REGULATION  OF  PUBLIC  UTILITIES  141

*  “  The  Ford  Bill,”  Municipal  Jfjairs,  June  1899,  New  York  Reform  Club,

'business  firm.  Clearly,  the  advantage,  if  it  be  an
-advantage,  temporary  or  permanent,  of  regulation
‘over  public  ownership,  is  the  relief  of  the  public  from
ithe  details  and  responsibilities  of  administration.
The  State  of  New  York  has  a  Public  Utilities  Commission ­
  already  installed  byway  of  example,  and  has  paved
the  way  with  an  enabling  statute  to  aid  in  the  process
of  valuation  for  purposes  of  taxation  of  those  public
assets  to  which  the  public  may  rightfully  lay  claim.
The  Ford  Law  for  the  Taxation  of  Special  Franchises,
now  in  operation  in  the  State  of  New  York,  was  enacted
in  1899.  It  was  amended  at  a  special  session  called
by  Governor  Roosevelt,  and,  after  five  or  six  years’
contest,  was  sustained  by  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the
State  of  New  York,  and  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the
United  States.
This  bill  did  not  “prescribe  any  specific  method  of
assessment,”  but  simply  “added  certain  items  to  the
prescribed  classes  of  real  property,  full  provision  for
the  assessment  and  taxation  of  which  was  already
provided  for  by  other  laws  in  force.”*
An  essential  provision  of  the  original  bill  was  set
forth  in  the  following  lines:  “The  terms,‘land,’'real
testate,’  and  ‘real  property,’  as  used  in  this  chapter,
include  the  land  itself  above  and  under  water,  all
buildings  and  other  articles  and  structures,  substructures ­
  and  superstructures,  erected  upon,  under
or  above,  or  affixed  to  the  same;  all  wharves  and  piers,
including  the  value  of  the  right  to  collect  wharfage,
cranage,  or  dockage  thereon;  all  bridges,  all  telegraph
lines,  wires,  poles,  and  appurtenances  upon,  above,  and
under  ground;  all  surface,  under  ground,  and  elevated