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The South Kensington Museum: What It Is; How It Originated; What It Has Done And Is Now Doing For England And The World; And The Adaptation Of Such An Institution To The Needs And Possibilities Of The City
Charles Phelps Taft
Robert Clarke, 1878
Charles Phelps Taft was an American lawyer and politician who served as editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star and owned both the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs baseball teams.
Background
Taft was born on December 21, 1843 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the eldest child born to Fanny Phelps and Alphonso Taft. His father served as the 34th United States Attorney General and 31st United States Secretary of War, both under President Ulysses S. Grant. Among his younger half-brothers was William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States, and Horace Dutton Taft, the founder of The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, to whom he donated $150, 000 in 1929.
Education
He went to the Cincinnati public schools, prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, and was graduated from Yale in 1864, receiving the M. A. degree from that institution in 1867. Meanwhile, he studied law at Columbia University, received the LL. B. degree in 1866, and was admitted to the bar that year. He practised for a few months with his father in Cincinnati and then went abroad for further study at Heidelberg, where he was awarded the degree of J. U. D. , and at the Sorbonne.
Career
He traveled extensively through Europe; an interest in painting and sculpture, there aroused, never left him. From 1869 to 1879 he practised law in Cincinnati.
In 1879 he and his father-in-law acquired a controlling interest in the Cincinnati Times, which was consolidated the next year with the Star, another afternoon paper, as the Times-Star. Taft, as editor and ultimately as sole proprietor, built it into a profitable newspaper property. This, with the management of a very large estate left by his father-in-law, consumed most of his time.
He was also identified with Ohio utility companies and with Cincinnati real estate, and for several years was part owner of the Chicago and Philadelphia National League baseball clubs.
During his early years as a lawyer, he codified the school laws of his state and he was joint editor of The Cincinnati Superior Court Reporter for the years 1870-71 and 1872-73 (vols. I, II, 1872, 1873).
A lifelong Republican, he sought public office on several occasions. In 1872 he was defeated for Congress. He served one term in Congress (1895 - 97), without special distinction. In 1909 he became a candidate for the senatorial nomination, but withdrew in order to avoid possible embarrassment to his half-brother, who was then president-elect.
Though well-known in Cincinnati and Ohio, he was usually identified to the rest of the country as the brother of William Howard Taft, whose career, indeed, he played a large part in shaping. But for his advice and financial assistance, it is virtually certain that William Howard Taft would never have become president. Unwittingly, he was a factor in the break between his brother and Theodore Roosevelt. After his election in 1908, Taft wrote Roosevelt, "you and my brother Charley made that possible. " In due time, as the breach widened, friends of Roosevelt twisted this to mean that greater credit had been given Charles P. Taft, and Roosevelt resented it. The truth is that the President was very grateful for all that his brother had done, but was careful to insist that without Roosevelt's aid it would not have been possible for Charles to help. Charles P. Taft, the most cultured member of his distinguished family, made notable contributions to the esthetic life of his native community.
In May 1927 he and his wife gave to the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts their private art collection, their homestead, and an endowment of one million dollars for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He also made substantial gifts to the Cincinnati Law School. He died on December 31, 1929.