Benjamin N. Cardozo

“ City of Baltimore v. Starr Church, supra.
The policy that sustains an exemption in order to keep a crippled railroad going is precisely the same as the one that sustains an exemption to set it going at the start. In the one case as in the other, the state maintains the highways upon which its people are dependent for their economic and social life. Cole v. La Grange, 113 U.S. 1, 7, 5 S.Ct. 416, 28 L.Ed. 896. It is idle to say that a railroad, when once it has been organized, is under a duty to go on, and hence that its distress is not important for any one except itself. ”

“ The statute is not repugnant to article 15 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, wherein it is provided: 'That the levying of taxes by the poll is grievous and oppressive and ought to be prohibited; that paupers ought not to be assessed for the support of the Government; that the General Assembly shall, by uniform rules, provide for separate assessment of land and classification and subclassifications of improvements on land and personal property, as it may deem proper ”

“ It does not even prohibit an exemption in favor of an individual as distinguished from one for the benefit of the members of a class. All that it exacts in respect of the narrower exemption is the presence of a relation, fairly discernible, between the good of the individual and the good of the community. There must be something more than an arbitrary preference of one among many. Baltimore City v. ”

“ It is not the function of a court to determine whether the public policy that finds expression in legislation of this order is well or ill conceived. Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606, 609, 23 S.Ct. 168, 47 L.Ed. 323; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. May, 194 U.S. 267, 24 S.Ct. 638, 48 L.Ed. 971; Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 388, 389, 52 S.Ct. 581, 76 L.Ed. 1167. The judicial function is exhausted with the discovery that the relation between means and end is not wholly vain and fanciful, an illusory pretense. ”