Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Hearing

1950-12-19

U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, printed hearings, Part 5: Illinois, via Internet Archive

Kefauver Part 5: testimony of George Kelly on the Illinois Sports News scratch sheet (19 December 1950), pp. 1068-1095

The owner of a Chicago scratch sheet testified that he bought Illinois Sports News in January 1947 and had earlier worked for James Ragen, "doing business as Continental Press."

Date
1950-12-19
Kind
hearing
Source
U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, printed hearings, Part 5: Illinois, via Internet Archive
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A hearing print of the United States Senate, published by the Government Printing Office. A work of the United States Congress, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The scan is the Internet Archive copy of the Boston Public Library's printed volume.

George Kelly testified in Chicago on 19 December 1950 (Part 5, pp. 1068-1095; pp. 1068-1069 were read). He described his business as “A scratch-sheet business” called Illinois Sports News, with which he had been connected since January 1947. Before that, he said, “I had worked for Mr. Ragen, doing business as Continental Press,” for about a year, “Establishing scratch sheets, and also an outside man, or road man,” travelling with another Continental employee who reported which distributors’ rates should be raised or cut.

He said he had helped set up scratch sheets in Chicago and Louisville, among them “Tom Burke’s scratch sheet,” Illinois Sports News, which he acquired “Through the purchase of it from Mr. Burke” after discussing it with his brother Tom. The committee’s exhibits spell the seller’s name Bourke.

The staff’s Exhibit 40 calls Illinois Sports News a Continental “dummy”; that is the staff’s characterization. A 1963 federal appeal brought under the same trade name, Kelly v. Illinois Bell, names a George L. Kelly as a partner; the opinion does not say he is this witness. The witness’s home address in the record is not copied.

itemKefauver Committee hearings, Part 5: Illinois (1950–1951)Printed hearings of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 5, Illinois: testimony taken from September 1950 to January 1951, including Paul DeLucia, Louis Campagna, Anthony J. Accardo, and Joseph Aiuppa.itemKefauver Part 5, Exhibit 40: staff summary of evidence on Continental Press, with Annex A ownership dates (December 1950)A committee staff memorandum, printed at pp. 1386-1390 of the Part 5 appendix, on how Continental was formed after Annenberg left the wire business in 1939, its distributors, the 1946-47 contest with Trans-America, and a dated list of its changes of ownership.itemKefauver Part 5, Exhibit 43: chronology of the wire service since 1945 (December 1950)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.itemKelly v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 325 F.2d 148 (7th Cir. 1963)Seventh Circuit decision of 6 December 1963 affirming an injunction that kept Illinois Bell and Western Union from cutting off the Illinois Sports News under the Wire Act's section 1084(d), on stipulated facts that its wires carried racing news for publications sold to the public.