title: Mariupol

text: Upon their return, the Zaporozhian population in these lands was extremely sparse, and in an effort to establish a measure of control, they introduced a structure of districts or palankas. The nearest district to modern Mariupol was the Kalmius District, but its border did not extend to the mouth of the Kalmius River, although this area had been part of its migratory territory. After 1736, the Zaporozhian Cossacks and the Don Cossacks (whose capital was at nearby Novoazovsk) came into conflict over the area, resulting in Tsarina Elizabeth issuing a decree in 1746 marking the Kalmius River as the divide between the two Cossack hosts.


title: Mariupol

text: Sometime after 1738, the treaties of Belgrade and Niš in 1739, in addition to the Russian-Turkish convention of 1741, as well as the following likely concurrent land survey of 1743–1746 (resulting in the demarcation decree of 1746), the Zaporzhian Cossacks established a military outpost on "the high promontory on the right bank of the Kalmius river." Though the details of its construction and history are obscure, excavations have revealed Cossack artifacts, including others, within the enclosure being approximately 120 square meters in the shape of a square. The outpost was likely a modest structure in that it lay within the territory of the Ottoman Empire, and the erection of fortifications on the Sea of Azov was prohibited by the Treaty of Niš.


title: Mariupol

text: The last Tatar raid, launched in 1769, covered a vast area, overrunning the New Russian Province with a huge army in severe wintertime weather. The raid destroyed the Kalmius fortifications and burned all the Cossack winter lodgings. In 1770, the Russian government, during the war with Turkey, moved its border with the Crimean Khanate southwest by more than two hundred kilometres. This action initiated the Dnieper fortified line (running from today's Zaporizhya to Novopetrovka), thereby laying claim to the region, including the site of future Mariupol, from the Ottoman Empire.


title: Mariupol

text: Following the victory of the Russian forces, the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca eliminated the endemic threat from Crimea. In 1775, Zaporizhzhia was incorporated into the New Russian Governorate, and part of the land claimed behind the Dnieper fortified line including modern Mariupol was incorporated in the newly re-established Azov Governorate.


title: Mariupol

text: After the Russo-Turkish War from 1768 to 1774, the governor of the Azov Governorate, Vasily A. Chertkov, reported to Grigory Potemkin on 23 February 1776 that ruins of ancient "domakhas" (homes) had been found in the area, and in 1778 he planned the new town of "Pavlovsk". However, on 29 September 1779, the city of Marianοpol () in Kalmius County was founded on the site. For the Russian authorities the city was named after the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna; its de facto title was named after the Greek settlement of Mariampol, a suburb of Bakhchisarai in Crimea. The name was derived from the Hodegetria icon of the Holy Theotokos and the Virgin Mary. Subsequently, in 1780, Russian authorities forcibly relocated many Orthodox Greeks from Crimea to the Mariupol area.


title: Mariupol

text: In 1782, Mariupol was an administrative seat of its county in the Azov Governorate of the Russian Empire, with 2,948 inhabitants. In the early 19th century, a customs house, a church-parish school, a port authority building, a county religious school, and two privately founded girls' schools were built. By the 1850s the population had grown to 4,600 and the city had 120 shops and 15 wine cellars. In 1869, Consuls and Vice-Consuls of Prussia, Sweden, Norway, Austria-Hungary, the Roman States, Italy, and France established their representative offices in Mariupol.


title: Mariupol

text: After the construction of the railway line from Yuzovka to Mariupol in 1882, much of the wheat grown in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate and coal from the Donets Basin were exported via the port of Mariupol (the second largest in the South Russian Empire after Odessa), which served as a key funding source for opening a hospital, public library, electric power station and urban water supply system.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol remained a local trading centre until 1898, when the Belgian subsidiary "SA Providence Russe" opened a steelworks in Sartana, a village near Mariupol (now the Ilyich Steel & Iron Works). The company incurred heavy losses and by 1902 was bankrupt, owing 6 million francs to the Providence company and needing to be re-financed by the Banque de l'Union Parisienne.


title: Mariupol

text: The mills brought cultural diversity to Mariupol as immigrants, mostly peasants from all over the empire, moved to the city looking for a job and a better life. The number of workers increased to 5,400.


title: Mariupol

text: In 1914, the population of Mariupol reached 58,000. However, the period from 1917 onwards saw a continuous decline in population and industry due to the February Revolution and the Civil War. In 1933, a new steelworks ("Azovstal") was built along the Kalmius River.


title: Mariupol

text: During World War II, the city was under German military occupation from 8 October 1941, to 10 September 1943. During this time, the city suffered tremendous material damage and great loss of life. The Germans shot approximately 10,000 inhabitants, sent nearly 50,000 young men and girls as forced laborers to Germany, deported 36,000 prisoners to concentration camps, most of whom did not survive.


title: Mariupol

text: In October 1941, the Jewish population was nearly extinguished by two operations specifically designed to kill them.


title: Mariupol

text: The execution of the Jews of Mariupol was carried out by Sonderkommando 10A, which was part of Einsatzgruppe D. The leader was Obersturmbannführer Heinz Seetzen 5 . The Germans shot about 10,000 Mariupol Jews from October 20, 1941 to October 21, 1941 in Berdyansk .


