Whiskey Men and Machine Politics

          

Foreword:   It should be no surprise that a number of whiskey men were involved in political life at the local and state level, nor that a few of them might have been embroiled in machine politics.   Such men often had money, local influence and interests to be protected politically. It could be just a short step from there to being a machine “boss” or operative.  Four such situations are chronicled here in American cities as diverse as Louisville, Denver, Memphis and Kansas City.

Louisville earned the title “Whiskey City” as the center of the Kentucky distilling industry, a place where many leading liquor producers and wholesalers operated.  The Whallen Brothers, John Henry, shown left, and James Patrick, dominated politics in Louisville for many years as well as being whiskey men in their own right.

It was not their liquor trade, however, that thrust the Whallens into the political arena.  It was the need to protect their entertainment business.  They also were running the Buckingham Theater, shown below, with presentations featuring scantily-clad women who provided “female companionship” and off-stage services to male patrons. John immediately recognized that his theatrical enterprises would be under constant pressure from the more respectable elements in Louisville.  Already with wealth and influence, the Whallens decided to flex some political muscle.

By the mid-1880s the upstairs “Green Room” in the Buckingham Theater had become the hub of local Democratic politics  and John was dubbed the “Buckingham Boss.”  Others called him “Boss John” and some “Napoleon.”  In 1885 he engineered the election of Louisville’s mayor and for his efforts was rewarded with being named Chief of Police.  No more surprise raids on Whallen theaters.  One biography asserted that Whallen “... 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.”

The Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Arthur Krock recalled Whallen’s dominance of Louisville politics in his memoirs, describing the Buckingham Green Room as “the political sewer through which the political filth of Louisville runs.”  Not all in Louisville shared that attitude.  John was noted for his charitable work, providing food to the out-of-work and assisting the poor.  As a result he was popular among immigrants, blue collar workers, and Catholics. They saw him as their champion against the Louisville establishment.

When John died in 1913, the levers to the Whallen machine were handed to James, shown right.   The brother, although he had been important in the rise of the family fortunes was unable to maintain the power of the political organization John had built.  James lacked the charisma of his old brother and gradually the power of the Whallen political machine faded. 

By contrast, Wolfe Londoner’s attempt at a political machine were very brief.  A well-known liquor dealer and grocer, working from his four story building on Denver’s Arapahoe Street,  Londoner had built a reputation as civic activist and decided to take that prestige into the political arena by running for mayor.  His “machine” was composed of the city’s local saloon and gambling bosses, who wielded considerable political power in Denver.  Londoner was seen as someone who would be sympathetic to their interests against a growing tide of prohibitionism and puritanism in Colorado.

His rowdy crowd of supporters provided Londoner with volunteers that included notorious Western gunslingers Bat Masterson, shown left, and Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith.  Led by those “bad boys,”  Londoner’s friends stuffed ballot boxes and traded drinks for votes at local saloons on election day.  Londoner became Denver’s 20th mayor by a whopping 77 votes. 

If Londoner had thoughts about creating any kind of permanent machine, however, they were soon dashed.  Even before he could take office, opponents were filing charges against him.  It took a while before the legal challenges could make their way through the courts and while they were, Londoner served more than a year as mayor, until forced by court orders to resign.  He was Denver’s first Jewish mayor and the only mayor ever removed from office.  Wolfe went back to his liquor trade.

Louis Sambucetti, shown falls into the category of machine operative.  The child of immigrants, he grew up working in his mother’s saloon, perhaps fantasizing about becoming a wealthy and important figure in Memphis, Tennessee.  He would find that path to fortune and recognition in the liquor trade and by cultivating influential friends.  Among them was John T. Walsh, a grocer who had become a powerful political figure in Memphis, one known for being able to deliver the Irish vote.  Seeing Sambucetti as a leader of a growing Italian population,  Walsh brought him into his fold.

