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Retired Kansas City, Missouri, Police Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins tells the story of the unsolved murder of James Ragen.
Gary Jenkins digs into an old-school Chicago Outfit story pulled from a vintage newspaper clip by legendary columnist Drew Pearson. The article centers on James M. Ragen,” a key figure in the Continental Press and Racing Wire—and what happened when the Outfit decided it wanted total control of the race wire business.
This is a gritty snapshot of how Chicago’s underworld allegedly dominated legitimate businesses in the 1940s—bars, taverns, suppliers, and especially gambling infrastructure—then used violence and influence to keep it that way.
Gary returned to Chicago Outfit history after spotting an old Drew Pearson column: “A Songbird Who Sang, Murdered.”
Who James Ragen was: a major player in distributing horse racing results nationwide
How race wire services powered mob-controlled bookmaking across U.S. cities
The Outfit’s push to muscle in with a competing racing wire—and the warning: don’t compete with Chicago
Mob-linked figure Mo Annenberg and the money behind race wire “tolls” and kickbacks. Outfit names mentioned in the takeover fight, including “Greasy Thumb” Jake Guzik and others from the era.
Pearson claimed that Ragen gave information about mob domination in Chicago to the U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark, and that resulted in his murder.
The broad daylight attack: a fruit truck pulls alongside, and a machine gun ambush erupts at a stoplight, and James Ragen goes down in a hail of .45 bullets. The “stranger-than-fiction” twist: Ragen later dies, and an autopsy allegedly finds a tube of mercury in his stomach. Why the case remained murky: the coroner allegedly refused to pin it cleanly as murder (per Pearson’s reporting)
Gary frames it as a reminder of how deep the Outfit’s influence ran in city systems and politics.
Memorable Moments
Ragen/Reagan’s fatalistic line (as told by Pearson): “If they want you, they’re gonna get you.”
The bizarre mercury detail and Gary asking listeners if they’ve ever heard anything like it
Why This Story Matters
This bonus episode connects the dots between information networks (race results), organized gambling, and the Outfit’s approach to business: control the pipeline, control the profit—and crush anyone who won’t move aside.
Gary invites listeners to share any other “old but gold” Chicago Outfit stories or clippings worth covering in future bonus episodes—and reminds everyone to check out his books and films (search Gary Jenkins on Amazon or visit his website).
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Transcript
James Ragen race wire story
Speaker: [00:00:00] Well, hey, all you wire tappers. Good to be back here in the studio. Gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City, Missouri Police Detective, formerly of the Intelligence Unit. I spent 14 years there investigating organized crime in Kansas City. Best 14 years of my life.
Speaker: I think sometimes you know, I’ve got this True Crime podcast and we focus on the mob and I haven’t. Been to Chicago for a little bit, it seemed like. And I was, I was looking through some stuff from the Chicago outfit Facebook page, and there’s a newspaper clip on the, the, the group that has newspaper clips on it that had an article by a man named Drew Pearson.
Speaker: Now, drew Pearson was a real famous columnist back in the forties and fifties, and the title of it is A Songbird Who, mur, who Sang, murdered. Now he starts off talking about the singing of Joe Vce. I guess he, he wrote this article about the time Joe Vce had all the newspapers, Andre, and talked about the New York mob.
Speaker: But he had [00:01:00] a guy who talked about the Chicago outfit. He said that, he feels, he said that he felt responsible for the death of this informant outta Chicago. So he dropped in, he said he dropped into the morgue of Chicago’s American newspaper to refresh his memory just about this guy and, and what he said. This guy was a man named James M. Reagan, who was a of the continental press and racing wire. He was machine gunned down from a fruit truck. In August 14th, 1946,
Speaker: Reagan, before he died, had told him many things in, in 1946 four years before the Koff Commission and just before he got killed. Reagan told Drew Pearson about the Chicago Mob rule and gave him permission to take it to the Attorney General of the United States, Tom Clark. Now, Tom Clark is the same guy who [00:02:00] commuted the sentences of.
Speaker: The four Chicago outfit bosses who were given tenure prison sentences for the Hollywood scandal for, for trying to extort money from Hollywood unions and Hollywood film companies. Now this story that he told was about hotels and taverns and nightclubs and restaurants, and he said they’re all dominated by the mob in Chicago.
