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 Commis 
sion 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, sub 
structures 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