title: Mariupol

text: The Mariupol Memorial to the Murdered Jews also called "Menorah memorial" is a cultural property of a historical place The work consists of a seven-pointed menorah, a Star of David and two commemorative steles with inscriptions:


title: Mariupol

text: In 1948, Mariupol was renamed "Zhdanov", after Soviet politician Andrei Zhdanov, who had been born there in 1896. The name of the city reverted to "Mariupol" in 1989.


title: Mariupol

text: Following the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, pro-Russian and anti-Revolution protests erupted across eastern Ukraine, including Mariupol. This unrest later evolved into the Russo-Ukrainian War between the Ukrainian government and Russia together with the separatist forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). In May of that year, a battle between the two sides broke out in Mariupol after it briefly came under DPR control. The city was eventually recaptured by government forces, and, in June 2015, Mariupol was proclaimed the temporary administrative centre of Donetsk Oblast until the city of Donetsk could be recaptured.


title: Mariupol

text: The city remained peaceful until the end of August 2014, when DRP separatists together with a detachment of the Russian Armed Forces captured Novoazovsk, located east of Mariupol near the Russo-Ukrainian border. This was followed an offensive by pro-Russian forces from the east came within of Mariupol, before an overnight counter-offensive pushed the separatists away from the city. In September, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire, halting that offensive. Despite this ceasefire, minor skirmishes continued on the outskirts of Mariupol in the following months. To protect the city, government forces established three defense lines on its outskirts, supported by heavy artillery and large numbers of army and national guard troops.


title: Mariupol

text: According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, the Grad rockets hit populated areas of Mariupol killing at least 30 people. Using intercepted phone communication raw data, a Bellingcat investigative team concluded that the shelling was instructed, directed and supervised by Russian military commanders in active service with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Bellingcat identified nine Russian officers, including one general, two colonels, and three lieutenant colonels, involved directly with the military operation.


title: Mariupol

text: As a response, in February Ukrainian forces launched an assault on the village of Shyrokyne, where the rockets were fired from, located around east of Mariupol. The Shyrokyne battle became a standoff, as Ukrainian and DPR forces battled for control of Shyrokyne and neighbouring villages until the separatists withdrew in July.


title: Mariupol

text: Following the May 2018 opening of the Crimean Bridge, cargo ships bound for Mariupol found themselves subject to inspections by Russian authorities resulting in delays of up to a week. Therefore port workers were put on a four-day week schedule. On 26 October 2018, "The Globe and Mail" reported that the bridge had reduced Ukrainian shipping from its Azov Sea ports (including Mariupol) by about 25%.


title: Mariupol

text: In late September 2018, two Ukrainian Navy vessels departed from the Black Sea port of Odessa, passed under the Crimean Bridge and arrived in Mariupol. But on 25 November 2018, three Ukrainian Navy vessels which attempted to do the same were seized by the Russian FSB security service during the 2018 Kerch Strait incident.


title: Mariupol

text: Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mariupol was a strategic target for Russian and Russian proxy forces. The city was under siege from 25 February until 17 May 2022. Mariupol was awarded the title of Hero City of Ukraine on 6 March 2022, by Decree of the President of Ukraine.


title: Mariupol

text: On 9 March, Russian planes dropped several bombs on Mariupol maternity hospital number 3, destroying the building. Seventeen people were injured and three died as a result of the airstrike.


title: Mariupol

text: On 13 March, the Red Cross warned that the siege had become a humanitarian crisis. A month into the conflict, Ukrainian authorities said that about 90% of buildings in Mariupol were damaged or destroyed. An aid worker from the Red Cross described the conditions there as "apocalyptic", with concerns for the humanitarian situation being severe damage to infrastructure, access to sanitation, and food shortages.


title: Mariupol

text: On 16 March, the Russian attacking forces dropped a bomb on the Mariupol Drama Theater. The central part of the building was destroyed. At the time of the air strike, civilians and refugees were hiding in the theater's basement. The Neptune Basin building was also destroyed by an air strike.


title: Mariupol

text: On 19 March 2022, a Ukrainian police officer in Mariupol made a video in which he said, "Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth." The video was authenticated by the Associated Press. Russian forces in Mariupol have been accused of human rights violations and war crimes. However, propaganda in the state-controlled media in Russia presented the invasion as a liberation mission and blamed Ukrainian troops for attacks on civilian targets in Mariupol.


title: Mariupol

text: By 18 March, Mariupol was completely encircled and fighting reached the city centre, hampering civilian evacuation efforts. On 20 March, an art school in the city, which was sheltering around 400 people, was destroyed by a Russian bombing. The same day, as Russian forces continued their siege of the city, the Russian government demanded a full surrender, which several Ukrainian government officials refused. On 24 March, Russian forces entered central Mariupol as part of the second phase of the invasion. The city administration alleged the Russians were trying to demoralize residents by publicly shouting claims of Russian victories, including statements that Odesa had been captured. On 27 March, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, stated that "[Mariupol's inhabitants] don't have access to water, to any food supplies, to anything. More than 85 percent of the whole town is destroyed," and that Russia's objectives have "nothing to do with humanity". In a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron on 29 March, Putin stated that bombardment of Mariupol would only end when Ukrainian troops fully surrender Mariupol given the advanced state of devastation in the nearly captured city.


title: Mariupol

text: On 11 April 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Mariupol had been "completely destroyed".


