value might be reached by the State authorities on the basis indicated.

No more reason is perceived for limiting the valuation of the property of express companies to horses, wagons and furniture, than that of railroad, telegraph and sleeping-car companies, to roadbed, rails and ties; poles and wires; or cars. The unit is a unit of use and management, and the horses, wagons, safes, pouches, and furniture; the contracts for transportation facilities; the capital necessary to carry on the business, whether represented in tangible or intangible property, in Ohio, possessed a value in combination and from use. in connection with the property and capital elsewhere, which could as rightfully be recognized in the assessment for taxation in the instance of these companies as the others.

We repeat that while the unity which exists may not be a physical unity, it is something more than a mere unity of ownership. It is a unity of use, not simply for the convenience or pecuniary profit of the owner, but existing in the very necessities of the case resulting from the very nature of the business.

The same party may own a manufacturing establishment in one State and a store in another and may make profit by operating the two, but the work of each is separate. The value of the factory in itself is not conditioned on that of the store or vice versa, nor is the value of the goods manufactured and sold affected thereby. The connection between the two is merely accidental and growing out of the unity of ownership. But the property of an express company distributed through different States is as an essential condition of the business united in a single specific use. It constitutes but a single plant, made so by the very character and necessities of the business.

It is this which enabled the companies represented here to charge and receive within the State of Ohio for the year ending May 1, 1895, $282,181, $358,519 and $275,446, respectively, on the basis, according to their respective returns, of $42,065, $28,438 and $23,430, of personal property owned in that State, returns which confessedly do not, however, take into account contracts for transportation and accompanying facilities.

Considered as distinct subjects of taxation, a horse is, indeed, a horse; a wagon, a wagon; a safe, a safe; a pouch, a pouch; but how

is it that $23,430 worth of horses, wagons, safes and pouches produces $275,446 in a single year? Or $28,438 worth, $358,519 ? The answer is obvious.

Reliance seems to be placed by counsel on the observation of Mr. Justice Lamar, in Pacific Express Company v. Seibert, 142 U. S. 339, 354, that "express companies, such as are defined by this act, have no tangible property, of any consequence, subject to taxation under the general laws. There is, therefore, no way by which they can be taxed at all unless by a tax upon their receipts for business transacted." But the reference was to the legislation of the State of Missouri, and the scheme of taxation under consideration here was not involved in any manner.

[After quoting the State statute which is sufficiently described elsewhere and giving extracts from the opinion of the Supreme Court of Ohio in State v. Jones, 51 Ohio St. 492, upholding the "Nichols Law," and from the opinion in this case in the Circuit Court of Appeals, Sanford v. Poe, 37 U. S. App. 378, also upholding the statute, the court continues.]

The line of reasoning thus pursued is in accordance with the decisions of this court already cited. Assuming the proportion of capital employed in each of several States through which such a company conducts its operations has been fairly ascertained, while taxation thereon, or determined with reference thereto, may be said in some sense to fall on the business of the company, it is only indirectly. The taxation is essentially a property tax, and, as such, not an interference with interstate commerce.

Nor, in this view, is the assessment on property not within the jurisdiction of the taxing authorities of the State and for that reason amounting to a taking of property without due process of law. The property taxed has its actual situs in the State, and is, therefore, subject to the jurisdiction, and the distribution among the several counties is a matter of regulation by the State legislature. Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18, 22; State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575; Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 206; Erie Railroad v. Pennsylvania, 21 Wall. 492; Columbus Southern Railway v. Wright, 151 U. S. 470.

In Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, the rule is considered that personal property may be separated from its owner and he may be taxed, on its account, at the place where it is, although not the place of his own domicil, and even if he is not a citizen or a resident of the State which imposes the tax; and the distinction between ships and vessels and other personal property is pointed out. The authorities are largely examined and need not be gone over again.

There is here no attempt to tax property having a situs outside of the State, but only to place a just value on that within. Presumptively all the property of the corporation or company is held and

used for the purposes of its business, and the value of its capital stock and bonds is the value of only that property so held and

used.

