nction between suits brought by States to protect the welfare
of the people as a whole and suits to protect the private interests of
individual citizens is not easily drawn. In Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson
_v._ Cook,[498] the Court dismissed a suit brought by Oklahoma to
enforce the statutory liability of a stockholder of a State bank then in
the process of liquidation through a State officer. Although the State
was vested with legal title to the assets under the liquidation
procedure, the State's action was independent of that and it was acting
merely for the benefit of the bank's creditors and depositors. A
generation earlier the Court refused jurisdiction of Oklahoma _v._
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co.[499] in which Oklahoma sought to
enjoin unreasonable rate charges by a railroad on the shipment of
specified commodities, inasmuch as the State was not engaged in shipping
these commodities and had no proprietary interest in them.

SUITS BY A STATE AS _PARENS PATRIAE_; JURISDICTION ACCEPTED

Georgia _v._ Evans,[500] on the other hand, presents the case of a clear
State interest as a purchaser of materials. Here, Georgia sued certain
asphalt companies for treble damages under the Sherman Act arising
allegedly out of a conspiracy to control the prices of asphalt of which
Georgia was a large purchaser. The matter of Georgia's interest was not
contested and did not arise. The case is primarily significant for the
ruling that a State is a person under section 7 of the Sherman Act
authorizing suits by "any person" for treble damages arising out of
violations of the Sherman Act. A less clear-cut case, and one not
altogether in accord with Oklahoma _v._ Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R.
Co.,[501] is Georgia _v._ Pennsylvania R. Co.[502] in which the State,
suing as _parens patriae_ and in its proprietary capacity, was permitted
to file a bill of complaint against twenty railroads for injunctive
relief from freight rates, allegedly discriminatory against the State
and asserted to have been fixed through coercive action by the northern
roads against the southern roads in violation of the 16th section of the
Clayton Act. Although the rights of Georgia were admittedly based on
federal laws, the Court indicated that the enforcement of the Sherman
and Clayton acts depends upon civil as well as criminal sanctions.
Moreover, the interests of a State for purposes of invoking the original
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court were held, as i