Speaker: He said to hire a bartender, to buy ice cubes or to launder. Roller towels. Those are the old towels that you used to pull down in the bathrooms. I don’t think they have ’em anymore.
Speaker: And they take those towels out and send them off and they’d launder ’em and give you a freshman to buy any beer. To replenish your alcohol supply in a bar, you had to do business with the mob. The mob ruled a very large part of Chicago. He took this story back to Attorney General Clark, who authorized a dozen or so FBI men to check on Reagan’s facts.
Speaker: Couple weeks later, they reported back and he said, this is all [00:03:00] true. They also reported that the control of the underworld reached in a very high places in Chicago and political places, and then Illinois too, also to Tom Clark, although nobody really knew that at the time and, and only indirectly. Some of these rules of the underworld in Chicago were on the surface, respected businessmen and, and politicians whose names were household words in Chicago.
Speaker: Some of them had reformed, but they still controlled the mob. They, which means that they maybe didn’t go out and do mob stuff anymore, but they still were, had some control in the mob. In some respects, Reagan’s information was much more important than that at Joe Bachi, especially when it came to Chicago.
Speaker: Achi didn’t know anything about Chicago, didn’t talk about Chicago, but the Justice Department in Washington had no jurisdiction at the time, which is kind of interesting. They had to pass a lot of special laws in order to bring the feds in or catch these guys on a, some kind of a interstate. Violation [00:04:00] now, they just didn’t wanna do it because they had interstate theft at that time.
Speaker: There’s a lot of things they could do. Transportation, women across state lines for immoral purposes. They could use the interstate transportation of stolen autos. There was all kinds of stuff they could use, but, but they wouldn’t use it. Claim the state’s rights city of Chicago and state of Illinois responsible, not the FBI or the Justice Department now, ain’t, that’s something they claim they had no responsibility for all this crime going on in Chicago.
Speaker: Lot different than it is today. The feds are trying to, to send the national Guard in and, and all the new federal police, a newly hired federal police , into Chicago to. Clean up Chicago. So back then they didn’t want anything to do with Chicago. Called drew Pearson back a little later, shortly after, and there was a leaky place up there in Washington.
Speaker: He said the mob. Was wise to him. They were out to get him and he asked for FBI protection, the FBI did give him a bodyguard for a short period of time. But you know, it, that didn’t last. And Reagan [00:05:00] himself was not exactly a saint. He was, he was the the bar boss of the continental racing wire. And he, you know, he distributed raising results.
Speaker: And there’s a huge amount of gambling in all the different cities that was ran by the mob. And the results came over this continental racing wire. Immediately you could have a race in, in upstate in Saratoga. And when that, that race was done, the results were sent back to Chicago and Kansas City and Baltimore, and, and Cleveland and all those states.
Speaker: And he was involved with a mob associate named Mo Annenberg and distributing this news to RS all over the country. He actually had some minor altercations with this Mo Annenberg, who was definitely a mob associate when Annenberg wanted to increase the race wire tolls to some certain publications that that weren’t kicking back to the mob.
Speaker: He wanted almost, he wanted to almost triple him from $200 a week to $500 a week. And his troubles really began because [00:06:00] Chicago Mob had started their own racing wire that was gonna compete with them. And, you know, you just don’t compete with the Chicago outfit on a business level. You just don’t compete with them.
Speaker: A couple of names he said, Jaime Levin and greasy th. And greasy thumb, Jake Guzzi directed that battle to take over the race wire. The former Illinois State Senator involved Pat Burns. He was working for the mob acquired property over over, over the tracks where men with binoculars could flash the odds and the race results to offices, which then in turn sent ’em out over the wire to bookmakers all over the country.
Speaker: And Reagan’s continental wire was already doing the same thing. And the take on this was fabulous for the mob and the mob demanded Reagan move over and let them have it all. You know, the mob, you just don’t, if they wanna move in, they’re gonna take it all. They’re always gonna take it all. Probably that’s what induced Reagan to talk to him.
Speaker: Do Drew Pearson [00:07:00] opines and ’cause he had threats on his life even before this. And, and I think he thought maybe he could bring a lot of federal heat onto the mob in Chicago. That then would back them off from trying to take over the race wire business. You know, it’s you know, it’s a way to use the FBI or the police to take out competition really, is probably what it really comes down to, what it really was.
