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. Throughout his career, Whallen used nearly every method imaginable to manipulate elections. He had police intimidate black voters, and had voting locations in
Republican-heavy precincts moved at the last moment or colluded to create impossibly long waits at them. He hired repeat voters, bought votes, threatened to take away patronage jobs, and even managed to annul a primary election in 1899 when it appeared his candidate was going to lose. ==Personal life and death==