scredited in whole or in
part, might continue to be observed by State commissions in drafting
rate orders that will prove to be justiciably sustainable.[222]

REGULATION OF PUBLIC UTILITIES (OTHER THAN RATES)

In General

By virtue of the nature of the business they carry on and the public's
interest in it, public utilities are subject, as to their local
business, to State regulation exerted either directly by legislature or
by duly authorized administrative bodies.[223] But inasmuch as their
property remains under the full protection of the Constitution, it
follows that whenever this power of regulation is exerted in what the
Court considers to be an "arbitrary" or "unreasonable" way and to be in
effect an infringement upon the right of ownership, such exertion of
power is void as repugnant to the due process clause.[224] Thus, a city
cannot take possession of the equipment of a street railway company, the
franchise of which has expired,[225] although it may subject said
company to the alternative of accepting an inadequate price for its
property or of ceasing operations and removing its property from the
streets.[226] Likewise, a city, which is desirous of establishing a
lighting system of its own, may not remove, without compensation, the
fixtures of a lighting company already occupying the streets under a
franchise;[227] but in erecting its own waterworks in competition with
that of a company which has no exclusive charter, a municipality
inflicts no unconstitutional deprivation.[228] Nor is the property of a
telegraph company illegally taken by a municipal ordinance which
demands, as a condition of the establishment of poles and conduits in
the city streets, that positions be reserved for the city's wires, which
shall be carried free of charge, and which provides for the moving of
the conduits, when necessary, at company expense.[229] And, the fact
that a State, by mere legislative or administrative fiat, cannot convert
a private carrier into a common carrier will not protect a foreign
corporation which has elected to enter a State, the Constitution and
laws of which require that it operate its local private pipe line as a
common carrier. Such foreign corporation is viewed as having waived its
constitutional right to be secure against imposition of conditions which
amount to a taking of property without due process of law.[230]

Compulsory Expenditures

The enforcement of uncompensated obedience to a reg