"The law in question proposes to reduce our passenger rates twenty-five per cent. and our freight rates about the same, thus deducting from our present tariff about twenty-five per cent. of our gross earnings.... This act, as we have seen, proposes to take from us twenty-five per cent. of our passenger and freight earnings, and the additional tax of one per cent. of our gross earnings, all of which is equivalent to taking from us twenty-six per cent. of our gross earnings. Therefore, deducting this amount, equal to twenty-six per cent. of our entire gross earnings, from thirty-three per cent., our average net earnings on business, would leave us only seven per cent. of our gross earnings as the entire net earnings of the road, out of which must be paid the interest on the bonds and the dividends to our stockholders. It is therefore manifest that this law will take from us over three-fourths of the net income received under our present tariff.... The board of directors have caused this act to be carefully examined and considered by their own counsel, and by some of the most eminent jurists in the land, and after such examination they are unanimous in their opinion that it is unconstitutional and void.... The board of directors are trustees of this property, and are bound faithfully to discharge their trust, and to the best of their ability to protect it from spoliation and ruin. They have sought the advice of able counsel, and, after mature consideration, believe it their duty to disregard so much of said law as attempts arbitrarily to fix rates of compensation for freight and passengers.... Being fully conscious that the enforcement of this law will ruin the property of the company, and feeling assured of the correctness of the opinions of the eminent counsel who have examined the question, the directors feel compelled to disregard the provisions of the law so far as it fixes a tariff of rates for the company, until the courts have finally passed upon the question of its validity."