In 1906, when a Walsh crony was elected Mayor and Walsh himself was Vice Mayor and Fire and Police Commissioner,  Sambucetti was selected to serve as one of several Memphis Supervisors of Public Works.  Serving in the same capacity was E. H. Crump, whose rise from that post would be meteoric.  In the second term for the Walsh ticket in 1908, Sambucetti had the same position, but Crump, shown right, now had been raised to Fire and Police Commissioner. 

In 1911, Crump, right, obtained a self-serving state law abolishing the existing city government and  establishing a small commission to manage Memphis, an arrangement he dominated as “Boss” Crump for the next fifty years.  Sambucetti never held public office again.  Initially his “godfather” John Walsh sided against Crump dooming any chances Louis might have had to stay in office.  Seeing the newcomer’s hold on the city, John T. eventually capitulated and threw in with him, supporting Crump’s organization thereafter.  Louis made a quick exit from politics and stuck to running his liquor business thereafter.

That brings us to one of the most notorious political bosses of American history — Thomas J. Pendergast.  Some say that Tom Pendergast was just a Kansas City, Missouri, saloonkeeper and liquor dealer who came to the rescue of a failed clothing store proprietor.  Others say he was a high powered political boss who helped make Harry Truman the 33rd President of the United States.  Both are right.

For many years in the early 1900s Pendergast controlled Kansas City, historians say, much like a CEO controls a large corporation.  Presenting himself as a businessman, he ran the city, providing jobs for the working population, choosing municipal and state leadership, and directing a political “machine” that helped fill his pockets with kickbacks and bribes.  Although he had many business interests,  Pendergast was first and almost always (with a partial “time  out” for Prohibition) a dispenser of liquor.  

In 1924, as Pendergast’s political power was growing, he bought the Monroe Hotel at 1904 Main Street and several years later built a two-story yellow brick building next door that he called “The Jefferson Club.”  From that location, shown below, Tom held court, dispensed patronage and controlled city, county and even Missouri state politics.  He also was building a business empire of construction and other companies to undertake public works and services that were fertile sources of graft money.  Pendergast became known as “King Tom.”

Enter Harry Truman.  Truman had served with distinction in World War I but found civilian life more challenging. Co-owner of a men’s clothing store in downtown Kansas City he saw the business go bankrupt within two years,  a victim of the 1921 Depression.  A comrade in arms of Pendergast’s nephew, the honest and hardworking Truman soon came to the attention of Pendergast himself,  who backed Truman’s election for presiding judge of the county court.  Truman won and kept the job for eight years.  Pendergast became his political mentor and helped elect him a U.S. Senator from Missouri.  

But as Truman’s star was rising, Pendergast was on the skids. A strong reform movement in Kansas City eventually kicked out machine politics.  King Tom’s gambling habits incurred heavy debts, ones he attempted to pay off with money from crooked deals.  Arrested and convicted in 1939, Pendergast spent 15 months in prison.  While he was incarcerated and even afterward, his son, Tom Jr., took over the management of the family liquor interests.  Tom Pendergast died four years later.   Despite many who urged him to do so, Harry Truman never renounced his friendship with the political boss who gave him his start.

Note:  For more more complete vignettes on each of the whiskey men featured here, see Whallens, January 29, 2014; Londoner, November 26, 2017; Sambucetti, March 10, 2017, and Pendergast, December 2, 2013.

Wolfe Londoner Lived a Novel Life

               

In 1899 liquor dealer Wolfe Londoner, with the help of two Western desperadoes, won the mayoralty race in Denver by a narrow margin.  How this Manhattan-born son of Jewish immigrants got to this place and what happened afterwards is the stuff of fictional characters in novels. 

Born in 1839, Londoner was the son of a wealthy New York merchant who gave him the educational and other advantages of money.  Of a “restless and adventurous disposition,” however, Wolfe left home before reaching 15 years and boarding a California-bound steamship chanced the “round the Horn” voyage to the Pacific Coast, disembarking at San Francisco.

