I61497: AUBRI of Narbonne Count de Macon (ABT 0870

Notes

The following article came out in Munsey's Magazine, September, 1905:
"The New Secretary of the Navy.
In accepting the office of Secretary of the Navy, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, of Baltimore, did what a good many other Americans have shown a creditable readiness to do-he gave to the public service, time and abilities worth far more than his official stipend. Of course, apart from the attraction of a high and honourable post, it is not difficult to find a motive for his action in his strong sense of duty, and especially in his warm personal friendship for the President.

No member of the Roosevelt Cabinet, with the possible exception of Mr. Root, stands closer to the President than Secretary Bonaparte. As was said at the time of Mr. Paul Morton's appointment, Mr. Roosevelt has shown a strong tendency, in selecting his most responsible advisers, to gather about him men whom he personally knows and trusts. The tendency is a natural and an entirely justifiable one.

His acquaintance with Mr. Bonaparte grew out of their mutual interest in the movement for civil service reform. In the days when Mr. Rooseveltwas a member of the Civil Service Commission, the two men were thrown together frequently in working for a cause in which both have always heen earnestly devoted. Another tie between them is the fact that both are Harvard men-though they were not contemporaries at college, Mr. Bonaparte having finished his academie course and graduated from the law school two years before the President matriculated.

Charles J. Bonaparte Secretary of the Navy of the United States. Grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon

A lifelong resident of Baltimore, the new Secretary of the Navy is known outside of his native city almost entirely through the fight he has made for purity in municipal government and in the entire public service. He is a Republican, but a most independent one, for he has been equally active in opposing corruption in both parties. His present portfolio is practically his first office, for he has been entirely outside of the Republican organization of his State since he entered public life-though since his elevation to a Cabinet post the local "machine" has shown its willingness to recognize his leadership. Some time ago he acted for a few months as supervisor of elections in Maryland, at the urgent request of a Democratic Governor. He has also served during the last three years as an Indian commissioner-a work which he undertook at Mr. Roosevelt's special request in order to investigate and correct serious irregularities in the conduct of the bureau. He has never been a candidate for anything except when he was nominated as a Presidential elector in the campaign of 1904. The result showed the esteem in which-aristocrat as his opponents are pleased to term him-he is held by the mass of voters, for he received more ballots than any other elector from Maryland; though the other Republican nominees were defeated.

Mr. Bonaparte is a man whom professional politicians of both parties cordially dislike. He is absolutely impervious to criticism or compliment of the usual sort. A trait that may perhaps be significant of his Napoleonic ancestry in his thorough enjoyment of a good fight.

In his professional work as a lawyer nothing gives him more pleasure than an opportunity to exercise the gift of repartee, which he possesses to perfection. As a public speaker he is not exactly eloquent, although his command of language is ready and wide. He is lacking in personal magnetism, an element so necessary to the most successful oratory, but he uses the weapons of wit and sarcasm as few other men can. In his hands they are as keen as a Damascus blade, as his political opponents well know. He can force the attention of his audience, whether it agrees with him or not, compelling it to admire him for the sweeping way in which he overwhelms his adversaries.

In his private life the new secretary is a typical Baltimorean of the old school. When not at work in his modest office it has been his custom to divide his time between his town house and his country place.

Mr. Bonaparte's friends and associates include such men as Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Gilman, and other Baltimoreans eminent in the intellectual life. Outside of the political movements that he has most closely at heart, he is probably as deeply interested in the progress of the church to which he belongs as in anything else.

He is a leading adviser of Cardinal Gibbons, and one of the most noted and influential Roman Catholic laymen in the United States. His personal tastes are of the quietest. He is seldom seen at places of amusement, and very rarely at social functions, except the receptions of such bodies as the Civil Service Reform Association or some other assemblage where his presence is necessary for public reasons.

While Mr. Bonaparte has just completed the fifty-fourth year of his age, he might be taken for a much younger man.

His appearance strongly suggests his descent from the youngest brother of the great Napoleon, although this is a subject which he never discusses, being far prouder of his American citizenship.

Mr. Bonaparte-the only survivor in the American line of the young French officer who afterwards became King of Westphalia-at once attracts attention by his inheritance of the Napoleonic features. He has a clear,ruddy complexion, bronzed from outdoor exposure, with jet-black hair aud eyes. His attire is usually black. He prefers the umbrella to the cane, and this habit increases his resemblance to a studious professor or learned doctor."

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Charles Joseph Bonaparte
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Charles Joseph Bonaparte (June 9, 1851 - June 28, 1921) was a grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest brother of the French emperor Napoleon I.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was the son of Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-70) and Susan May Williams (1812-1881), from whom the American line of the Bonaparte family descended.

After graduating from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he would later be appointed a university overseer, he practiced law in Baltimore and became prominent in municipal and national reform movements.

On September 1, 1875, Charles Joseph Bonaparte married Ellen Channing Day (1852-1924). They had no children.

He was a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners from 1902 to 1904, chairman of the National Civil Service Reform League in 1904 and appointed a trustee of the Catholic University of America. In 1905, United States President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte to his cabinet as United States Secretary of the Navy. From 1906 until the end of President Roosevelt's administration he served as United States Attorney General. He was active in suits brought against the trusts and was largely responsible for breaking up the tobacco monopoly. In 1908 Joseph founded the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

He was one of the founders, and for a time the president, of the National Municipal League. Charles Joseph Bonaparte died in Bella Vista, Baltimore County, Maryland.

My Southern Family

AUBRI of Narbonne Count de Macon

ABT 0870 - ABT 0945

ID Number: I61497

Sources

Charles Joseph BONAPARTE

9 Jun 1851 - 28 Jun 1921

ID Number: I92956

Notes

Sources

Jared Sanders DIXON

1845 - 1848

ID Number: I44977

Sources

Jean MCCANTS

ABT 1810 - ____

ID Number: I19773

Sources

Lucille MCKNEELY

Thomas Washington PRIDGEN

ABT 1800 - ____

ID Number: I36293

Sources

RICHWARA (Richiza) von SUALAFELD

ABT 0960 - ____

ID Number: I67752

Sources