title: Mariupol

text: By late April, Russian and separatist troops had pushed deep into most of the city, separating the last Ukrainian troops, with the few pockets of Ukrainian troops retreating into the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works. The steel mill contains a complex of bunkers and tunnels which could even resist a nuclear bombing. On 21 April 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the city of Mariupol was under Russian control, while the Azovstal plant remained under the control of Ukrainian forces. Putin stated that his troops would blockade, not storm, the Azovstal plant. On 25 April, the Russians ordered the remaining 1,000 Ukrainian troops in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works to surrender, but Ukrainian commander Denys Prokopenko refused. On 4 May 2022, Russian forces entered the Azovstal Steel Plant for the first time rather than its outskirts, which they had been contesting for several weeks. On 16 May 2022, its last troops from the Azovstal Steel Plant surrendered and the city fell to Russia and Russia-backed Donetsk People's Republic.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol is located in the south of the Donetsk Oblast, on the coast of Sea of Azov and at the mouth of Kalmius River. It is located in an area of the Azov Lowland that is an extension of the Ukrainian Black Sea Lowland. To the east of Mariupol is the Khomutov Steppe, which is also part of the Azov Lowland, located on the border with Russia.


title: Mariupol

text: The city occupies an area of , or including suburbs administered by the city council. The downtown area is , while the area of parks and gardens is .


title: Mariupol

text: The city is mainly built on land that is made of solonetzic (sodium enriched) chernozem, with a significant amount of underground subsoil water that frequently leads to landslides.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfa") with warm summers and cold winters. The average annual precipitation is . Agroclimatic conditions allow the cultivation of warmth-loving agricultural crops with long vegetative periods (sunflower, melons, grapes, etc.). However water resources in the region are insufficient, so ponds and water basins are used for the needs of the population and industry.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol has historically led Ukraine in the volume of emissions of harmful substances by industrial enterprises. The city's leading enterprises have begun to address these ecological problems, so, over the last 15 years, industrial emissions have fallen to nearly a half of their previous levels.


title: Mariupol

text: Due to stable production by the majority of the large industrial enterprises, the city constantly experiences environmental problems. At the end of the 1970s, Zhdanov (Mariupol) ranked third in the USSR (after Novokuznetsk and Magnitogorsk) in the quantity of industrial emissions. In 1989, including all enterprises, the city had 5,215 sources of atmospheric pollution producing 752,900 tons of harmful substances a year (about 98% from metallurgical enterprises and Mariupol Coke-Chemical Plant "Markokhim"). Even given some easing of the maximum permissible concentrations (maximum concentration limit) in the state's industrial activity in the mid-1990s, many pollution limits were still exceeded:


title: Mariupol

text: In the residential areas adjoining the industrial giants, concentrations of benzapiren reach 6–9 times the maximum concentration limits; fluoric hydrogen, ammonia, and formaldehyde reach 2–3 to 5 times the maximum concentration limits; dust and oxides of carbon, and hydrogen sulphide are 6–8 times the maximum concentration limits; and dioxides of nitrogen are 2–3 times the maximum concentration limits. The maximum concentration limit has been exceed on phenol by 17x, and on benzapiren by 13-14x.


title: Mariupol

text: Ill-considered locations of the Azovstal and Markokhim to economize on transport charges, during both construction in the 1930s and subsequent operations, have led to extensive wind-borne emissions into the central areas of Mariupol. Wind intensity and geographical "flatness" offer relief from the accumulation of long-standing pollutants, somewhat easing the problem.


title: Mariupol

text: The nearby Sea of Azov is in distress. The fish catch in the area has been reduced by orders of magnitude over the last 30–40 years.


title: Mariupol

text: The environmental protection activity of the leading industrial enterprises in Mariupol costs millions of hrivnas, but it appears to have little effect on the city's long-standing environmental problems.


title: Mariupol

text: The Mariupol electorate traditionally supports left wing (socialist and communist) and pro-Russian political parties. At the turn of the 21st century the Party of Regions numerically prevailed in the City Council followed by the Socialist Party of Ukraine.


title: Mariupol

text: In the presidential elections of 2004, 91.1% of the city voted for Viktor Yanukovych and 5.93% for Viktor Yuschenko. In the 2006 parliamentary elections, the city voted for the Party of Regions with 39.72% of the votes, the Socialist Party of Ukraine with 20.38%, the Natalia Vitrenko Block with 9.53%, and the Communist Party of Ukraine with 3.29%.


title: Mariupol

text: In the 2014 parliamentary elections the Opposition Bloc won more than 50% of the votes. The seats of the city's two electoral districts were won by Serhiy Matviyenkov and Serhiy Taruta.


title: Mariupol

text: The mayor (chairman of executive committee of the city council) of the city is Vadym Boychenko. In the October local elections he was re-elected with 64.57% of the votes as a candidate of the Vadym Boychenko Bloc. In these mayoral elections Volodymyr Klymenko of Opposition Platform — For Life received 25.84% of the vote, self-nominated candidate Lydia Mugli received 4.72%, the candidate from For the Future Yulia Bashkirova received 1.68% and the nominee from Our Land Mykhailo Klyuyev received 0,99% of the votes. Voter turnout in the election was 27%.


