Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ If such a tax is allowable we understand that there is no dispute as to amounts or the mode of measuring it. Whether it be admitted or not, if the franchise to operate the subway as a corporation can be taxed in this case, we can see no difference in the legitimacy of adopting as a measure of the tax property that is exempted by contract or property exempted by a simple law. ”

“ However probable and expected it may have been that a corporation would run the road, it was left possible for a natural person to do it, as in fact an individual took and held the first contract for two years. The exemption applied to one to the same extent as to the other, for either would have the same interest under the contract as the other. The right to be a corporation, even when the corporation was created and was expected to be created to carry out the purposes of the act, was not an interest under the contract, but only a very great convenience for acquiring and using that interest. ”

“ The petitioner's counsel put with great force the difficulties and apprehensions that beset the subway enterprise at the beginning, the need of attracting capital, and instances of popular understanding that the exemption was of universal scope for the time that the subway was to be run by a lessee before it went into the city's hands. ”