Bonaparte, Charles J. (Charles Joseph), 1851-1921

Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1884 to December 1891. Notable events include the deaths of Alice Lee Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s time on his ranch, the completion of Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Edith Kermit Carow, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt’s birth, the “Great-Dieup” of cattle in North Dakota, and the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1985

The logo for the 2006 annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association appears on the front cover of this issue while the back cover features a photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt onboard the presidential yacht Mayflower with three naval officers and the Secretary of the Navy. 

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2006

In a speech given shortly after Theodore Roosevelt’s death, George Haven Putnam discusses his friendship with Roosevelt, and he highlights aspects of his character, leadership ability, and episodes from his political career. Putnam details Roosevelt’s role in the 1884 presidential contest, his dispute with the Postmaster General during his time as a Civil Service Commissioner, and examines the effort to secure the election of Charles Evans Hughes as Governor of New York in 1908.

A photograph of Roosevelt in 1905 appears on the first page of the speech. A listing of the members of the executive committee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) supplements the piece along with a text box with the heading ” A Membership Honor Roll” that lists members of the TRA who have enrolled in three premium membership categories.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Photograph shows French officers escorting President Roosevelt during re-interment ceremonies for John Paul Jones at the United States Naval Academy, Maryland, Annapolis.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1906-04-24

President Roosevelt would like Commissioner of Indian Affairs Leupp’s opinion of Assistant Attorney General James Clark McReynolds before deciding if the disagreement between the two should be referred to Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-02-15

As an addendum to Senate Bill 3899, Senator Perkins submits two letters from Secretary of the Navy Charles J. Bonaparte to Senator Eugene Hale. Bonaparte’s letters discuss amendments to the pending legislation, as well as the necessity of passing the legislation granting the Secretary of the Navy the authority to dismiss midshipmen at any time if he deems it in the best interest of the Navy. Such actions will allow the Secretary of the Navy to better address problems like hazing, which otherwise require a longer process of court-martial.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-30

John H. Vivian examines the controversy that swirled around President Theodore Roosevelt’s executive order of August 1906 mandating a simplified form of spelling in certain government documents. He looks at the reaction of newspapers from around the country, and says that their initial reactions were overdone but were later tempered. He also examines the reaction from some agencies of the federal government, and notes  opposition to the plan in Congress that centered less on concerns about spelling and more on Roosevelt’s use of executive power.

This article is also noteworthy as it is the first article in the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal to have endnotes.

Charles J. Bonaparte comments on how Maryland will vote in the upcoming presidential election between President Roosevelt and judge Alton B. Parker. Bonaparte believes the race will come down to the success of the Democratic managers in manipulating the vote totals and the attitudes of independent Democrats. Bonaparte himself believes that Maryland should vote for Roosevelt, as Parker’s campaign is working with Senator Arthur P. Gorman of Maryland and former New York Governor David B. Hill, and will be beholden to them as his “twin sponsors.” There has been much more natural support for Roosevelt from independent factions than there has been for Parker.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-28

This page from the Springfield Daily Republican presents Charles J. Bonaparte’s letter to the newspaper about Panama, as well as the newspaper’s editorial in reply.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-26

Postmaster General Payne was shocked at the clipping in the Washington Evening Star that stated that fourth-class postmasters are in the classified service, and believes that President Roosevelt is as surprised as he is. Payne had asked Charles J. Bonaparte to examine the Civil Service Act and rules and regulations to ascertain whether fourth-class postmasters were transferred to the classified service, and encloses the reply that he received. Payne balks at transferring the fourth-class postmasters to the civil service, as it would be a radical shift.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-09-15

Postmaster General Payne will speak with Charles J. Bonaparte and Conrad Holmes when they are here this afternoon. He also informs President Roosevelt that although George. A. C. Christiancy has tendered his resignation as assistant attorney in the Assistant Attorney General for the Post Office Department, Payne has yet to accept it, and will not do so until the investigation is closed. Payne questions whether Christiancy’s resignation should be accepted.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-09-09

Postmaster General Payne updates President Roosevelt on the state of the post office investigation. Charles J. Bonaparte and Holmes Conrad have been away for the summer, and have not been consulted yet, although the investigation has proceeded in the meantime. Fourth Assistant Postmaster General Joseph L. Bristow has a large number of cases pending in the District Attorney’s office, waiting to go before a grand jury. Indictments are expected, and Payne does not believe that it would be wise for the government to publicly release information on the investigation before the grand jury has finished.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-09-08

