City of Allentown v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

Citations

• 148 Pa. 117
• 23 A. 1070
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 923

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Police power — License fees — Telegraph poles.</p> <p>A municipality has a right in the exercise of its police power, and it is its duty, to supervise and control the erection and maintenance oí telegraph poles and wires within its limits. The only question for the courts to determine is whether a particular ordinance is a reasonable exercise of such power.</p> <p>The City of Allentown by ordinance required every telegraph, telephone or electric light company’s poles, in the city to be inspected by the police1 department, and that the same should be licensed; and required the payment oí a license fee of $1 per annum upon each pole. The defendant company maintained during the years 188T-87, inclusive, about seventy-five poles. The tax being unpaid, suit was brought to recover $75 per annum.</p> <p>Held, that it did not appear that the discretion of the city councils had been abused, or that the license fee was unreasonable.</p> <p>Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Philadelphia, 22 W. N. 39, followed.</p> <p>Interstate commerce — ¡7. 8. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 8.</p> <p>The imposition of such a license tax is not a regulation of interstate commerce in violation of the exclusive power conferred upon the congress of the United States by article 1, section 8 of the constitution of the United States.</p>