American politician
Charlie with his parents and siblings (1912)
Charles Phelps Taft II
(September 20, 1897 ? June 24, 1983) was a
U.S. Republican Party
politician and member of the
Taft family
. From 1955 to 1957, he served as
Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio
. Like other members of his family, Taft was a
Republican
for the purposes of statewide elections. However, when running for municipal office in Cincinnati, Taft was a member of the
Charter Party
. During his term as mayor,
Fortune
magazine
ranked Cincinnati as the best managed big city in the United States. As mayor, he gained the nickname "Mr. Cincinnati".
[
citation needed
]
Early life
[
edit
]
Charles Phelps Taft II was born in
Cincinnati
,
Ohio
, the youngest of three children born to President
William Howard Taft
and First Lady
Helen Herron Taft
. His siblings were U.S. Senator
Robert A. Taft
and
Bryn Mawr College
professor
Helen Taft Manning
. He was named after his uncle, U.S. Congressman
Charles Phelps Taft
. Taft was only 11 years old when he moved to the
White House
, upon his father's
election as President
. During his father's tenure as Secretary of War, he was a frequent playmate of President
Theodore Roosevelt
's children. On the morning of May 17, 1909, the same day his mother suffered a severe stroke, he underwent a "bloody
adenoid
operation".
[2]
Taft dropped out of
Yale University
in order to serve in the
United States Army
during
World War I
and later returned to graduate in 1918, and then earned his law degree from
Yale Law School
in 1921. He was a member of
Beta Theta Pi
and a 1918 initiate into the
Skull and Bones
student society.
[3]
Marriage
[
edit
]
Taft married Eleanor Kellogg Chase on October 6, 1917, in
Waterbury, Connecticut
. His wife's father ran the
Waterbury Clock Company
. They had 7 children:
- Eleanor Kellogg Hall (Taft) (September 16, 1918 ? June 28, 2004)
[
citation needed
]
- Sylvia Howard Lotspeich (Taft) (August 7, 1920 ? June 26, 2008)
[
citation needed
]
- Seth Taft
(December 31, 1922 ? April 14, 2013)
- Lucia Chase Taft (June 6, 1924 ? October 29, 1955)
[
citation needed
]
- Cynthia Herron Taft Morris (April 28, 1928 ? July 16, 2013)
[
citation needed
]
- Rosalyn Rawson Taft (January 7, 1930 ? September 4, 1941)
- Peter Rawson Taft III (1936).
[
citation needed
]
Rosalyn died from polio and Lucia committed suicide.
[4]
[5]
Career
[
edit
]
Upon graduation from law school, Taft practiced law and became active in Cincinnati local politics. In 1925, he helped introduce the home-rule charter under which Cincinnati became the first major city in the
United States
to adopt the
city manager
form of government. Later that year, he became the youngest President of the International
YMCA
.
[6]
In 1926, he and his brother
Robert A. Taft
helped form the Cincinnati law firm
Taft Stettinius & Hollister
. From 1927 to 1928, he served as
Hamilton County
Prosecutor. He served on the Cincinnati City Council three times, from 1938 to 1942, from 1948 to 1951, and from 1955 to 1977. During
World War II
, he served as Director of U.S. Community War Service at the
Federal Security Agency
and later as Director of Economic Affairs at the
State Department
, under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
. From 1947 to 1948, he served as the first layman President of the Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America
. In the
1952 election
, he ran unsuccessfully for
Governor of Ohio
, losing to incumbent
Frank Lausche
.
[
citation needed
]
Personal interests
[
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]
Taft was an avid fan of the
Cincinnati Reds
baseball team and sometimes listened to games on the radio with an earplug during city council meetings. In addition, he was an avid fisherman whose trademark was a canoe tied to his car in anticipation of his next fishing trip. When he died, the epitaph "Gone fishing" was inscribed on his grave at
Spring Grove Cemetery
in Cincinnati.
[
citation needed
]
He served on the
vestry
(board of directors for an
Episcopal
parish) of
Christ Church Cathedral
in Cincinnati for decades. He served as a vestry member from 1928 to 1941, Junior
Warden
(vice president of the board) from 1942 to 1949, and Senior Warden (president of the board) from 1950 to 1977.
[7]
The large sculpture on the southwest corner of the
Christ Church Cathedral
building is commemorated to him and was created by the commissioned artist, Timothy S. Werrell (b. 1957).
[8]
He was known to be a champion for the poor and worked to study why there were no African Americans attending the church in the 1950s.
[7]
To this day, The
Taft Lecture Series
, funded by The Charles P. and Eleanor Taft Memorial Fund, "features provocative thinkers, writers, teachers, theologians, social justice activists, and leaders in the fields of religion, social science, the arts, politics, and more. Lectures are presented once or twice or year as the featured speakers’ schedules permit, and are always free to the public."
[9]
In his later years he spent much time preserving his father's childhood home, which became the
William Howard Taft National Historic Site
.
[
citation needed
]
Controversy
[
edit
]
In 1952 (while he was Senior Warden at
Christ Church
), Taft was accused by Cincinnati Councilman
Jesse D. Locker
, the first Black council member in Cincinnati, of inserting restrictive race clauses into the deeds of properties he was developing. These clauses read, “These premises shall not be sold, leased or rented to, nor occupied by, except as a servant, anyone not of the Caucasian Race”.
[10]
Though these types of clauses had been deemed illegal and
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court
in 1948, Taft defended himself by saying, “I built 265 good houses during the war at Woodside Homes and Shawanoe Trail and I am proud of them. I could only do that on borrowed money, and at that time I nor anyone else could borrow a dime from any financial institution I know, for any such purpose, without such clauses in the deeds”.
[10]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"Charles Phelps Taft II (1897-1983)"
.
- ^
"President William Taft: Health and Medical History"
.
- ^
"CHARLES P.TAFT, 2D TO WED MISS CHASE; Ex-President's Younger Son Engaged to Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Irving Chase. HE IS A JUNIOR AT YALE Football Player and Winner of Gordon Brown Prize Is Enlisted as Artilleryman in U.S. Army".
The New York Times
. Jul 4, 1917.
- ^
"Rosalyn Taft Victim of Infantile Paralysis"
.
The Minneapolis Star
.
International News Service
. September 5, 1941. p. 2
. Retrieved
June 20,
2022
– via
Newspapers.com
.
- ^
"A Niece of Senator Taft Kills Herself"
.
Des Moines Sunday Register
.
Associated Press
. October 30, 1955. p. 1
. Retrieved
June 20,
2022
– via
Newspapers.com
.
- ^
Treaster, Joseph B. (1983-06-25).
"Charles P. Taft, Former Mayor of Cincinnati"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
2020-03-13
.
- ^
a
b
Morris, J. W. (1969).
Christ Church Cincinnati, 1817-1967
. Cincinnati Lithographing Ohio Press.
- ^
"Ohio Outdoor Sculpture, Charles P. Taft, II Memorial Sculpture"
.
- ^
"Christ Church Cathedral, Taft Lecture Series"
.
- ^
a
b
"Restriction Is Hit By Locker In Charles P. Taft's Realty Proviso".
The Cincinnati Enquirer
. April 3, 1952.
References
[
edit
]
- Degregorio, William A.,
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
, Barricade Books, 1997
- Wead, Doug,
All the President's Children
, Atria Books, 2003
External links
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