There Londoner found a job working in a hotel for $125 month and board—San Francisco inflation wages. Perhaps more important, soon afterward he was hired by a auctioneer to sell goods from a platform three hours every evening.  Though still a youngster his glib auction patter soon earned him another $200 a month and boosted his confidence about making it in the adult world.  Saving his money, he opened a grocery with liquor a prime commodity.  Londoner was not yet 17.

Meanwhile, back in New York, his father saw more opportunity west and moved to Dubuque, Iowa, where he opened a large store. He called Wolfe from San Francisco to Iowa to help him.  They did a prosperous business there until the Panic (Depression) of 1857-1858 shattered their fortunes and sent the father, with the remnant of their goods, scrambling to St. Louis, hoping for better times. 

Wolfe was left in Iowa in charge of seven remaining family members awaiting enough money from the father to book passage for them to New Orleans and up to St. Louis.  After receiving only a wholly insufficient $20, Wolfe became impatient and using his gift of gab convinced a steamboat captain to take his family on board for $25.  Recognizing Wolfe was a very young man, the officer was surprised when a mother and six  children boarded.  “I married a widow,” the youth fibbed.  The captain was sympathetic and let them go.

Restless in St. Louis, in 1860 Londoner decided to join a wagon train going to Denver with a cargo of goods to sell.  When he tried to claim one of the paying seats, he was ordered by the wagon master to walk behind.  As a result he walked most of the way from St. Louis to Denver —more than 800 miles.  A fertile story-teller, Londoner later related that his boots began to hurt his feet:  “The nails tortured me so I walked barefoot one hundred miles.  We met some Indians and I traded my shoes for several pairs of moccasins.”  Wearing them he walked the rest of the way. 

Upon reaching Colorado, he delivered his goods and was put in charge of a West Denver store and subsequently sent out to manage stores elsewhere in Colorado, including at a mining camp called “Calfornia Gulch” that later became Leadville.  A photo of his Leadville store is shown here.  Only about 21 when he arrived there, Londoner began his political career in Leadville.  A gifted orator and wit, he spent four years variously as the elected county clerk and recorder, county treasurer and county commissioner.  Wolfe’s political success came despite his being only five feet, three and one-half inches tall.

Having saved his money, in 1865 Londoner returned to Denver and opened his own store at 15th and Blake. Still politically active, he became a friend to many local journalists, including  Eugene Field, the noted American poet and author who then was editor of of the Denver Tribune.  This is the way Londoner told of their jokes upon the other:

“Gene Field wrote an article, saying that I would present every colored voter who called at my store with a watermelon.  They came in droves, all clamoring for melons.  Fortunately, I found a wagon of Georgia melons on Market Street and I passed them out.  The next day I put an ad in the News that Gene Field wanted a watchdog, and set a time for owners to bring dogs to his office.  At the appointed time there was yelping and fighting and scrambling of dogs in Gene’s office.  He climbed on a table and screamed for help, while the owners of the dogs fought lustily with each other.”

Requiring larger quarters by 1887, Londoner constructed his own four-story building at 1630 Arapahoe Street, shown right.  The bottom floor held his grocery and liquor store.  Shown below in a photo, it was a large establishment with well stocked shelves and what appears to a whiskey-tasting bar at the right.  The upper floors were for storage and also allowed him to mix up his own liquor.  Using stocks received from Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Maryland, Londoner was creating his own brands of whiskey, bottling and labeling it, and selling at retail.

Collectors long have sought out his jugs and bottles as Western rarities.  Shown here are two ceramics that held Londoner’s liquor.  The one at right is a Albany slip-covered jug with his name in raised letters. It likely held a quart of whiskey.  The item at left is a mini-jug with his name scratched under the glaze.  Below are two decorative decanters that would have been given to saloons, hotels and restaurants carrying his liquor.  Note that one is dated 1885.