title: Mariupol

text: The Kalmius River separates the Livoberezhnyi District from the remaining three districts. The population is mostly concentrated in the Tsentralnyi and Prymorskyi Districts. The Kalmiuskyi District houses the large Illich Steel and Iron Works and the Azovmash manufacturing plant. The Livoberezhnyi (Left Bank) is home to the Azovstal metallurgic combine and the Koksokhim (Coke and Chemical) factory. The settlements of Staryi Krym and Sartana are located in close proximity to the city limits of Mariupol (see map).


title: Mariupol

text: The modern coat of arms of Mariupol was confirmed in 1989. It is described in heraldic terms as: "Per fess wavy argent and azure, on an anchor or, accompanied by the figure 1778 of the last". The gold anchor has a ring on top. The number 1778 indicates the year of the city's founding. The argent represents steel; the azure, the sea; the anchor, the port; and the ring, metallurgy.


title: Mariupol

text: As of 1 December 2014, the city's population was 477,992. Over the last century the population has grown nearly twelvefold. The city is populated by Ukrainians, Russians, Pontic Greeks (including Caucasus Greeks and Tatar- and Turkish-speaking but Greek Orthodox Christian Urums), Belarusians, Armenians, Jews, etc. The main language is Russian.


title: Mariupol

text: The average annual population decline of the city from 2010 to 2014 is 0.6%. The death rate is 15.5%.


title: Mariupol

text: The city is largely and traditionally Russian-speaking, while ethnically the population is divided about evenly between Ukrainians and Russians. There is also a significant ethnic Greek minority in the city.


title: Mariupol

text: In 2002, ethnic Ukrainians made up the largest percentage (48.7%) but less than half of the population; the second greatest ethnicity was Russian (44.4%). A June–July 2017 survey indicated that Ukrainians had grown to 59% of Mariupol's population and the Russian share had dropped to 33%.


title: Mariupol

text: The city is home to the largest population of Pontic Greeks in Ukraine ("Greeks of Priazovye") at 21,900, with 31,400 more in the six nearby rural areas, totaling about 70% of the Pontic Greek population of the area and 60% for the country.


title: Mariupol

text: The city is predominantly Russian speaking. From 60% to 80% of Ukrainian-language inhabitants communicate in Surzhyk, due to the large influence of Russian culture.


title: Mariupol

text: Most Greek-speaking villages in the region speak a dialect called Rumeíka, a branch of Pontic Greek. About 17 villages speak this language today. Modern scholars distinguish five subdialects of Rumeíka according to their similarity to standard Modern Greek. This was derived from the dialect of the original Pontic settlers from the Crimea. Although Rumeíka is often described as a Pontic dialect, the situation is more nuanced. Arguments can be brought both for Rumeíka's similarity to Pontic Greek and to the Northern Greek dialects. In the view of Maxim Kisilier, while the Rumeíka dialect shares some features with both the Pontic Greek and the Northern Greek dialects, it is better considered on its own terms as a separate Greek dialect, or even a group of dialects.


title: Mariupol

text: The village of Anadol speaks Pontic proper, being settled from the Pontos in the 19th century. After the October Revolution of 1917, a Rumaiic revival occurred in the region. The Soviet administration established a Greek-Rumaiic theater, several magazines and a newspaper, and a number of Rumaiic language schools. The best Rumaiic poet Georgi Kostoprav created a Rumaiic poetic language for his work. This process was reversed in 1937 as Kostoprav and many other Rumaiics and Urums were killed as part of Joseph Stalin's national policies.


title: Mariupol

text: A new attempt to preserve a sense of ethnic Rumaiic identity started in the mid-1980s. The Ukrainian scholar Andriy Biletsky created a new Slavonic alphabet for Greek speakers. Though a number of writers and poets make use of this alphabet, the population of the region rarely uses it. The Rumaiic language is declining rapidly, most endangered by the standard Modern Greek which is taught in schools and the local university. The latest investigations by Alexandra Gromova demonstrate that there is still hope that elements of the Rumaiic population will continue to use the dialect.


title: Mariupol

text: Along with those speaking Rumeíka, there were and are a number of Tatar-speaking Orthodox villages, the so-called Urums, which is the Tatar term for Romaios or Rumei. This subdivision had already occurred in Crimea before the settlement of the Azov Sea steppe region by Pontic Greeks which began following the fall of the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. It occurred on a larger scale after the end of the Russo-Turkish War in 1779, as part of the Russian policy to populate and develop the region while depriving the Crimea of an economically active part of its population. Though Greek- and Tatar-speaking settlers lived separately, the language of the Urums was the lingua franca of the region for a long time, being called the language of the bazaar.


title: Mariupol

text: There are also a number of settlements of other ethnic communities, including Germans, Bulgarians, and Albanians (though the meanings of all such terms in this context is open to dispute).


title: Mariupol

text: The city is adorned by the St. Nicholas Cathedral (in the Tsentralnyi borough) and other churches of the city, namely:


title: Mariupol

text: Many churches were destroyed in the 1930s during the Soviet era by the Bolshevik government as part of the Atheist Five-Year Plan:


title: Mariupol

text: In 2009, the official rate of unemployment in the city was 2%. The figure, however, only includes people registered as "unemployed" in the local job centre. The real unemployment rate was therefore higher.


title: Mariupol

text: There are 56 industrial enterprises in Mariupol under various plans of ownership. The city's industry is diverse, with heavy industry dominant. Mariupol is home to major steel mills (including some of global importance) and chemical plants; there is also an important seaport and a railroad junction. The largest enterprises are Ilyich Iron and Steel Works, Azovstal, Azovmash Holding, and the Mariupol Sea Trading Port. There are also shipyards, fish canneries, and various educational institutions with studies in metallurgy and science.


