# Kefauver Part 5, Exhibit 43: chronology of the wire service since 1945 (December 1950)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-p5-exhibit-43-wire-chronology-1950-12-18/

A committee table, printed at pp. 1391-1394 of the Part 5 appendix, tracking Continental, Trans-America, Midwest, Illinois Sports News and the Chicago scratch sheets from July 1945 to June 1950.

Counsel Rudolph Halley offered Exhibit 43, "a chronology showing certain major events in the history of the wire service since 1945," at the 18 December 1950 session (Part 5, p. 853). It had been mimeographed for the press and is printed in the appendix at pp. 1391-1394, as a staff table with columns for the wire services, the dates, the events and the scratch sheets.

Legible entries include "Ragen Statement May 2, 1946," "RAGEN shot June 24, 1946," the purchase of the Farrell and Serritella "blue sheet" by Illinois Sports News on June 25, 1946, the Illinois Sports News and Illinois News Association "purchased by George Kelly from Tom Bourke" in January 1947, "RAGENS sell to McBride, Contracts dated May 29, 1947," and Trans-America "out of business, apparently by" June 21, 1947. The OCR scrambles the table across its columns and garbles some dates; the entry for Ragen's death, for one, is unreadable and is not relied on.

Some entries tie named Chicago figures to the business, for example a 1945 "proposition" to Ragen that the table attributes to Ragen's own account in the lawsuit Farrell v. Serritella. Those entries are the staff's summary of allegations, not findings.

## Sources

- U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, printed hearings, Part 5: Illinois, via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/investigationofo05unit
- Full text of the volume (Internet Archive, OCR): https://archive.org/download/investigationofo05unit/investigationofo05unit_djvu.txt