Meanwhile, Londoner was having a personal life. In 1879, he married Francis, called “Frannie,” Anthony, a women 21 years his junior.  Like him, she had been born in New York of native born New Yorkers.  In time the couple would have five children, three girls and two boys.  One boy, Herman, brought sorrow when he died at age nine.  In time as he became wealthy, Londoner built his family a mansion that became a Denver showpiece, illustrated below.

As recorded in Vickers, “History of the City of Denver, Arapahoe Country and Colorado,” Londoner’s trade soon extended far beyond the city of Denver, encompassing all of Colorado and extending into Kansas, New Mexico and Wyoming, amounting annually to $1 million (equivalent to $25 million today). Wrote Vickers:  “He is a hard-working man, giving his constant attention to even the smallest details of his  immense business.”

Londoner was also public spirited.  In 1883 the geographic boundaries of Arapahoe County were changed and the existing courthouse was rendered obsolete.  During ensuing years city planners, architects, mayors and struggled with where and how to build a new one — until Wolfe stepped in.  In 1893, he volunteered to chair the building committee for the erection of a new courthouse and for the time it took to get the project off the ground, he gave his business over to other managers and devoted himself full-time to the task.  

Londoner was described by one author as “faithful and conscientious….He was proud that not a penny’s worth of graft occurred in the construction….”  The building, shown here, became the pride of Denver.   For the manner in which he had discharged his trust, city officials, as Londoner put it, “drew up a resolution which was good enough to put on my grave when I die.”

Throughout his years in Denver, Londoner continued to be involved in politics, being elected to local offices.  With his stock high after completion of the courthouse he decided to run for mayor.  He was a Republican in a city that tended Democrat over the free silver issue.  As friends and supporters, however, Londoner could count on the local saloon and gambling bosses who wielded political power in Denver.  They provided him with campaign "volunteers" that included notorious Western gunslingers Bat Masterson and Soapy Smith.

Led by those “bad boys,”  Londoner’s friends stuffed ballot boxes and traded drinks for votes at local saloons on election day.  He became Denver’s 20th mayor by a whopping 77 votes.  Even before Londoner could take office, opponents were filing charges against him.  It took time for the legal challenges to make their way through the courts and while they were, Londoner served more than a year as mayor, finally forced by court orders to resign.  He was Denver’s first Jewish mayor and the only mayor ever removed from office.

Londoner seems not to have been daunted by his fall from power and devoted himself subsequently to the Denver Press Club, that had been founded years earlier at his store.  He also achieved a local reputation as a writer.  According to Vickers, his articles in local newspapers exhibited “the same happy vein of genial humor that is apparent in all his intercourse with his fellow-men.”  His Arapahoe Building featured what Londoner called his “cyclone cellar” where he was noted for entertaining local and visiting newsmen.  “It was no misnomer,” Wolfe wrote, “many met with a cyclone at home because of a visit to that cellar.”  Shown right is a photo of Wolfe and Fannie — she towers over him — in his later years.

In 1912, at the age of 70, Wolfe Londoner died, up to the end involved in his grocery and liquor business.  The cause of death was given as “apoplexy,” in other words, a cerebral hemorrhage.  With his family and army of friends looking on, he was buried in Denver’s Fairmount Cemetery.  Londoner’s gravestone is shown here.  A half century earlier when Wolfe Londoner first came to Denver he had $1.50 in his pocket and knew not a soul.  When he took his leave he was extravagantly wealthy and known by virtually everyone.   Of such men as Wolfe Londoner are novels written.  

Notes:  A principal source for this post was the previously cited Vickers history that contained a long biography.   Other sources were “Colorado Pioneers in Picture and Story,” by Alice Polk Hill and an article in the winter 2003 issue of Bottles and Extras by John M. Eatwell.  Photos of Londoner jugs and bottles also are from Eatwell’s piece.