Charles Edward Bennett (December 2, 1910 – September 6, 2003) was an American politician serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Florida from 1949 to 1993.

[1] As editor of the Alligator, he wrote editorial in favor of isolation and against the nation becoming involved in foreign wars.

After graduating with a Juris Doctor in 1934, he practiced law in Jacksonville and was elected to the Florida state legislature in 1941.

He resigned in March 1942 to join the United States Army and served with distinction in New Guinea as a guerrilla fighter during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

He went through 16 months of rehabilitation at a military hospital in Arkansas, then utilized leg braces, canes or crutches to walk.

[citation needed] He married wife Dorothy Jean in 1953 and they had four children: Lucinda (Cindy), Charles Junior (who died in 1977 from a drug overdose), James and Bruce.

[8] Each year, he returned his veteran's disability pension and Social Security checks to the U. S. Treasury to reduce the national debt.

According to The Almanac of American Politics 1980, "He opposes unofficial office accounts, outside income for members and congressional pay raises, which led one colleague to call him 'a bit too pious.'

[citation needed] Bennett was set to run for a 23rd term in 1992 in the newly renumbered 4th District against Jacksonville City Council president Tillie Fowler, his strongest Republican opponent in decades.

[1][18] A life-size cast bronze statue of Bennett was installed on a granite base in a shady corner of Hemming Plaza in Jacksonville on April 23, 2004.