McClellan Committee hearings, Part 48: coin-operated machines in the New Orleans area (23 March to 15 April 1959)
The committee's study of the coin-machine business around New Orleans, "particularly with reference to operations in Jefferson Parish." The chairman said key racket figures controlled locations "through threats, coercion, and in some cases through alliances with corrupt public officials, as we expect the evidence to show."
- Date
- 1959-03-23/1959-04-15
- Kind
- hearing
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Hearings before the Select Committee, 86th Cong., 1st sess., Part 48 (printed pages from 17215)
- Rights
- A work of the United States Senate, printed by the Government Printing Office. Public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. Read from the Internet Archive scan of the print and its OCR text; the page image stored here is from that scan.
Part 48 covers hearings on 23, 24 and 25 March and 7, 8, 9, 10, 14 and 15 April 1959, held under Senate Resolution 44 of the 86th Congress. The page shown here opens the first day.
The chairman said the committee was beginning “a new phase, or rather chapter” in its coin-machine investigation, a study of the industry “in the New Orleans area, and particularly with reference to operations in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, which has long been notorious for the continuing operation of gambling despite the illegality of these enterprises.” He said the committee had found other areas where unions, or unions with management, controlled the business, and that in Louisiana “Certain key racket figures have achieved a degree of domination over the coin-operated machine business where they are able, singlehandedly, to enforce their control over locations through threats, coercion, and in some cases through alliances with corrupt public officials, as we expect the evidence to show.” He also said that organizing drives by the electrical workers and the Teamsters had been resisted by the employers. The first witness was Aaron Kohn.
The chairman’s statement is a forecast of the evidence, not a finding. Counsel’s index of persons was accepted, in the chairman’s words, “just for information” and not as evidence, and nothing on this site is taken from it. The committee’s conclusions on the industry are in Part 4 of its final report.