title: Mariupol

text: The total industrial production of the city for eight months in 2005 (January – August) was 21378.2 million hryvnas (US$4.233 billion), compared to 1999 – 6169.806 million hryvnas (US$1.222 billion). This is 37.5% of the total production for Donetsk Oblast. The leading business of the city is ferrous metallurgy, which makes up 93.5% of the city's income from industrial production. The annual output estimates are in millions of tonnes of iron, steel, rolled iron, and agglomerate.


title: Mariupol

text: The above-mentioned enterprises, along with a plethora of others not mentioned, are located in the free economic zone of "Azov".


title: Mariupol

text: The GDP of the city in 2004 was ₴22,769,400 ($4,510,400); it is listed in the state budget as ₴83,332,000 ($16,507,400). The city is one of the largest contributors to the Ukrainian national budget (after Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia).


title: Mariupol

text: The GPA of the city is ₴1,262.04 (~US$250.00) a month, one of the highest in the country. The average pension in the city is ₴423.15 ($83.82). Commercial debts in the city were reduced in 2005 to 1.1% or ₴5.1 million ($1.01 million).


title: Mariupol

text: Income from services rendered for 9 months of 2005 was ₴860.4 million ($107.4 million) and the volume of retail trade for the same period was ₴838.7 million ($166.1 million). The city's enterprises for 9 months of 2005 recorded a positive financial result (profit) of ₴3.2 billion ($634 million), which is 23.6% more than in the prior year (2004).


title: Mariupol

text: Creative Organisations of Artists, Union of Journalists of Mariupol, the Literary Union «Azovye» (from 1924, about 100 members), and others. Works of Mariupol poets and writers: N. Berilov, A. Belous, G. Moroz, A. Shapurmi, A. Savchenko, V. Kior, N. Harakoz, L. Kiryakov, L. Belozerova, P. Bessonov, and A. Zaruba are written in the Russian, Ukrainian, and Greek languages. Presently, 10 members of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine live in the city.


title: Mariupol

text: From 2017 Mariupol has hosted the MRPL City Festival, an annual music festival, held every August on Pishchanka beach. The festival began in 2017 as "the biggest event on the East Coast." The festival is multi-genre: each scene has its own style.


title: Mariupol

text: Gogolfest is an annual multidisciplinary international festival of contemporary art, which contains theatrical performances, day and night musical performances, film shows, art exhibitions and dialogues. In 2018–2019 Gogolfest was held in Mariupol. In 2019 the festival lasted from 26 April to 1 May 2019.


title: Mariupol

text: Tourist attractions are mainly on the coast of the Sea of Azov. Around the city a strip of resort settlements was established: Melekino, , Yalta, Donetsk Oblast, Sedovo, Bezymennoye, Sopino, ,


title: Mariupol

text: The first resorts in the city opened in 1926. Along the sea a narrow bar of sandy beaches stretches for 16 km. Water temperature in the summer ranges from . The duration of the bathing season is 120 days.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol has monuments to Vladimir Vysotsky, and in honour of the liberation of Donbass, the metallurgists, and others.


title: Mariupol

text: The city of Mariupol has several parks and squares, the most popular being the City Square (Theater Square), the Amusement Park, the Gurov Park (formerly Mariupol Bicentenary Park), the Petrovski Park, the City Gardens (with monuments to the heroes of the Second World War, inaugurated in 1863, the Vessiolka park, the Azovstal park, the Sea park (formerly of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the October Revolution).


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol is known for its many memorials, statues and sculptures, including the bust of Mariupol-born painter Arkhip Kuindzhi, a statue of Taras Shevchenko, founder of the Ukrainian literary language in the second half of the 19th century, as well as Pushkin, representing the Russian language. Four statues of Lenin remain as testimonies to history. A statue of Andrei Zhdanov after whom the city was named from 1948 to 1990, dominated the central square of the city in the Soviet period but was removed in 1990. A statue of the iconoclastic singer Vladimir Vysotsky (former husband of the Russian-French actress Marina Vlady), was inaugurated in 1998. A bust of the winner of the White Army, commander of a battalion in the region in April 1919, Kuzma Anatov, was inaugurated in 1968 on the street of the same name.


title: Mariupol

text: The Great Patriotic War is the subject of some fifteen monuments, statues, tanks, busts, etc. in honor of the Red Army, a fighting unit, a glorious deed or a hero who died in combat to liberate the country from the Third Reich, such as the monument to the twelve patriots shot by the Germans on March 7, 1942.


title: Mariupol

text: A large statue commemorating the liberation of Donbass dominates the square on Nakhimov Avenue. The eternal flame burns before the monument to the victims of Nazism. A monument to the victims of Stalinism was erected on Theatre Square, as well as a large cross in 2008 at the main cemetery, in memory of the victims of the great famine of the 1920s following dekulakisation. A large stone with a commemorative plaque, in an alley off Lenin Avenue, commemorates the victims of Chernobyl.


