George Kelly
Owner of the Illinois Sports News scratch sheet in Chicago from January 1947, by his own 1950 testimony; earlier a road man for James Ragen's Continental Press.
- Role
- Owner of the Illinois Sports News scratch sheet, Chicago, from January 1947, by his own testimony (Kefauver Part 5, 19 December 1950).
- Source
- Kefauver Committee, Part 5: testimony of George Kelly (19 December 1950), via Internet Archive
- Rights
- Biography on this page is limited to what the cited records state. Testimony and staff exhibits are labelled as such; they are not findings.
On the record
- 1945-1946 — He testified that he had "worked for Mr. Ragen, doing business as Continental Press," for about a year, establishing scratch sheets and travelling as a road man (Kefauver Part 5, 19 December 1950).
- January 1947 — He testified that he acquired Illinois Sports News "Through the purchase of it from Mr. Burke" after discussing it with his brother Tom (Kefauver Part 5). The staff chronology records it as "purchased by George Kelly from Tom Bourke" (Exhibit 43).
The role line is his own testimony. The committee staff’s Exhibit 40 calls Illinois Sports News a Continental “dummy”; that is the staff’s characterization.
A George L. Kelly was one of the partners trading as Illinois Sports News in the 1963 Seventh Circuit case Kelly v. Illinois Bell. The opinion does not say he is the 1950 witness. His home address in the hearing record is not copied.
Records
itemKefauver Part 5: testimony of George Kelly on the Illinois Sports News scratch sheet (19 December 1950), pp. 1068-1095The 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."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.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.