gh State laws do
not discriminate against interstate commerce or * * * subject it to the
cumulative burden of multiple levies, those laws may be unconstitutional
because they burden or interfere with [interstate] commerce."[708] This
time Justice Rutledge was among the dissenters so far as interstate
commerce was concerned.[709] In Central Greyhound Lines, Inc. _v._
Mealey,[710] decided in 1948, five members of the Court ruled that a New
York tax on the gross income of public utilities doing business in the
State could not be constitutionally imposed on a carrier's unapportioned
receipts from continuous transportation between termini in the State
over a route a material part of which passes through other States.
Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the Court, held, however, that the
tax was sustainable as to receipts apportioned as to the mileage within
the State.[711] Justice Rutledge concurred without opinion. Justice
Murphy, for himself and Justices Black and Douglas, thought the tax was
on an essentially local activity and that the transportation through
other States was "a mere geographic incident," conceding at the same
time, that this view invited the other States involved to levy similar
taxes and exposed the company to the danger of multiple taxation. In
Memphis Natural Gas Co. _v._ Stone,[712] also of the 1948 grist, a
Mississippi franchise tax, measured by the value of capital invested or
employed in the State, was sustained in the case of a gas pipeline
company a portion of whose line passed through the State but which did
no local business there. Three Justices, speaking by Justice Reed, held
that the tax was on the intrastate activities of the company in
maintaining its facilities there, and was no more burdensome than the
concededly valid _ad valorem_ tax on the company's property in the
State. Justice Rutledge held that the tax was valid because it did not
discriminate against interstate commerce nor invite multiple taxation,
while Justice Black concurred without opinion. Four Justices, speaking
by Justice Frankfurter, contended that the pipeline already paid the _ad
valorem_ tax to which Justice Reed had adverted, and that the franchise
tax must therefore be regarded as being on the interstate commerce
privilege.

This survey of recent cases leaves the impression that the Court is at
loose ends for intermediate guiding principles in this field of
Constitutional Law. The "leave it to Congress" formula is ev