Coughlin, John Joseph

John Joseph Coughlin (August 15, 1860–November 11, 1938), also known as “Bathhouse John,” was a legendary Chicago alderman and machine politician, who with Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna ruled the city's notorious, viceriddled First Ward for 46 years. Coughlin's appearance and omnipresent cigar were considered the political cartoonist's ideal of a barrelhouse alderman. Thickmuscled and tall, Coughlin excelled at rubbing, giving massages to men at community or “Turkish” bathhouses then in vogue in a city with little indoor plumbing. Working and eventually owning a number of his namesakes, he mingled with the city's business and political elite. He later observed that the only difference between Chicago's elite and its lower classes was that one was luckier than the other.

Coughlin became involved in Democratic ward politics beginning in the 1880s. He was considered an honest if not intelligent politician. He won election as First Ward alderman in 1892 and went on to serve a record 46 years on the city council. An informal alliance with Kenna, described as the smartest man in Chicago's saloon business, resulted in a crime syndicate unequaled for its day. Coughlin was the front man, and his outlandish dress and congenial manners made him popular with politicians as well as the public and press.

Vice operations outnumbered legal businesses in the turnof-the-20th-century downtown First Ward. Beyond a few legitimate businesses such as department stores, the ward's only legal residents were the wealthy living in a lakefront neighborhood, who cared little for local politics, and immigrant slum dwellers who benefitted from the benevolence of their “ward heelers.” Kenna and Coughlin organized the First Ward Democratic Club, the first organization of its kind, and began the practice of paying the homeless 50 cents apiece to temporarily live and vote in their ward. With other members of Chicago's socalled city council Gray Wolves, Coughlin used his resulting clout to elect politicians and peddle influence throughout local, county, and state governments.

Reform organizations chided “The Bath” repeatedly for his criminal activities. He never disputed their claims except once when reformers erroneously identified his birthplace as suburban Waukegan. Coughlin retorted that he had been born in Chicago and promised that he would die there, a prediction that proved true. From 1896 until 1909, Coughlin and Kenna hosted an annual campaign fundraising ball in their ward. The event attracted not only public officials but prostitutes, madams, gamblers, organizedcrime figures, and police. The attendees and their dress and behavior eventually led to public outcry and the ball's demise.

Beginning around 1900, Coughlin established an insurance agency. He and his operatives strongarmed [Page 192]the owners of the many vice businesses in his ward into purchasing insurance from his firm, along with the payment of protection money in the form of political contributions. He and Kenna controlled Levee liquor sales, dispensed patronage, and sold property tax abatements to make additional money.

Although Couglin and Kenna were eventually surpassed in influence by more organized crime figures such as “Big” Jim Colosimo and Al Capone, Coughlin was allowed to retain his aldermanic seat until his death in 1938. In his later years, he owned a private zoo in Colorado and more than 60 racing horses, but he died nearly broke. At the time of his death, newspaper accounts estimated that he and Kenna were responsible for as many as 200,000 individual acts of charity during their aldermanic years, providing clothing, money, and jobs for needy constituents. Most occurred in an era before any government welfare.

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