title: Mariupol

text: There are also monuments to Makar Maza, Hryhoriy Yuriyovych Horban, K.P. Apatov, and Tolya Balabukha, to seamen–commandos, to pilots V.G. Semenyshyn and N.E. Lavytsky, and to soldiers of the Soviet 9th Aviation Division. The artists V. Konstantynov and L. Kuzminkov are the sculptors of some of the monuments, including the monument to Metropolitan Ignatiy, the founder of Mariupol, (1715–1786, canonized in 1998 by the Orthodox Church) recently erected near St. Nicholas Cathedral.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol is the second most populous city in Donetsk Oblast after Donetsk, and is amongst the ten most populous cities in Ukraine. See the list of cities in Ukraine.


title: Mariupol

text: Old Mariupol is an area defined by the coast of the Sea of Azov to the south, the Kalmius River to the east, to the north by Shevchenko Boulevard, and to the west by Metalurhiv Avenue. It is made up mainly of low-rise buildings and has kept its pre-revolutionary architecture. Only Artem Street and Miru Avenue were built after World War II.


title: Mariupol

text: The central area of Mariupol (from Metalurhiv Avenue up to Budivelnykiv Avenue) is made up almost entirely of administrative and commercial buildings, including a city council building, a post office, the Lukov cinema, Mariupol State University of Humanities, Priazov State Technical University, the Korolenko central city library, and many large stores.


title: Mariupol

text: The architecture of other residential areas (Zakhidny, Skhidny, Kirov, Cheremushky, and 5th and 17th quarters) is not particularly distinctive or original and consists of typical apartment buildings of five to nine storeys.


title: Mariupol

text: The term "Cheremushki" carries a special meaning in Russian culture and now also in Ukrainian; it usually refers to the newly settled parts of a city. The city's residential area covers 9.82 million square meters. The population density is 19.3 square meters per inhabitant.


title: Mariupol

text: Industrial construction prevails. Mass building of habitable quarters within the city ended in the 1980s. Mainly under construction now are comfortable habitations. The city's construction industry for nine months of 2005 executed a volume of civil contract and building works of 304.4 million hrivnas (US$60 million). The city density on this parameter is 22.1%.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol has transportation including bus transportation, trolleybuses, trams, and fixed-route taxis. The city is connected by railways, a seaport and the airport to other countries and cities.


title: Mariupol

text: All leading Ukrainian mobile communications carriers have served Mariupol. In Soviet times, ten automatic telephone exchanges were operational; six digital automatic telephone exchanges were recently added.


title: Mariupol

text: There are 60 medical and medical-health establishments in the city — hospitals, polyclinics, the station of blood transfusion, urgent care clinics, sanatoriums, sanatoriums-preventive clinics, regional centre of social maintenance of pensionaries and invalids, city centres: gastroenterology, thoracic surgery, bleedings, pancreatic, microsurgery of the eye. Central pool-hospital on a water-carriage. The largest hospital is the Mariupol regional intensive care hospital.


title: Mariupol

text: Eight-one general educational establishment are operational, including: 67 comprehensive schools (48,500 students), two grammar schools, three lyceums, four evening replaceable schools, three boarding schools, two private schools, eleven professional educational institutions (6,274 students), and 94 children's preschool establishments (12,700 children).


title: Mariupol

text: Retransmitting about 15 national public channels (Inter, 1+1, STB, NTN, 5 Channel, ICTV, First National TV, New Channel, TV Company Ukraina, etc.)


title: Mariupol

text: There are about 300 public associations, including 22 trade-union organizations, about 40 political parties, 16 youth groups, four women's organizations, 37 associations of veterans and disabled, and 134 national and cultural societies.


title: Mariupol

text: Mariupol is the hometown of the nationally famous swimmer Oleksandr Sydorenko who lived in the city, until his death on 20 February 2022.


title: Mariupol

text: FC Mariupol is a football club, with a great sport traditions and a history of participation at the European level competitions.


title: Mariupol

text: The water polo team, the «Ilyichevets», is the undisputed champion of Ukraine. It has won the Ukrainian championship 11 times. Every year it plays in the European Champion Cup and Russian championship.


title: Mariupol

text: Azovstal' Canoeing Club on the Kalmius River. Vitaly Yepishkin – third place in the World Cup in the 200m K-2.


title: Mariupol

text: Azovmash Basketball Club, similarly to the "Ilichevets" Water-polo Club, has numerous national championship titles. Significant successes were obtained as well by the Mariupol schools of boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, artistic gymnastics, and other types of sport.


