Today -100: June 30, 1911: Of wire

The US Grand Jury hands down indictments for 83 members of the Wire Trust for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Wire Trust centers on the American Steel and Wire Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. The men are charged with forming an unlawful combination and conspiracy to fix the price of wire at artificially high levels, “to the great and irreparable injury and detriment, financial and moral, of the people of the United States.” Moral?

The NYT weighs in on the subject of “The Negro as a Policeman,” following the NYPD’s hiring of one. It bows to negroes’ “theoretical right to such appointments” but suggests that the greater difficulties they will meet makes hiring them “injudicious as regards the public interest.”