Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/701

Rh work all would have appeared obvious and simple. That is the way of the artist; and the great tactician is a supreme artist. (N. M.*)

TAFT, LORADO (1860- ), American sculptor (see 26.354), was elected to the National Academy in 1911. He was director of the American Federation of Arts from 1914 to 1917 and in the latter year was appointed a member of the board of art advisers for the state of Illinois. He received a silver medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. His recent works include: "Black Hawk" (1912, figure of an Ameri- can Indian, at Oregon, 111.); Thatcher Memorial Fountain (1918, at Denver, Colo.); and "The Fountain of Time" (1920, at Chicago). In 1921 he published Recent Tendencies in Sculpture.

TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD (1857- ), 27th President of the United States (see 26.354), antagonized a considerable branch of his own party in 1911 by his endeavour, which proved un- successful, to secure a reciprocity agreement with Canada. Meanwhile wide public interest had been awakened in the con- servation of national resources and the President's attitude was attacked by the conservationists. In 1909 Gifford Pinchot, chief forester, charged Richard A. Ballinger, Secretary of the Interior, with being opposed to conservation. A Congressional committee, after investigation, exonerated the Secretary, but he later re- signed. The attack upon Ballinger was denounced by the Presi- dent, who continued to be criticized in connexion with the sale of public lands, and who dismissed Pinchot from office. The President lost ground also as a result of a breach of friend- ship between himself and Theodore Roosevelt, who supported Pinchot. In 1912 the President signed the Panama Tolls bill, exempting American coastwise shipping from tolls; he affirmed that it did not violate the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and believed also that the United States had the right to fortify the canal. At the same time he expressed a readiness to arbitrate the ques- tion with Great Britain, who had protested. Cleavage within his party waSiCrystallized at the Republican National Convention in 1912. In the pre-convention campaign Roosevelt came for- ward as leader of the progressive wing against Taft as leader of the conservative or " stand-pat " wing, and the mutual re- criminations were bitter. At the convention, however, the con- servatives controlled the party machine, and the committee on credentials by arbitrary decisions excluded most of Roosevelt's contesting delegates. Taft was renominated on the first ballot, receiving 561 votes, 21 more than the required majority. Roose- velt denounced the action of the convention and later was nomi- nated by the newly formed National Progressive party. In the ensuing election Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, won an overwhelming victory, securing 435 electoral votes to 88 for Roosevelt and 8 for Taft. President Taft carried }nly two states, Utah and Vermont, and those only by small pluralities. The general feeling throughout the country was ^hat President Taft had shown a deplorable lack of administra- tive firmness, his good nature having caused him to vacillate. 3n retiring from the presidency in 1913 he became Kent pro- 'essor of law at Yale, but devoted much time to lecture engage- ments. In 1913 he was elected president of the American Bar Association, and in 1914 first president of the American Institute }f Jurisprudence, organized to improve law and its administra- tion. After the outbreak of the World War in 1914 he supported President Wilson's strong stand for neutrality. In 1915 he ipproved the Army League's campaign for preparedness. He tfas an active promoter of the League to Enforce Peace, but ifter America's entrance into the war he argued that victory was lecessary for attaining lasting peace. In 1918 he was appointed jy the President a member of the National War Labor Board or arbitrating labour disputes during the war. In 1919 he ndorscd the Peace Treaty of Versailles, regarding its most im- wrtant part to be the Covenant of the League of Nations. He .poke throughout the country in behalf of the League. After the Senate's rejection of the Peace Treaty he urged reservations f these would secure ratification. In July 1920 he was appointed o represent the Grand Trunk railway on the board of arbitration or determining the sum to be paid by the Dominion of Canada when the road was to be made a part of the national system. He supported Warren G. Harding, the Republican candidate for president in 1920. On June 30 1921 he was appointed by President Harding Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Edward Douglas White, deceased.

He was the author of Popular Government: its Essence, its Per- formance, and its Perils (1913) ; The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court (1914); The United, States and Peace (1914); Ethics in Service (1915, Yale lectures); Our Chief Magistrate and his Powers (1916, Columbia lectures) and The Presidency: its Duties, its Powers, its Opportunities and its Limitations (1916, lectures at the university of Virginia).

TAGORE, RABINDRANATH (1861- ), Indian poet and author, was a member of a well-known Bengali family noted for its activities in literature, art and religious reform as well as for its public benefactions. In 1921 the head of the orthodox Hindu branch was Maharaja Bahadur Sir Prodyot Coomar Tagore (b. 1873), a great-nephew of Prosunno Coomar, who was the first Indian to be nominated to the Viceroy's Legislative Council and founded the Tagore law professorship in the university of Calcutta. The grandfather of Rabindranath was Dwarkanath, " merchant, philanthropist and reformer," who was known to his contemporaries as " Prince Tagore." He visited England in 1842 and again in 1845, sat to D'Orsay for his portrait, and, dying of fever in London in 1846, was buried at Kensal Green. In conjunction with Raja Rammohan Roy he initiated the movement of religious reform which took shape as the Adi Brahmo Somaj. This work was continued by his son Maharshi Devendranath, of whose seven sons, Dwijendranath, the eldest, devoted himself to the study of philosophy; Satyendranath, the second, was the first Indian to enter the covenanted civil service and served for 35 years in the Bombay Presidency; and Jyotirendranath, the third, was an accomplished musician. Their cousins, Abanindranath (b. 1871), Gogonendranath and Narendranath, became distinguished artists. Rabindranath, the youngest son, was sent to England to study law, but soon returned. In 1901 he established the famous Shantiniketan, or abode of peace, at Bolpur, a village 93 m. from Calcutta. Originally organized as an asram, or retreat, by the Maharshi, it was developed by Rabindranath into a school conducted on unconventional lines, and he aimed at enlarging it into an in- ternational university which should comprehend the whole range of eastern culture. His outlook upon the west was thus summar- ized by him in a letter published in the Indian press at the close of 1919: " The bulk of English people can never be in a normal state of mind with regard to us, our situation being unnatural, and I am impelled to think that it is best for us to do our own work quietly in our own surroundings." Gandhi's policy of non- cooperation was, however, severely condemned by him as per- verted nationalism, " which was making of India a prison," in a letter addressed to the principal of his school at Bolpur in June 1921. He paid frequent visits to Europe, Japan and the United States (where his son Rathindranath became a student in the university of California), and carried through several lectur- ing tours. His reputation as a writer among his own countrymen was early assured, and the 30 poetical and 28 prose works com- posed by him in Bengali are now regarded as classics. The Eng- lish public first became interested in his works in 1912, and his fame rapidly spread. In 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and utilized the whole amount, 8,000, for the upkeep of the school at Bolpur. He was given the degree of Doctor of Letters in the university of Calcutta and accepted a knighthood in 1915, but addressed a letter to the Viceroy in 1919, resigning the title as a protest against the methods adopted for the repression of disturbances in the Punjab.

His more important books, of which English translations have been published, are the poems Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1913), The Crescent Moon (1913), The Gardener (1913), Songs of Kabir doiS), Fruit Gathering (1916), Stray Birds (1917), The Lovers Gift and the Crossing (1918); the plays Chitra (1914), The King of the Dark Chamber (1914), The Post Office (1914), The Cycle of Spring (1917)' Sacrifice (1917), and other plays; the novels, The Home and the World (1919), The Wreck (1921); as well as a volume of letters, Glimpses of Bengal (1921), and the short stories Hungry Stones