209 U.S. Statement of the Ca?e. involves the validity of the order of the Circuit Court com- mitting him for contempt. The facts are these: The legislature of the State of Minnesota duly created a railroad and warehouse commission, and that commission on the sixth of September, 1906, made an order fi?ng the rates for the various. railroad compaaies for the carriage of merchandise between stations-in that State of the kind and classes specified in w.hat is known as the "Western Classification." These rates materially reduced those then cxistEg, and were by the order to take effect November 15, 1906. In obedience to the order the railroads filed and pub- lished the schedules of rate? which have ever since that time been carried out by the companies. At the time of the making of tho above order it was pro? vided by the Revised Laws of Minnesota, 1905 (�87), that any common carrier who violated the provisions of that sec- tion or willfully suffered any such unlawful act or omission, when no specific penalty is imposed therefor, "if a natural person, shall be guilty of a gross mi?emeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five hundred dollars, nor more than five thousand dollars for the first offense, and not less than five thou?nd dollars nor more than ten thousand dollars for each subsequent' offense; and, if such carrier or warehouseman be a corporation, it shall forfeit to the State for the first offquse not less than twenty-five hundred dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, and for each subsequent offense not less than five thousand dollars nor more than ten thousand dollars, to be recovered in k civil action." This provision covered disobedience to the orders of the Commission. On the fourth of April, 1907, the legislature of the State of Minnesota passed an act fixing two cents a mile as the maxi- mum passenger rate to be charged by railroads in Minnesota. (The rate'had been theretofore three cents per mile.) The act was to take effect on the first of May, 1907, and was put into effect on that day by the railroad companies, and the same
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