Illinois politics have cast a big shadow this year, so I suppose it's an auspicious time to write about the
Chicago politician known as “
Bathhouse John.”
Properly known as
John Coughlin, he started his
45-year career as a Chicago city council member in
1892. In his city district, Bathhouse John represented Chicago's most impressive array of
gamblers, bar-keeps, prostitutes, pimps, and
safecrackers.

John (
right) was
colorful in personality and raiment, commonly wearing
bright green waistcoats, hand embroidered shirts with hand-embroidered zoo animals,
and
pants that came in colors like
“gas-house blue.”Bathtub John’s constant companion was his sidekick and crony
Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna (left). The two of them were variously known as the “
Lords of the Levee” and the “
Gray Wolves,” and together they controlled both the police and gangsters like
Al Capone.
(Below, a detail from a 1908 Chicago Tribune cartoon titled “Grand March at Bathhouse John's Ball.”)

How
crooked were these guys? Bathhouse John once strongly objected to a newspaper article because it
incorrectly identified his birthplace. The same article
described John as a thief. He did
not dispute that part. Even worse, in his office, Johns kept sacks of bread and potatoes to hand out to visiting voters. (
Yay! I was bribed with a tuber!)

Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink would
ride to the horse-racing track in the
front seat of John’s limousine because the back seat was often filled with
feed for John’s horses. The steeds had names like
Official,
Sub-Committee,
and
Honored Sir.But best of all, Bathhouse John liked to write songs, including the lovely tune, “
Ode to a Bowl of Soup.” (Seriously. Oh, and about that nickname: Bathhouse John had once worked as a masseur, or a “rubber” in the parlance of the day, in a Turkish bath.)
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