Background

Charles Bonaparte was born on June 9, 1851, in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of Jerome Bonaparte and Susan May Williams. His grandfather was that Jerome, King of Westphalia, who married Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, and subsequently separated from her, at the command of his august brother, the Emperor Napoleon. Any pride of French ancestry that Charles Joseph might have paraded was inhibited by the good sense of his mother who came of New England stock and was intensely American.

Education

Charles Bonaparte was educated first in a French school near Baltimore, his birthplace, and then under private tutors. He was regarded as a brilliant scholar, a reputation which he seems to have sustained at Harvard College. Graduating in 1872, he at once entered the Harvard Law School where he took a keen interest in current politics as they were discussed in the debating society. Two years later he graduated from the Law School and was admitted to the bar.

Career

After graduation Charles Bonaparte began to practise in Baltimore. Possessed of ample wealth, he experienced none of the initial hardships of a young lawyer; and from the outset he put his legal talents at the service of litigants who, or whose causes, appealed to his ardent desire for justice. His fellow practitioners regarded him as a skillful and resourceful attorney. It was public causes, however, which appealed most strongly to him. He identified himself with the reform party which was trying to purge Baltimore of its corrupt ring.

His interest in civil service reform brought him into contact with Theodore Roosevelt, then civil service commissioner, who later as president repeatedly sought his services, first as member of the board of Indian commissioners charged with the investigation of conditions in the Indian Territory, and then as special counsel to prosecute alleged frauds in the postal service. In 1905 he was invited to enter President Roosevelt's cabinet as secretary of the navy, with the expectation of succeeding to the attorney-generalship on the retirement of William H. Moody. The appointment stirred more than ordinary public interest. Even the Republican press indulged in good-natured raillery at the thought of the grand-nephew of the Little Corporal becoming head of the United States navy. He afterward described his manifold administrative duties in an article contributed to the Century Magazine (March 1910), which revealed not only his high ideal of public service but his unfailing good humor in the discharge of duty.

In December 1906 he was appointed attorney-general and transferred his abundant energies to the more congenial duties of the Department of Justice at a time when President Roosevelt needed a hard hitter in his fight with "bad trusts. " During his term of office he appeared personally before the Supreme Court in more than fifty cases. Aside from the prosecutions begun by his predecessors, he instituted twenty suits under the anti-trust laws, of which eight were eventually decided in favor of the government. His most notable achievement was the dissolution of the American Tobacco Company, though the decree was not issued until after he had left office. Bonaparte went out of office with President Roosevelt in March 1909 and returned to his somewhat desultory law practise in Baltimore. His dominant interest was still good government.

An effective public speaker, Bonaparte was much in demand wherever the cause of civic reform needed a fearless champion. He was, in short, as Senator Gorman once contemptuously called him, a "professional reformer. " , and a few years later he established a country estate at "Bella Vista, " not far from Baltimore. There, after a lingering illness, he died.

Achievements

• Charled Bonaparte was one of the founders of the Baltimore Reform League and became its chairman; he helped to found and support The Civil Service Reformer, the organ of the Maryland Civil Service League; he was one of the founders of the National Civil Service Reform League. Bonaparte also was one of the founders of the National Municipal League and later its president.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Addresses in Memory of Carl Schurz

    (Addresses in Memory of Carl Schurz Charles Joseph Bonapar...)

Religion

Bonaparte was a member of the Catholic Church.

Politics

Nominally a Republican, Bonaparte did not hesitate to act as an independent in politics. He had attacked the war policy of President McKinley; he followed Roosevelt in the Progressive party of 1912; but he labored to prevent a rupture in the Republican party in 1916 when he believed that a united party was necessary to defeat the Wilson administration.

Personality

Charles Bonaparte was a great-nephew of French Emperor Napoleon I. Bonaparte bore little resemblance to his famous ancestor. He was taller, of sturdier build, with large strong neck and massive head. "A vast, round, rugged head, " observed one of the newspaper correspondents who delighted to interview him, "with curious rises over the temples. . Beneath the forehead lurks the Bonaparte smile. It is there all the time. "

Connections

On September 1, 1875, Charles Bonaparte married Ellen Channing Day of Hartford, Connecticut.

Father:

Jerome Napoleon Patterson Bonaparte

Mother:

Susan May (Williams) Bonaparte

Spouse:

Ellen Channing (Day) Bonaparte

Brother:

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte

References

• Charles Joseph Bonaparte, His Life and Public Service