title: Mariupol

text: Some Russian cities are twinned with ones in occupied Ukraine, Saint Petersburg is twinned with Mariupol. An art symbol of the twinning was unveiled on Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, defaced and removed.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: Resident Alien is an American science fiction mystery comedy-drama television series created by Chris Sheridan, based on the comic book of the same title by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, that premiered its 10-episode first season on January 27, 2021, on Syfy. The series stars Alan Tudyk in the title role. In March 2021, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on January 26, 2022. The second season consists of 16 episodes, split into two eight-episode parts, and the second half premiered on August 10, 2022. In July 2022, the series was renewed for a third season, which will consist of 8 episodes.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: After crash-landing on Earth, an alien sent to wipe out humanity kills and takes on the identity of a vacationing pathology physician. He is asked to do an autopsy on the town's doctor, who has died in unknown circumstances. He wrestles with the moral dilemma of his secret mission, while also dealing with the mayor's young son, who can see his true appearance.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: On May 31, 2018, Syfy announced that the TV adaptation of "Resident Alien" was given a pilot order with Chris Sheridan as the show creator and Universal Cable Productions, Dark Horse Entertainment, and Amblin Television developing the pilot. On February 28, 2019, Syfy gave a series order with production starting in Vancouver, and David Dobkin directing and serving as an executive producer for the pilot. Robert Duncan McNeill executive produced and was producing director for the remaining episodes. On March 17, 2021, Syfy renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on January 26, 2022.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: On July 21, 2022, Syfy renewed the series for a 12-episode third season. On November 15, 2022, Syfy cut down from 12 episodes to 8 episodes for the third season.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: On September 20, 2018, Alan Tudyk was cast as the main character "Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle" in the pilot, along with Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund, and Levi Fiehler. On January 31, 2020, Linda Hamilton, Mandell Maughan, and Alex Barima were cast in the recurring roles in the series. On February 12, 2020, Elizabeth Bowen was cast in the recurring role of Deputy Sheriff Liv Baker in the series.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: Principal photography for the first season began on September 10, 2020, and concluded on October 14, 2020, in Delta, British Columbia, Canada.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: Filming for the second season began on August 3, 2021, and concluded on April 1, 2022. Filming for the first half of the second season took place in Ladysmith, British Columbia, with filming for the second half taking place from February 27, 2022.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: On February 13, 2020, Syfy announced that the series would premiere in summer 2020. However, on October 9, 2020, the premiere was moved to January 2021, specifically January 27 in the United States. Internationally, the series premiered in Canada on CTV Sci-Fi Channel on January 27, 2021, and in the United Kingdom on Sky One the following day.


title: Resident Alien (TV series)

text: For the first season, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported a "certified fresh" approval rating of 94% based on 31 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, ""Resident Alien" takes a minute to settle into its skin, but once it does it finds fresh humor in a familiar framework and proves a perfect showcase for Alan Tudyk's singular comedic skills". Metacritic gave the first season a weighted average score of 70 out of 100 based on 15 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: William Howard Taft

text: William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for reelection in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position he held until a month before his death.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1857. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a U.S. attorney general and secretary of war. Taft attended Yale and joined the Skull and Bones, of which his father was a founding member. After becoming a lawyer, Taft was appointed a judge while still in his twenties. He continued a rapid rise, being named solicitor general and a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1901, President William McKinley appointed Taft civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904, Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and he became Roosevelt's hand-picked successor. Despite his personal ambition to become chief justice, Taft declined repeated offers of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, believing his political work to be more important.


title: William Howard Taft

text: With Roosevelt's help, Taft had little opposition for the Republican nomination for president in 1908 and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in that November's election. In the White House, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. Taft sought reductions to trade tariffs, then a major source of governmental income, but the resulting bill was heavily influenced by special interests. His administration was filled with conflict between the Republican Party's conservative wing, with which Taft often sympathized, and its progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt moved more and more. Controversies over conservation and antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration served to further separate the two men. Roosevelt challenged Taft for renomination in 1912. Taft used his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolted the party. The split left Taft with little chance of reelection, and he took only Utah and Vermont in Wilson's victory.


title: William Howard Taft

text: After leaving office, Taft returned to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, Harding appointed Taft chief justice, an office he had long sought. Chief Justice Taft was a conservative on business issues, and under him there were advances in individual rights. In poor health, he resigned in February 1930, and died the following month. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there. Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents.


title: William Howard Taft

text: William Howard Taft was born September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alphonso Taft and Louise Torrey. The Taft family was not wealthy, living in a modest home in the suburb of Mount Auburn. Alphonso served as a judge and an ambassador, and was U.S. Secretary of War and Attorney General under President Ulysses S. Grant.


title: William Howard Taft

text: William Taft was not seen as brilliant as a child, but was a hard worker; his demanding parents pushed him and his four brothers toward success, tolerating nothing less. He attended Woodward High School in Cincinnati. At Yale College, which he entered in 1874, the heavyset, jovial Taft was popular and an intramural heavyweight wrestling champion. One classmate said he succeeded through hard work rather than by being the smartest, and had integrity. He was elected a member of Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society co-founded by his father, one of three future presidents (with George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush) to be a member. In 1878, Taft graduated second in his class of 121. He attended Cincinnati Law School, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1880. While in law school, he worked on "The Cincinnati Commercial" newspaper, edited by Murat Halstead. Taft was assigned to cover the local courts, and also spent time reading law in his father's office; both activities gave him practical knowledge of the law that was not taught in class. Shortly before graduating from law school, Taft went to Columbus to take the bar examination and easily passed.


title: William Howard Taft

text: After admission to the Ohio bar, Taft devoted himself to his job at the "Commercial" full-time. Halstead was willing to take him on permanently at an increased salary if he would give up the law, but Taft declined. In October 1880, Taft was appointed assistant prosecutor for Hamilton County (where Cincinnati is located), and took office the following January. Taft served for a year as assistant prosecutor, trying his share of routine cases. He resigned in January 1882 after President Chester A. Arthur appointed him Collector of Internal Revenue for Ohio's First District, an area centered on Cincinnati. Taft refused to dismiss competent employees who were politically out of favor, and resigned effective in March 1883, writing to Arthur that he wished to begin private practice in Cincinnati. In 1884, Taft campaigned for the Republican candidate for president, Maine Senator James G. Blaine, who lost to New York Governor Grover Cleveland.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In 1887, Taft, then aged 29, was appointed to a vacancy on the Superior Court of Cincinnati by Governor Joseph B. Foraker. The appointment was good for just over a year, after which he would have to face the voters, and in April 1888, he sought election for the first of three times in his lifetime, the other two being for the presidency. He was elected to a full five-year term. Some two dozen of Taft's opinions as a state judge survive, the most significant being "Moores & Co. v. Bricklayers' Union No. 1" (1889) if only because it was used against him when he ran for president in 1908. The case involved bricklayers who refused to work for any firm that dealt with a company called Parker Brothers, with which they were in dispute. Taft ruled that the union's action amounted to a secondary boycott, which was illegal.


