Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/707

671 INDIRECT ENCROACHMENT ON FEDERAL AUTHORITY 671 harmony for the chaos that is now characteristic of the aggregate of the fiscal systems of the several states. III. Taxes Not Measured by Income In his dissenting opinion in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, ^^^ Mr. Justice Holmes remarked : "If after this decision, the State of Kansas, without giving any reason, sees fit simply to prohibit the Western Union Telegraph Company from doing any more local business there or from doing local business until it has paid $20,100, I shall be curious to see upon what ground that legis- lation will be assailed." "' This curiosity cannot be said to have been completely satisfied by any of the decisions rendered thus far. In no case has a specific tax on local business been held to be a regulation of interstate com- merce or a denial of due process of law. Yet, on the whole, the cases appear to negative the existence of an unHmited power to impose specific taxes on the local business of a concern that is also engaged in interstate commerce. There are, indeed, intimations to the contrary in the decisions prior to the Western Union case. ' In Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Charleston, ^^"^ which sustained a municipal tax of $500 on the local business of a telegraph company, Mr. Justice Shiras declared: "If business done wholly within a State is within the taxing power of the State, the courts of the United States cannot review or correct the action of the State in the exercise of that power." ^^^ In Osborne v. Florida,^^^ which sanctioned a state statute im- posing occupation taxes graded according to the number of in- habitants in the cities and towns in which the occupation was carried on, which statute the state court had construed as appli- cable only to local business, Mr. Justice Peckham observed: "So long as the regulation as to the license or taxation does not refer to and is not imposed upon the business of the company which is inter- state, there is no interference with that commerce by the state statute." ^" »" Ibid., 54-55- "* 153 U. S. 692, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1094 (1894). »" 164 U. S. 650, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 214 (1897). "7 Ibid., 655.
 * " 216 U. S. 1, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 190 (1910).
 * " Ibid., 699-700.