Charles Joseph Bonaparte

Charles Joseph Bonaparte (9 June, 1851 – 28 June, 1921) served as the thirty-seventh Secretary of the Navy from 1905 through 1906.

Life & Career

Charles Bonaparte was born in Baltimore on 9 June, 1851. He was a descendant of Jérôme Bonaparte, youngest brother of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

During May of 1905 Theodore Roosevelt approached Bonaparte to offer him a post in the Cabinet, and he replied by letter on the 21st:

"I have given very careful thought to your suggestion of Friday last. It is needless, I think, for me to repeat that, as I told you then, I appreciate highly the compliment or, to speak more accurately, the opinion, on your part, implied in this suggestion: I feel, however, as I told you likewise, no little reluctance to thus alter public life. My reasons are that it will oblige me to relinquish active participation in certain movements which greatly interest me, to give up a part of my professional business, to incur expense probably in excess of my official compensation, to break up established habits of life, to which I am even more wedded than a man of fifty-four might reasonably be, and (what, in truth, touches me most deeply) to surrender my liberty,— the liberty of saying what I think of public affairs without the trammels of official propriety and responsibility. These reasons, which I have stated frankly because I think you are entitled to know what they are, do not satisfy my own conscience as sufficient to justify a refusal to tad you in the discharge of your public duties, if you ask my aid; I feel that I should be estopped [sic] by such a refusal to find fault with the present Administration hereafter, and I therefore place myself at your disposal."

Bonaparte had hoped for the position of Attorney General. Roosevelt had other plans for him:

"I understood you, however, on Friday (although I do not know that you said this totidem verim) to consider it desirable to announce promptly the approaching vacancy in the Navy Department, and that a simultaneous announcement of my selection to fill this vacancy might have a beneficial effect on public opinion. If I understood you aright as to this, I am willing to undertake the duties of Secretary of the Navy as soon after July 1st as you may deem advisable: next to the Department of Justice, this would be my choice among the Cabinet positions. Whether I shall retain it or be transferred to the last mentioned Department when Mr. Moody resigns, you can decide when that times comes: after I have been 'broken in' to my work and interested in it, I shall be, I feel confident, at least willing to remain at my first post of duty. It is perhaps proper to say, in this connection, that I am in hearty sympathy with your frequently expressed views as to the importance and, indeed, necessity of a very strong and very efficient Navy to the United States."

Bonaparte replaced ex-railway vice president Paul Morton on 1 July, 1905 when the former resigned owing to a scandal related to his railroad work.

Bonaparte remained Secretary of the Navy until his appointment as United States Attorney General on 17 December, 1906.

See Also

• Wikipedia

Bibliography

• Bishop, Joseph Bucklin (1922). Charles Joseph Bonaparte: His Life and Public Services. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Goldman, Eric F. (1943). Charles J. Bonaparte: Patrician Reformer, His Earlier Career. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Papers

• Papers in possession of the United States Library of Congress

Naval Appointments
Preceded by Paul Morton	Secretary of the Navy 1 Jul, 1905 – 16 Dec, 1906	Succeeded by Victor H. Metcalf