Thomas F. Kelly
General manager of Continental Press Service in Chicago in 1950, by his own testimony; he described working for James Ragen and Moses Annenberg's news bureaus from the 1920s.
- Aliases
- Tom Kelly, Thomas J. Kelly
- Role
- General manager of Continental Press Service, Chicago, by his own testimony (Kefauver Part 5, 18 October 1950).
- Source
- Kefauver Committee, Part 5: testimony of Thomas F. Kelly (18 October 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
- 1920s — He testified that he worked under James Ragen at the Chicago Examiner and then for Annenberg's Racing Record and the Daily Racing Form (Kefauver Part 5, 18 October 1950).
- 1939 — He testified that Ragen told him early in 1939 that "Mr. M. L. Annenberg was going to give up the news business" (Kefauver Part 5).
- 7 October 1950 — Edward J. McBride testified that he had given control of Continental to "My uncle, Tom Kelly": "He is the general manager" (Kefauver Part 5).
- 18 October 1950 — Asked his address, he answered "General manager, Continental Press, 821 West Fifty-third Street" in Chicago (Kefauver Part 5).
- 1950 — The quoted Senate report names Continental's general manager as "Thomas J. Kelly" and calls him a brother-in-law of the elder McBride and uncle of the owner (S. Rept. 81-1752, quoted in Part 2).
The role line is his own testimony. The committee staff’s Exhibit 40 says that Illinois Sports News was owned by a son and a brother of Tom Kelly, and draws conclusions about his dealings with Las Vegas from Exhibit 49; those are the staff’s statements.
A 1963 appeal, Kelly v. Illinois Bell, was brought by Thomas F. Kelly, Sr., Thomas F. Kelly, Jr. and George L. Kelly as partners in Illinois Sports News. The opinion does not say that Thomas F. Kelly, Sr. is the 1950 witness, and this page does not assume it.
Records
itemKefauver Part 5: testimony of Thomas F. Kelly, general manager of Continental Press (18 October 1950), pp. 691-699Continental's general manager told the committee how he worked for James Ragen and Moses Annenberg's news bureaus, how in 1939 Annenberg "was going to give up the news business," and how Arthur McBride took the business over with most of Annenberg's staff.itemKefauver Part 5: testimony of Edward J. McBride, owner of Continental Press (7 October 1950), pp. 437-447A 26-year-old law student testified "I own the Continental Press Service," that his uncle Tom Kelly ran it as general manager, and that he had bought it in stages from the Ragens.itemS. Rept. 81-1752 on Continental Press, as quoted in Kefauver Part 2, pp. 9-10 (1950)FCC chairman Wayne Coy read pages 15 and 16 of the Senate Commerce Committee's report on S. 3358 into the Kefauver record: it calls Continental the successor to the Annenberg wire service and finds that it has "a near monopoly in the transmission of racing news."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.itemKefauver Part 5, Exhibit 49: memorandum on the wire service in Las Vegas (11 December 1950)A memorandum by the committee's chief investigator summarizing 1948 Nevada Tax Commission testimony about race-book wire service at the Golden Nugget and the Frontier Club, including a Chicago meeting at which a Continental contact named Connie Hurley as its Las Vegas representative.