James Matthew Ragen

James Matthew Ragen (born August 9, 1880 , † August 15, 1946 in Chicago ) was an American businessman and mobster of Irish descent in Chicago and co-founder - next to his brother Frank Ragen - of the street gang Ragen's Colts .

history

Ragen's Colts

Originally, the members had come together under Frank Ragen - as Ragen's Athletic and Benevolent Association - a sports and charity association. The Democratic Party of Chicago happily hired the sports fans to intervene in the election campaigns. B. did Tammany Hall in New York City with the gangs there.

During the alcohol prohibition , the gang also got into the profitable alcohol smuggling. However, member Ralph Sheldon formed his own gang ( Sheldon Gang ) and began raiding the shipments of other groups. So it came to conflicts with the Chicago outfit under Al Capone . Ultimately, however, the parties agreed and Al Capone hired many Ragen's Colts as hired killers . When the National Crime Syndicate was formed in 1932/33 after the war in Castellammare , the gang was integrated into this system of La Cosa Nostra and members of the gang became well-known leaders.

Moses Annenberg

During and after Prohibition, James Ragen had contacts with other gangsters such as Maurice Enright, Walter Stevens and Peter Gentleman and helped Moses Annenberg sell the Chicago American in his newspaper war .

In 1927 Anneberg had acquired shares in the Chicago Racing Wire Service and also control of the Continental Press Racing Rire Service , but sold the latter to Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride of Ohio , who was part of the Mayfield Road Mob in Cleveland . With the help of his pals Bugsy Siegel , Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna , Gus Greenbaum took control of the Trans-America Race Wire Services in the Southwest in 1928. Carlos Marcello wanted to complete this monopoly by taking over Continental Press . Anneberg had come under pressure from the authorities and was convicted of tax evasion in 1939 .

On November 15, 1939, Ragan bought Annenberg's shares and was now under pressure from the mobsters Tony Accardo , Murray Humphreys and Jake Guzik , who also had an interest in the shares, but Ragen refused.

The end

On June 24, 1946, while driving on State Street , Ragen was injured in his arms and legs by shotgun pellets. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he made an affidavit about the perpetrator on August 15, 1946 . On the same day he was given a sleeping pill and passed away, the explanation disappeared without a trace.

literature

• TJ English: Paddy Whacked. The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. HarperCollins, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-06-059002-4
• Stephen Fox: Blood and Power. Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America. William Morrow and Company, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0-688-04350-6
• Robert J. Kelly: Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 2000, ISBN 978-0-313-30653-2
• Carl Sifakis: The Mafia Encyclopedia. Da Capo Press, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-8160-5694-1
• Carl Sifakis: The Encyclopedia of American Crime. Facts on File Inc., New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-8160-4040-7
• Andrew Cohen: The Racketeer's Progress. Chicago and the Struggle for the Modern American Economy, 1900-1940. Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-521-83466-7
• Sally Denton and Roger Morris: The Money and the Power. The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-375-40130-5
• Laura L. Enright: Chicago's Most Wanted. The Top Ten Book of Murderous Mobsters, Midway Monsters, and Windy City Oddities. Potomac Books Inc., Dulles, Virginia 2005, ISBN 978-1-57488-785-3
• Albert Fried: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1980, ISBN 978-0-231-09683-6
• Dan E. Moldea: Interference. How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football. William Morrow, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0-688-08303-8
• Thomas A. Reppetto: American Mafia. A History of Its Rise to Power. Henry Holt & Co., New York 2004, ISBN 978-0-8050-7798-8
• Peter Dale Scott: Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. University of California Press, Berkeley 1993, ISBN 978-0-520-08410-0

Web links

• The History of the Race Wire Service - Part Three: Ragen and McBride and the End of the Race Wire by Allan May on crimemagazine.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FIFTIES COLLECTION: “The Tragedy of Monty Thorne” (1954) ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. www.theseamericans.com (English) 
2. ↑ Death Of Ragen Spurs Hunt For 2 'Hired Killers'. Await Release of Three Gambling Affidavits . In: Chicago Tribune , August 15, 1946. Retrieved December 8, 2009. "Police intensified their search for the assassins of James M. Ragen Sr. 65, wealthy head of a nation-wide racing information service, after his ..."