(Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)
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Charles MacVeagh was an American lawyer and diplomat. He was assistant general counsel for US Steel Corporation, from 1901 to 1925. He was ambassador to Japan from 1925 to 1929 during the administration of Calvin Coolidge.
Background
Charles MacVeagh was born on June 6, 1860, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the second of two sons of Isaac Wayne MacVeagh and his first wife, Letitia Miner Lewis.
He was a descendant of Edmund MacVeagh, who emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania about 1689. Many of his ancestors were prominent in colonial and Revolutionary military and public life.
In his father's home during Charles's boyhood many of the most distinguished figures in the political and literary life of the time were familiar visitors.
Education
From Phillips Exeter Academy Charles entered Harvard College, from which he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1881.
He studied for two years at the Columbia College Law School and at the same time in the law offices of Dillon & Swayne in New York City.
Graduating with the degree of LL. B. in June 1883, he was admitted to the bar in New York City in the same month.
Career
In August 1883, MacVeagh entered the law office of Bangs & Stetson. On January 1, 1886, he became a member of the firm, and thirteen months later his name appeared in the firm name, when it was changed to Bangs, Stetson, Tracy & MacVeagh. In later years the firm name became successively Stetson, Jennings & Russell, and Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed.
MacVeagh was one of the incorporators of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, and until 1925, when he entered the diplomatic service, he served the firm as general solicitor and assistant general counsel. On September 24, 1925, MacVeagh was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Japan by President Coolidge.
He filled a difficult post competently and unsensationally, and during his term of office relations between Japan and the United States were perhaps the most amicable in their history. The Japanese appreciated the Ambassador's sincere endeavor at sympathetic understanding of themselves and their culture, and respected the keenness of his trained legal mind and the extraordinary quickness with which he went to the heart of a problem. He resigned on December 9, 1929, to return to his law practice in New York City.
During the war he was a vice-president, secretary, counsel, and president of the Immediate Relief to Italy Fund, Inc. He was a warden of Emmanuel Church in Dublin, North Hampshire, where his summer home was situated.
MacVeagh died on December 4, 1931, at his winter home near Santa Barbara, California, after a year's illness.
Achievements
Charles Macveagh has been listed as a reputable diplomat, lawyer by Marquis Who's Who.
(Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)
Membership
MacVeagh was a member of the executive committee of the Serbian Aid Fund, a member of the executive committee of St. Luke's International Hospital of Tokyo and member of the executive committee of Fatherless Children of France. In 1930, he was elected a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University.
Personality
A substantial part of MacVeagh's time and energy was devoted to philanthropic activities. For his relief work for Japanese orphans during and after the close of the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese Government conferred on him the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun of Japan.
Connections
MacVeagh was married to Fanny Davenport Rogers, the daughter of Sherman S. and Christina Davenport Rogers of Buffalo, New York, on June 15, 1887. He had five sons: Rogers, Lincoln, Ewen, Francis, and Charlton.