Speaker: You know, drew Pearson says, you know, when a man calls you on the phone and tells you in detail about one time he found two gunmen laying outside his home, waiting for him to come out, and he tries to do something about it. And that’s when he called the FBI you know, and they said, manpower short, we got other problems to handle.
Speaker: And. And Reagan kept calling Drew Pearson and kept calling saying, you know, my life’s in danger. And, and Drew Pearson, he was telling the truth. Reagan finally hired two bodyguards, what he should have done all on his own before a retired policeman named Walter Peltier and a truck driver named Marty Waltz.
Speaker: The retired policeman might be okay, although that [00:08:00] would be suspect with a mob in Chicago. He just as soon turned him over for a little more money as guard him. I got a feeling. Two months after. Reagan talked to Drew Pearson. He was driving home about five 30 in the afternoon. A gray sedan with Indiana plates stopped in front of him in per Pershing Road and State Street.
Speaker: The traffic light turned and the two bodyguards were following him in a close behind. They expected trouble, but not till they got home. And not in broad daylight on the streets of Chicago and downtown Chicago with all the traffic around. Well, a fruit truck, a light delivery truck with crates of fruit on it, and a tarponing across the top.
Speaker: Pulled up alongside Reagan at this light. All of a sudden the Taron was pulled aside. This just like TV folks, machine gun stressed out and bam, bam, bam. I mean, they, they fired off round after round into Reagan’s car, light changed in the fruit truck, and the gray sedan moved on out. [00:09:00] Reagan was taken immediate to a hospital, and he was still alive, and he was kind of philosophical.
Speaker: According to Drew Pearson. He says, well, I guess if they want you, they’re gonna get you. This was not the end of the story though. Re Reagan began to recover from the mods bullets. Three Chicago cops had sat in shifts outside his hospital room, one on each shift, and, and so, you know, they couldn’t finish the job in the hospital room, and Reagan got better and better.
Speaker: But then finally on August 14th, this is about what, two months later, he dies. The autopsy showed that there was a tube of mercury had been placed inside his stomach enough to kill three men. Now, go figure. Have you ever heard of that? They placed it, I somehow they placed a tube of. Mercury in his stomach.
Speaker: I guess he threw some of the wounds he had or something. They must have had a doctor involved. I’m not sure how that happened. That’s a, that’s a weird one there folks. That is something else. Any of you guys ever heard [00:10:00] anything more strange than that? Let me know. But put his tube of mercury in his stomach.
Speaker: Crazy. The coroner ruled that he could not charge murder since he couldn’t say whether Reagan had died of gunshot wounds or of mercury poison. I think he’d charge murder either way. Well it sounded like the coroner was on the take too. You know, the outfit had Chicago wired in most of the political offices in 19 46, 47, 48.
Speaker: Clear up to really up to the seventies, and the operation Graylord started knocking some of that out. They don’t know. They just don’t know whether some mobster came in there and or they bribed somebody. But more than likely, they bribed somebody to get that tube of mercury in his stomach. Death of James N.
Speaker: Reagan remains one of Chicago’s 974 unsolved Gangland Slain since 1919, and that this was back in the fifties or so when this article was written. So that’s the end of James Reagan and the end of [00:11:00] his. Wire service, a continental press and racing wire in the total domination of Chicago, of the wire services, especially west of New York.
Speaker: I mean Chicago. They wanted to rule everything west of New York and they did so. Anyhow. If you got any other old stories like that that are kind of interesting, let me know. I’m putting this up as a little bonus episode, and I really appreciate y’all tuning in. Don’t forget, I got books and movies out there to sell and go to my website or go to Amazon, just search for Gary Jenkins.
Speaker: You might wanna take a look at the VA website. If you’re in, been in the service and you think you have a problem with PTSD or alcoholism or anything like that, if you have a problem with gambling via 8 1 800. Bets off or whatever. Your state has all the gambling casinos in the United States.
Speaker: Whenever they get awarded a gambling license, they have to kick in so much money to provide services for people with problems with [00:12:00] gambling. They have problems with alcoholism straight you know, our friend Anthony Ruano, he’s got a website out there. Just go to his website and he’s, there’s a way to contact him on that.
Speaker: I used, I sometimes say a number. I’m not sure if that number’s still any good. And I guess that’s all I got. Thanks a lot guys.