SJcinner—Appraisal of Railroad Property. 815 
must be regretted that the figures on both sides cannot be pre¬ 
sented so as to compare market values, since in that case there 
would be a common basis for the comparison. 
THE SO- CALLED RATIO OF ASSESSED TO TRUE VALUE OF REAL 
ESTATE. 
The use of the ratio of the locally assessed value to the true 
value of real property in connection with the determination of 
the ordinary or market value of right of way in Milwaukee and 
other cities in the eastern part of the state has already been 
noted. This ratio has played such an important part in the 
appraisal, and the use of it for this and other purposes has 
been so vigorously' attacked by the railway officials, that it de¬ 
serves some notice here. The question as it has come up is not 
upon the use of the ratio, but on the possibility of determining 
it accurately from the considerations as recorded in warranty 
deeds conveying the property sold. In what follows, reference 
will be made largely to the determination of this ratio for the 
city of Milwaukee, since it is for this city that its importance 
is greatest. The ad valorem law of 1903, changing the basis 
of railway taxation in Wisconsin, directed that the state board 
of assessment should make a formal determination of the ‘True 
cash value” of all railway property in the state. The tax com¬ 
mission had already made free use of the reports of sales of real 
estate in connection with their work in determining the value 
of real property in the gtate. The validity of this method of de¬ 
termining the value of the larger part of the general property 
of the state became at once a fundamentally important question 
to the railway companies, since, by the law of 1903, their prop¬ 
erty was to be valued “in like manner as other property of the 
state.” The prime question at issue was the accuracy of the 
determination of the value of the real property of the state; 
the determination of the relation of assessed to true value was 
only incidental, though it was used later in several ways. 
Early in the year, the matter was taken up for the railroads 
by a committee consisting of Messrs. Frank P. Crandon, A. S. 
Dudley and W. W. Baldwin, tax commissioners for the Chi- 
