Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
First page of a typed Department of Justice statement with the department seal: Statement of the Honorable Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General of the United States, before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in support of legislation to curb organized crime and racketeering, May 17, 1961
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Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, statement to House Judiciary Subcommittee No. 5 on the organized-crime bills (17 May 1961)

Kennedy's statement in support of the bills that became the Travel Act and the Wire Act: the wire bill "would prohibit the use of wire communication facilities for the transmission of certain gambling information in interstate and foreign commerce."

Date
1961-05-17
Kind
case-file
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
179029490
Rights
A record of the Department of Justice held by the National Archives (Record Group 60), a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog records the use restriction status as "Unrestricted."

The catalog title is “Statement of Robert F. Kennedy, before Committee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in Support of Legislation to Curb Organize Crime and Racketeering, May 17, 1961” (the catalog’s spelling). The first page, stored here, is headed “Department of Justice” and opens: “I am here today supporting proposed legislation which we, in the Department of Justice believe can be extremely effective in combatting organized crime and racketeering.”

Among his examples for the interstate-travel bill, Kennedy described a dispute at Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1960: “A printing company in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana receives race wire information from Chicago bookmakers and disseminates the data to gambling establishments in sections of the South and Southwest.” He said the company was owned by a racketeer, “since deported,” and gave no names in the passages read. Of the second bill, H.R. 7039, he said it “would prohibit the use of wire communication facilities for the transmission of certain gambling information in interstate and foreign commerce,” and estimated that gambling in the United States involved about 70,000 persons and a gross volume of $7,000,000,000 a year.

The statement is an advocacy document. The two bills became the Travel Act and the Wire Act, both of September 13, 1961, which are filed in the Laws section. The Supreme Court quoted Kennedy’s testimony on the travel bill in Rewis v. United States.

itemTravel Act: 75 Stat. 498-499 (Public Law 87-228), 13 September 1961, adding 18 U.S.C. 1952The 1961 Act "to prohibit travel or transportation in commerce in aid of racketeering enterprises", adding 18 U.S.C. 1952 for interstate travel or use of interstate facilities to carry on gambling, untaxed liquor, narcotics, prostitution, extortion or bribery businesses.itemWire Act: 75 Stat. 491 (Public Law 87-216), 13 September 1961, adding 18 U.S.C. 1084The 1961 Act adding 18 U.S.C. 1084, which made it a crime for a person in the business of betting or wagering knowingly to use a wire communication facility to transmit bets, wagers or wagering information across state or national lines.itemRewis v. United States, 401 U.S. 808 (1971)Supreme Court decision of 5 April 1971 holding that the Travel Act did not reach the operators of a numbers game in Yulee, Florida merely because some of their customers crossed from Georgia to bet.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.