A long struggle ensued to compel Southwestern Bell Telephone and Western Union Telegraph to discontinue service to the Pioneer News Company. Taylor told the committee that efforts in 1938 to cut off the Pioneer News wire service were met by legal actions. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, was one of the first to testify and confirmed that organized gambling, facilitated by the race wire service, was the principal law-enforcement problem in the area. Gambling was the focus of the committee, and to expose organized crime in interstate commerce. Louis was one of 14 cities where Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings in the early 1950s.
