John Whallen
| John Henry Whallen | |
|---|---|
Burial place of John Henry Whallen
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| Born | May 1, 1850 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | December 3, 1913 (aged 63) Louisville, Kentucky |
| Residence | 4420 River Park Drive |
| Occupation | Theater manager |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
John Henry Whallen (May 1, 1850 – December 3, 1913) was a Democratic Party political boss in Louisville, Kentucky during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in New Orleans, he moved with his family to Cincinnati, Ohio in his youth. As a boy during the Civil War he served the Confederate Army in Schoolfield's Battery as a "powder monkey", a boy who carried gunpowder. He later served as a courier for General John Hunt Morgan.
His nicknames included "The Buckingham Boss" and "Napoleon".
Whallen moved to Louisville in the 1870s and became the manager of a vaudeville theater, The Metropolitan. He opened the Buckingham Theater in 1880, a Burlesque, on Jefferson between Third and Fourth Street. Although he tried a few legitimate theater ventures, his wealth came from more prurient interests, and he never had a respectable reputation in Louisville. He came to own several theatres in other cities, including two in Brooklyn, and produced the lavish show, The South Before the War, one of the most successful shows of its era.
It became necessary for Whallen to establish political ties in order to protect his business interests from the family and religious groups that periodically protested Burlesque and its ties to prostitution and gambling. In 1885 he engineered the election of mayor P. Booker Reed and was rewarded with the position Chief of Police. From that point on he was known as the "Buckingham Boss" (after the theater where he had his office) and influenced every Louisville and statewide Kentucky election for the rest of his life. In addition to bribing officials and controlling assistance programs, at his peak Whallen controlled the awarding of 1,200 city patronage jobs.
For many years, Whallen virtually ran Louisville from his "Green Room" at the Buckingham. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Arthur Krock recalled Whallen's dominance of Louisville politics in his memoirs, describing Whallen's Green Room as "the political sewer through which the political filth of Louisville runs." Whallen successfully executed an especially wild scheme in 1892, when he was convinced his choice for city chancellor would lose a fair primary. As primaries were exempt from most election laws, he was able to convince the party that a house-to-house canvass would be superior to any other form of primary election. This had both the effect of disenfranchising thousands of voters who couldn't be at home at the specified times, and ensuring that bought votes were cast the way they were supposed to be.
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