Special circumstances might exist, as indicated in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, &c. Railway Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421, 443, which would require the value of a portion of the property of an express company to be deducted from the value of its plant as expressed by the sum total of its stock and bonds before any valuation by mileage could be properly arrived at, but the difficulty in the cases at bar is that there is no showing of any such separate and distinct property which should be deducted, and its existence is not to be assumed. It is for the companies to present any special circumstances which may exist, and, failing their doing so, the presumption is that all their property is directly devoted to their business, which being so, a fair distribution of its aggregate value would be upon the mileage basis.

The States through which the companies operate ought not to be compelled to content themselves with a valuation of separate pieces of property disconnected from the plant as an entirety, to the proportionate part of which they extend protection, and to the dividends. of whose owners their citizens contribute.

It is not contended that notice of the time and place of the meetings of the board was not afforded or that the companies were denied the opportunity to appear and submit such proofs, explanations, suggestions and arguments with reference to the assessment as they desired.

We are, also, unable to conclude that the classification of express companies with railroad and telegraph companies as subject to the unit rule, denies the equal protection of the laws. That provision in the Fourteenth Amendment "was not intended to prevent a State from adjusting its system of taxation in all proper and reasonable ways," nor was that amendment "intended to compel a State to adopt an iron rule of equal taxation." Bell's Gap Railroad v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232.

In Pacific Express Co. v. Seibert, 142 U. S. 339, 351, in which a tax on gross receipts of express companies in the State of Missouri was sustained, Mr. Justice Lamar, speaking for the court, well says:

"This court has repeatedly laid down the doctrine that diversity of taxation, both with respect to the amount imposed and the various species of property selected either for bearing its burdens or for being exempt from them, is not inconsistent with a perfect uniformity and equality of taxation in the proper sense of those terms; and that a system which imposes the same tax upon every species of property, irrespective of its nature or condition or class, will be destructive of the principle of uniformity and equality in taxation and of a just adaptation of property to its burdens."

And see Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321; Home Insurance Co. v. New York, 134 U. S. 594.

The policy pursued in Ohio is to classify property for taxation, when the nature of the property, or its use, or the nature of the business engaged in, requires classification, in the judgment of the legislature, in order to secure equality of burden; and property of different sorts is classified under various statutory provisions for the purposes of assessment and taxation. The state constitution requires all property to be taxed by a uniform rule and according to its true value in money, and it was held by the Supreme Court of Ohio in State v. Jones that the Nichols law did not violate that requirement.

In Wagoner v. Loomis, 37 Ohio St. 571, it was ruled that: "Statutory provisions, whereby different classes of property are listed and valued for taxation in and by different modes and agencies, are not necessarily in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution, which require all property to be taxed by a uniform rule and according to its true value in money." And the court said: "A faithful execution of the different provisions of the statutes would place upon the duplicate for taxation all the taxable property of the State, whether bank stocks or other personal property or real estate, according to its true value in money; and the equality required by the constitution has no other test."

The constitutional test was held to be complied with, whatever the mode, if the result of the assessment was that the property was assessed at its true value in money.

Considering, as we do, that the unit rule may be applied to express companies without disregarding any other Federal restriction, we think it necessarily follows that this law is not open to the objection of denying the equal protection of the laws.

We have said nothing in relation to the contention that these valuations were excessive. The method of appraisement prescribed by the law was pursued and there were no specific charges of fraud. The general rule is well settled that "whenever a question of fact is thus submitted to the determination of a special tribunal, its decision creates something more than a mere presumption of fact, and if such determination comes into inquiry before the courts it cannot be overthrown by evidence going only to show that the fact was otherwise than as so found and determined." Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, &c. Railway Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 434; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Taggart, 163 U. S. 1. Decrees affirmed.1

1 MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered a dissenting opinion, in which MR. JUSTICE FIELD, MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, and MR. JUSTICE BROWN concurred.