COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

The exaction from a foreign telegraph company for the benefit of the permanent school fund, under the authority of Kan. Gen. Stat. 1901, p. 280, of a "charter fee" of a given per cent of its entire authorized capital stock, as a condition of continuing to do local business in the state, is invalid under the commerce and due-process-of-law clauses of the Federal Constitution, as necessarily amounting to a burden and tax on the company's interstate business and on its property located or used outside the state.

[For other cases, see Corporations, XII. b, 2; Commerce, 273-287, 368-375; Constitutional Law, 536-540, in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

[No. 4.]

NOTE.-State licenses or taxes, as affect ing interstate commerce-see notes to Rothermel v. Meyerle, 9 L.R.A. 366; American Fertilizing Co. v. Board of Agriculture, 11 L.R.A. 179; Gibbons v. Ogden, 6 L. ed. U. S. 23; Brown v. Maryland, 6 L. ed. U. S. 678; Ratterman v. Western U. Teleg. Co. 32 L. ed. U. S. 229; Harmon v. Chicago, 37 L. ed. U. S. 217; Cleveland, C. C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Backus, 38 L. ed. U. S. 1041; Postal Teleg. Cable Co. v. Adams, 39 L. ed. U. S. 311; and Pittsburgh & S. Coal Co. v. Bates, 39 L. ed. U. S. 538.

On exclusion, regulation, and taxation of foreign corporations-see note to McCanna & F. Co. v. Citizens' Trust & Surety Co. 24 C. C. A. 13.

On corporate taxation and the commerce clause-see note to Sandford v. Poe, 60

L.R.A. 641.

On the taxation of corporate capital stock generally-see note to State Bd. of Equalization v. People, 58 L.R.A. 513.

uary 17, 1910.

Statement by Mr. Justice Harlan:

*This action was brought by the state [3 of Kansas in one of its courts against the Western Union Telegraph Company, a New York corporation, to obtain a decree ousting and restraining that corporation from doing, in Kansas, any telegraphic business that was wholly internal to that state, and not pursuant to some arrangement, or to meet its contracts with, or obligations to, the government of the United States. Upon the petition of the telegraph company the was removed to the circuit court of

case

the United States for the district of Kansas. But it was thereafter remanded to the state court, where, upon a demurrer to the answer, a final decree was rendered, prohibiting and enjoining the telegraph company from transacting intrastate business in Kansas as affect the company's duties to or contracts a corporation, the decree, however, not to with the United States. From that decree the present writ of error was prosecuted.

The state contends that the decree is in exact conformity with certain provisions of the Kansas statutes to be found in the General Statutes of that state of 1901, title, "Corporations," p. 380, and the General Statutes of 1905, p. 284. Those provisions, or the ones directly involved here, originated in an act known as the Bush act, passed