Bob's Brother

Like his older brother Bob, Charles P. Taft is a leading citizen of Cincinnati and a Republican. As both, he is a member of Cincinnati's city council--which controls the city administration.

Last week the city council met to choose a new mayor from among its own members. There was little doubt that the job would go to a Democrat named Albert D. Cash. Cincinnati had not had a Democratic mayor for 35 years, but Bob Taft's powerful Republican machine had slipped a cog in November. Of nine council seats, it had won only four. The rest had been won by a coalition of Democrats and maverick Republicans, flying the banner of Cincinnati's famed reform organization, the Charter Committee. Charlie Taft had led the Charterites.

And now it was Charlie Taft who placed Democrat Cash's name in nomination. A few minutes later, Republican Councilman Gordon Scherer made the seemingly futile gesture of nominating incumbent Mayor Carl W. Rich. That done, he turned on Charlie Taft and shouted:

"You are giving comfort to the enemy! . . . Your brother is one of the principal contenders for the office of President. Yet today, by your vote, you will elect as mayor one of the foremost supporters in this community of the Roosevelt New Deal machine."

If Councilman Scherer had seriously hoped that his surprise stratagem would keep Republican Rich in office, he was badly mistaken. Charlie Taft set his jaw, scribbled a few notes, rose to his feet and said: "Turning one's back is neither a characteristic of my own nor, I hope, of the Charter Committee. ... It has been my conviction for some time that one detriment to my brother's candidacy is the total inadequacy of his home-town Republican organization in its contribution to good government. . . . What I may be able to do in these coming months at the city hall may perhaps balance the damage."

Democrat Cash was elected.

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