C. Wesley Roberts

{{Short description|American political activist (1902–1976)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2019}}

{{Infobox officeholder

|office = Chair of the Republican National Committee

|term_start = January 17, 1953

|term_end = March 27, 1953

|predecessor = Arthur Summerfield

|successor = Leonard W. Hall

|birth_name = Charles Wesley Roberts

|birth_date = {{birth date|1902|12|14}}

|birth_place = Oskaloosa, Kansas, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|1976|4|9|1902|12|14}}

|death_place = Oskaloosa, Kansas, U.S.

|party = Republican

|spouse = Ruth Patrick

|children = Pat (son)

}}

Charles Wesley Roberts (December 14, 1902 – April 9, 1976) was a Kansas businessman who was Chairman of the Republican National Committee for four months in 1953 under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

C. Wesley Roberts (or Wes Roberts) was born in Oskaloosa, Kansas, where he died, the son of Daisy Marian (née Needham) and Francis Henry "Frank" Roberts.{{Cite web |url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/senators/roberts.htm |title=Charles Patrick "Pat" Roberts, at rootsweb, an ancestry.com community |access-date=April 5, 2007 |archive-date=September 5, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905222626/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/senators/roberts.htm |url-status=dead }} The Roberts family published the smalltown weekly Oskaloosa Independent for more than a century. Davis Publications currently owns The Oskaloosa Independent.{{Cite web |title=Contact Us – JeffCountyNews.com |url=https://www.jeffcountynews.com/contact-us/ |access-date=2022-09-27 |language=en-US}}

He was the father of U.S. Senator Pat Roberts.

Alvin Scott McCoy of The Kansas City Star won a Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for local reporting for a series of articles that drove Roberts to resign his RNC chairmanship.[http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1954 1954 Winners, Awards, The Pulitzer Prizes website] Roberts was accused of collecting a $10,000 commission on the sale of a hospital to the State of Kansas which the state already owned.{{cite news | title=Republicans: Storm in Kansas | url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,818019,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081222105221/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,818019,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=December 22, 2008 | date=March 30, 1953 | work=Time|access-date=March 12, 2009}}