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Up for sale a RARE! "Mr Cincinnati" Charles Phelps Taft II Signed 2X4 Card Dated 1936.
ES-3703
Charles
Phelps Taft II (September
20, 1897 – June 24, 1983) was a U.S. Republican Party politician
and member of the Taft family. From 1955 to
1957, he served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Like other members of his family, Taft was a Republican for
the purposes of statewide elections. However, when running for municipal office
in Cincinnati, Taft was a member of the Charter Party. During his term as mayor, Fortune magazine ranked
Cincinnati as the best managed big city in the United States. As mayor, he
gained the nickname "Mr. Cincinnati". Charles Phelps Taft II was born
in Cincinnati, Ohio, the youngest of three children born to
President William Howard Taft and
First Lady Helen Herron Taft. His
siblings were U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft and Bryn Mawr College professor Helen Taft Manning. He was
named after his uncle, U.S. Congressman Charles Phelps Taft. Taft
was only 11 years old when he moved to the White House, upon his father's election as
President. During his father's tenure as Secretary of War, he was a
frequent playmate of President Theodore Roosevelt's
children. On the morning of May 17, 1909, the same day his mother suffered a
severe stroke, he underwent a dropped out of Yale University in order to serve in the United States Army during World War I and later returned to graduate in 1918, and
then earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1921. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and a 1918 initiate into the Skull and Bones Student society. Upon
graduation from law school, Taft practiced law and became active in Cincinnati
local politics. In 1925, he helped introduce the home-rule charter under which
Cincinnati became the first major city in the United States to adopt the city manager form of
government. Later that year, he became the youngest President of the
International YMCA. In 1926, he and his brother Robert A. Taft helped form the Cincinnati law firm Taft Stettinius &
Hollister. From 1927 to 1928, he served as Hamilton County Prosecutor.
He served on the Cincinnati City Council three times, from 1938 to 1942, from
1948 to 1951, and from 1955 to 1977. During World War II, he served as Director of U.S. Community War
Service at the Federal Security Agency and
later as Director of Economic Affairs at the State Department,
under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
From 1947 to 1948, he served as the first layman President of the Federal
Council of the Churches of Christ in America.
In the 1952 election,
he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Ohio, losing
to incumbent Frank Lausche.