The question of the right to sue a state officer to restrain the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute regulating the rates and charges of railroad companies is now pending in some of its aspects before the Supreme Court in important cases involving statutes of Minnesota and North Carolina. These cases have been fully and ably argued and are under advisement, and they may lead to a reconsideration of some of the reasoning in the prior cases. A comprehensive decision may, therefore, shortly be delivered which will remove some of the reasons for the existing misunderstanding and conflict between the states and the federal courts.[45] The time at our disposal renders it impossible to consider the many noteworthy and interesting cases which have arisen under the eleventh amendment and which frequently carry us into the realm of public law and statesmanship. The leading decisions are, of course, in the Supreme Court, but many instructive opinions will be found in the lower federal courts. The constant increase of governmental functions and of interference with individual liberty and action is certain to be a fruitful source of litigation in the future and will call for frequent consideration of the scope of the eleventh amendment. In discussing the subject of suits to restrain the enforcement of state statutes alleged to be unconstitutional, we should not overlook or pass unnoticed the attempts made in recent enactments regulating rates and charges to coerce or intimidate railroad and other public service corporations into immediate obedience and abandonment of their constitutional right to appeal to the courts, by imposing upon them enormous and unreasonable fines and penalties, or by threatening them with the forfeiture of the protection of the government. Heavy fines or penalties are attached to violations of the law; and, as the transactions of these corporations are generally very numerous, disobedience of a statute, if only in good faith for the purpose of testing its validity, would in a few days involve the risk of bankruptcy. The avowed or ill-concealed purpose of these fines and penalties and of the resort to the criminal law is to prevent any interference by courts of equity. The idea, advanced in many quarters and under many disguises, seems to be that corporations shall be outlawed unless they consent to abandon their right to appeal to the courts for protection against unconstitutional statutes and void and oppressive enactments. This unfair spirit is widespread. For example, while the Federal Employers' Liability Act, recently declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, was under advisement by that court, President Roosevelt in his Jamestown speech criticized the railroad companies for having contested the validity of the statute and suggested that "the law should be such that it will be impossible for the railroads successfully to fight it without thereby