Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/156

 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. the defendant railway company, its officers, etc., on accouni of any violation thereof, for the reason that the said acts and orders were and each of them was violative of the Constitution of the United States. The  also alleged that the orders of the Railroad Com- m{{on of September 6, 1906, May 3, 1907 the pamenger rate act of April 4, 1907, and the act of April 18, 1907, reducing the tariffs and charges which the railway company had there- tofore been permitted to make, were each and all of them un- just, unreasonable and confiscatory, in that they each o! them would, and will if enforced, deprive compt*{nnts and the railway company of their property without due proco of law, and deprive them and it of the equal protection of the laws, contrary to and in violation of the Constitution of the United 8tate and the amendments thereof. It was also averted that the complainants had demanded of the predent and matur- ing directors of the railway company that they should ccase obedience to the orders of the Commission dated September 6, 1906, and May 3, 1907. and to the acts already mentioned,. and that the rates prescribed in such orders and acts should not be put into effect, and that the said corporation, its officers and directors, should institute proper suit or suits to prevent said rates (named in the orders and in the acts of the legis- lature) from continuing or becoming effective, as the might be, and to have. the same declared illegal; but the sail corporation, its pisident and directors, had poeitively de- clined and refused to do so, not because they considered the rates a fair and just return upon the capital invested or that they would not be confiscatory, but because of the severity of the penalties provided.f6r the violation of such acts and orders, and therefore they could not subject themselve to the ruinous consequences which would inevitably result from failure on their part to obey the said laws and orders, a suit which no action by themselves, their stockholders or rectors, could possibly prevent. The bill further alleged that the orders of the Commln

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