Taft, William Howard (b. Sept. 15, 1857, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.—d. March 8, 1930, Washington, D.C.)
27th president of the U.S. (1909-13).
He served on the Ohio superior court (1887-90), as U.S. solicitor general (1890-92), and as U.S. appellate judge (1892-1900). He was appointed head of the Philippine Commission to set up a civilian gov¬ ernment in the islands and was the Philippines’ first civilian governor (1901-04). He served as U.S. secre¬ tary of war (1904-08) under Pres.
Theodore Roosevelt, who supported Taft’s nomination for president in 1908. He won the election but became allied with the conservative Republicans, causing a rift with party progressives. He was again the nominee in 1912, but the split with Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party resulted in the electoral victory of Woodrow Wilson. Taft later taught law at Yale University (1913-21), served on the National War Labor Board (1918), and was a supporter of the League of Nations. As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-30), he introduced reforms that made the court more efficient. His important opinion in Myers v. U.S. (1926) upheld the president’s authority to remove federal officials.
Taft-Hartley Act officially Labor-Management Relations Act
(1947) U.S. legislation that restricted labour unions. Sponsored by Sen. Robert A. Taft and Rep. Fred A. Hartley, Jr., the act amended much of the pro-union Wagner Act (1935) and was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress over the veto of Pres. Harry S. Truman. It allowed employees the right not to join unions (outlawing the CLOSED shop) and required
advance notice of a labour strike, authorized an 80-day federal injunction when a strike threatened national health or safety, narrowed the definition of unfair labour practices, specified unfair union practices, restricted union political contributions, and required union officials to take an oath pledg¬ ing they were not communists. See also Landrum-Griffin Act.
Tagalog \t9-'ga-tag\ Any member of the largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines. They are the dominant population of Manila and of several provinces near the city. Most are Roman Catholic, and most are farmers; their main cash crops are sugarcane and coconuts. Manila’s dominance has given the urban Tagalog economic leadership in the Phil¬ ippines. The Tagalog language is the basis of Pilipino, the national lan¬ guage.
Tagalog language Austronesian language of the Philippines, spoken as a first language by about 17 million people on the island of Luzon and by at least half a million immigrant Filipinos. As the language of Manila, the capital and chief city of the Philippines, Tagalog has long had an importance outside its own speech area. With vocabulary enrichment from other Philippine languages, it has been made the basis of Pilipino, the national language; widely used in education and the media, Pilipino is now understood by more than 60% of the Philippine population. Though a script ultimately of South Asian origin was in use for Tagalog in the 16th century (see Indic writing systems), all recent literature in the language has utilized adaptations of the Latin alphabet.
Taglioni \tal-'yo-ne\, Marie (b. April 23, 1804, Stockholm, Swed.—d. April 24, 1884, Marseille, Fr.) Italian ballet dancer. She trained with her dancer-choreographer father, Filippo Taglioni (1777-1871), and made her debut in Vienna in 1822. In her father’s ballet La Sylphide , introduced at the Paris Opera in 1832, she became one of the first to dance on pointe. She created a delicate new style, marked by floating leaps and balanced poses such as the arabesque, that typified the early 19th-century Roman¬ tic style. Her diaphanous white skirts would evolve into the tutu worn by most classical ballerinas. She toured throughout Europe and, after leav¬ ing the Opera in 1837, danced with the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg; she retired from dancing in 1847.
Tagore Vta-,g6r,\ English \ta-'g6r\ / Debendranath (b. May 15, 1817, Calcutta, India—d. Jan. 19, 1905, Calcutta) Hindu philosopher and religious reformer. Born into a wealthy landowning family, he was edu¬ cated in both Eastern and Western philosophy. Striving to purge Hindu¬ ism of abuses, he spoke vehemently against suttee and tried to bring education within the reach of all. He was active in the Brahmo Samaj. In his zeal to erase idolatry and undemocratic practices, he rejected the Vedas as deficient in dictating guidelines for human behaviour. Failing to find a middle path between radical rationalism and Brahman conservatism, he retired from public life. He was known as the Great Sage. Rabindranath Tagore was his son.
Tagore, Rabindranath (b. May 7, 1861, Calcutta, India—d. Aug. 7, 1941, Calcutta) Bengali poet, writer, composer, and painter. The son of Debendranath Tagore, he published several books of poetry, including Manasi, in his 20s. His later religious poetry was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (1912). Through interna¬ tional travel and lecturing, he intro¬ duced aspects of Indian culture to the West and vice versa. He spoke ardently in favour of Indian indepen¬ dence; as a protest against the Mas¬ sacre of Amritsar, he repudiated the knighthood he had received in 1915.
He founded an experimental school in Bengal where he sought to blend Eastern and Western philosophies; it became Vishva-Bharati University (1921). He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Tagus River \'ta-gos\ Spanish Rio Tajo \'ta-ho\ Portuguese Rio Tejo Vre-u-'ta-zhuX Longest waterway of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises in east¬ ern central Spain and flows west across Spain and Portugal for 626 mi (1,007 km) to empty into the Atlantic Ocean near Lisbon. It covers the heart of the two nations, and is of vital economic importance. Dams har-
William Howard Taft, 1909.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Rabindranath Tagore.
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Taha Hussein ► taiga I 1863
ness it for irrigation and hydroelectric power, and large artificial lakes have been created. Navigable for about 100 mi (160 km) in its lower courses, it supplies a fine natural harbor at Lisbon.
Taha Hussein or Taha Husayn \'ta-ha-hu-'san\ (b. Nov. 14, 1889, Maghaghah, Egypt—d. Oct. 28, 1973, Cairo) Egyptian writer. Though blinded by an illness at age two, he became a professor of Arabic litera¬ ture at the secular University of Cairo, where his bold views often enraged Islamic religious conservatives. An outstanding figure of the modernist movement in Egyptian literature, he wrote novels, stories, criticism, and social and political essays. Outside Egypt he is best known for his auto¬ biography, the two-part Al-Ayyam, published in English as An Egyptian Childhood (1932) and The Stream of Days (1943), which was the first modern Arab literary work to be acclaimed in the West.
Tahiti Island, Society Islands, French Polynesia, central South Pacific Ocean. The largest of the Society Islands, it occupies an area of 402 sq mi (1,042 sq km) in their eastern group. Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, is on Tahiti. The island’s interior is mountainous, rising to 7,339 ft (2,237 m) at Mount Orohena; its towns are located on the coastal plain. Long inhabited by Polynesians, it was visited by British Capt. Sam¬ uel Wallis in 1767 and in 1768 by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who claimed it for France. The first permanent European settlers were English missionaries who arrived in 1797. It became a French colony in 1880 and is now part of the self-governing overseas territory of French Polynesia. Continued French nuclear testing in the area has angered the inhabitants and brought calls for independence. Tourism is economically important.
Tahoe, Lake Lake on the California-Nevada border in the northern Sierra Nevada, U.S. The lake, which occupies a fault basin, covers 193 sq mi (500 sq km). It is 22 mi (35 km) long by 10 mi (16 km) wide and lies at an elevation of 6,229 ft (1,899 m).