5

result would be to combine all the corporate wealth and
power of the Commonwealth to control the election of the
Railroad Commissioners.  For this reason the Senate
amendments left to the Commission the assessment of only
the tangible property of railroad corporations. as is now
provided by law. In the United States there are twenty-
nine States which have Railroad Commissions, and in no
one of them is the Commission given power or authority
over any thing other than railroads and railroad property.
  The Commonwealth now has a well-settled system of law
governing the taxation of railroads. The enforcement of
this law was resisted in the courts and was litigated by the
railroad corporations from the Franklin Circuit Court to
Supreme Court of the Ulnited States. After years of time
and the expenditure of many thousands of dollars by the
Commonwealth the validity of the law was settled in the
Federal Supreme Ceurt. This law brought annually a
large increase of revenue to the State from the railroads.
  The next attempt made to get rid of this law was made
at the legislative session of 1887-'S, when the "Thomuas
Bill" was passed in the House but failed in the Senate,
abolishin g the Railroad Commission. 'Nothing further was
done toward this end until, in the Revenue and Taxation
Bill, as it came fromn the Revisory Commission and as it
passed the House, it was provided that railroads should be
valued for taxation at the price they would bring at a vol-
untarv sale. It will be remembered that the existing law
provides that railroads shall be valued for taxation at what
they are worth as carriers of freight and passengers, and,
under this law, the valuations made are considerably higher
than the original cost of the railways.
  Such a thing as a voluntary sale of a railroad never oc-
curred in Kentuckv. When railroads are sold at all it is by
foreclosure proceedings. The control of railways frequently
changes by a change in the ownership of the stock of the cor-