In Washington, D. C., President Roosevelt tells Board of Indian Commissioners member Charles J. Bonaparte, “Now Bonaparte, go right now and stop that,” pointing to an “official land shark” in Indian Territory who holds a “perpetual lease” and tells a Native American, “All you have to do is sign this lease.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-09

President Roosevelt stands in front of a vault of papers. “Congress” says, “Give me them paperrrs!” Roosevelt replies, “Over my dead body!!” Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte says, “Don’t let him bluff you, boss!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist “Tom Bee” drew a parody of a stage melodrama to address the settlement of the Wall Street Panic that occurred more than a year previous to the cartoon. This drawing was prompted by questions in Congress and the Democratic press about details of the settlement, and more probably prompted by a desire to attack Roosevelt on his way out of office; that, and the attempts to tie the incoming administration of William H. Taft to alleged favoritism shown J. P. Morgan and big banks, was the theme of other cartoons and editorials.

The “U.S. Senate” holds a “resolution” in his left hand and points at Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte in the other. The “Senate” asks, “Why didn’t you prosecute the steel trust?” President Roosevelt stands beside the seated Bonaparte and says, “Don’t answer that, Charlie.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Democratic Senator Charles A. Culberson introduced a resolution at this time of this cartoon, inquiring of Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte whether President Roosevelt, during the Wall Street Panic of 1907 rightly permitted the absorption of Tennessee Iron and Coal by United States Steel. The President intervened and directed Bonaparte not to respond.

John D. Rockefeller sits in a rocking chair and talks to a group of children–President Roosevelt, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, Ida M. Tarbell, Frank B. Kellogg, Thomas William Lawson, and a “muck rake” cat. A “Standard Oil” lamp lights the room. Caption: “Now, children, I’ll tell you the story of my life.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Spin Doctors” and the machinery of public-relations campaigns are not new to the twenty-first century. John D. Rockefeller had become well known and well off — reportedly the world’s richest man — since discovering oil in western Pennsylvania as a young man. He then discovered, as did others, what could done with oil, gas, gasoline, petroleum, and many byproducts. On his path to wealth, he controlled and often monopolized other businesses, in “vertical” and “horizontal” means; as well as people, banks, and politicians.

President Roosevelt opens his cabinet, which features busts of his cabinet members, and tells them, “Come now, all of you must take the stump.” In the foreground is the “Taft campaign stump” and the following cabinet members are depicted as busts: Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar S. Straus, Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou, Bureau of Corporations James Rudolph Garfield, Secretary of State Elihu Root, Secretary of War Luke E. Wright, Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, Postmaster General George von Lengerke Meyer, Secretary of the Navy Victor Howard Metcalf, and Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The cabinet as a cabinet: two factors attest to the appropriate characterization of events pictured by P. B. McCord’s political cartoon during the last week of the 1908 presidential campaign.

President Roosevelt looks out of his office at members of his cabinet standing on stumps: Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar S. Straus, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, Secretary of State Elihu Root, Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, Secretary of the Navy Victor Howard Metcalf, Secretary of War Luke E. Wright, and Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Roosevelt says, “Durn the luck.” Caption: Every member of his cabinet on the stump and he can’t get into the game.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The long-time political cartoonist of the Minneapolis Journal (and remembered as founder of a successful correspondence school of cartooning), Charles Lewis “Bart” Bartholomew pictured a situation that was known to all citizens, and regretted by many, not least President Roosevelt himself. There was a strict precedent and tradition against presidents campaigning in person — with few exceptions for themselves (somehow seen as not dignified), but never for candidates down the ballot lists; and certainly not for candidates in elections where a successor would be chosen.

President Roosevelt crosses out names for the appointment of the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, as a number of men, including Francis J. Heney, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, Oregon Senator Jonathan Bourne, and Senator Charles William Fulton, look on.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Harry Daniel Murphy, the most modest of political cartoonists (at this stage of career he signed his with almost microscopic initials, compensating with huge, flourishing signatures when he drew for Los Angeles newspapers) correctly depicted the position of President Roosevelt regarding the United States Attorney position in the Eastern Oregon office in 1908.

This photograph includes the entire cabinet: President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Elihu Root, Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar S. Straus, Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield, Secretary of the Navy Victor Howard Metcalf, Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou, Secretary of War William H. Taft, Postmaster General George von Lengerke Meyer, Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, and Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-10-25