title: William Howard Taft

text: It is not clear when Taft met Helen Herron (often called Nellie), but it was no later than 1880, when she mentioned in her diary receiving an invitation to a party from him. By 1884, they were meeting regularly, and in 1885, after an initial rejection, she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place at the Herron home on June 19, 1886. William Taft remained devoted to his wife throughout their almost 44 years of marriage. Nellie Taft pushed her husband much as his parents had, and she could be very frank with her criticisms. The couple had three children, of whom the eldest, Robert, became a U.S. senator.


title: William Howard Taft

text: There was a seat vacant on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1889, and Governor Foraker suggested President Harrison appoint Taft to fill it. Taft was 32 and his professional goal was always a seat on the Supreme Court. He actively sought the appointment, writing to Foraker to urge the governor to press his case, while stating to others it was unlikely he would get it. Instead, in 1890, Harrison appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. When Taft arrived in Washington in February 1890, the office had been vacant for two months, with the work piling up. He worked to eliminate the backlog, while simultaneously educating himself on federal law and procedure he had not needed as an Ohio state judge.


title: William Howard Taft

text: New York Senator William M. Evarts, a former Secretary of State, had been a classmate of Alphonso Taft at Yale. Evarts called to see his friend's son as soon as Taft took office, and William and Nellie Taft were launched into Washington society. Nellie Taft was ambitious for herself and her husband, and was annoyed when the people he socialized with most were mainly Supreme Court justices, rather than the arbiters of Washington society such as Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge and their wives.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In 1891, Taft introduced a new policy: confession of error, by which the U.S. government would concede a case in the Supreme Court that it had won in the court below but that the solicitor general thought it should have lost. At Taft's request, the Supreme Court reversed a murder conviction that Taft said had been based on inadmissible evidence. The policy continues to this day.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Although Taft was successful as Solicitor General, winning 15 of the 18 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he was glad when in March 1891, the United States Congress created a new judgeship for each of the United States Courts of Appeal and Harrison appointed him to the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati. In March 1892, Taft resigned as Solicitor General to resume his judicial career.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft's federal judgeship was a lifetime appointment, and one from which promotion to the Supreme Court might come. Taft's older half-brother Charles, successful in business, supplemented Taft's government salary, allowing William and Nellie Taft and their family to live in comfort. Taft's duties involved hearing trials in the circuit, which included Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and participating with Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, the circuit justice, and judges of the Sixth Circuit in hearing appeals. Taft spent these years, from 1892 to 1900, in personal and professional contentment.


title: William Howard Taft

text: According to historian Louis L. Gould, "while Taft shared the fears about social unrest that dominated the middle classes during the 1890s, he was not as conservative as his critics believed. He supported the right of labor to organize and strike, and he ruled against employers in several negligence cases." Among these was "Voight v. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Co." Taft's decision for a worker injured in a railway accident violated the contemporary doctrine of liberty of contract, and he was reversed by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Taft's opinion in "United States v. Addyston Pipe and Steel Co." was upheld unanimously by the high court. Taft's opinion, in which he held that a pipe manufacturers' association had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, was described by Henry Pringle, his biographer, as having "definitely and specifically revived" that legislation.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In 1896, Taft became dean and Professor of Property at his "alma mater", the Cincinnati Law School, a post that required him to prepare and give two hour-long lectures each week. He was devoted to his law school, and was deeply committed to legal education, introducing the case method to the curriculum. As a federal judge, Taft could not involve himself with politics, but followed it closely, remaining a Republican supporter. He watched with some disbelief as the campaign of Ohio Governor William McKinley developed in 1894 and 1895, writing "I cannot find anybody in Washington who wants him". By March 1896, Taft realized that McKinley would likely be nominated, and was lukewarm in his support. He landed solidly in McKinley's camp after former Nebraska representative William Jennings Bryan in July stampeded the 1896 Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. Bryan, both in that address and in his campaign, strongly advocated free silver, a policy that Taft saw as economic radicalism. Taft feared that people would hoard gold in anticipation of a Bryan victory, but he could do nothing but worry. McKinley was elected; when a place on the Supreme Court opened in 1898, the only one under McKinley, the president named Joseph McKenna.


title: William Howard Taft

text: From the 1890s until his death, Taft played a major role in the international legal community. He was active in many organizations, was a leader in the worldwide arbitration movement, and taught international law at the Yale Law School. One of the reasons for his bitter break with Roosevelt in 1910–12 was Roosevelt's insistence that arbitration was naïve and that only war could decide major international disputes.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In January 1900, Taft was called to Washington to meet with McKinley. Taft hoped a Supreme Court appointment was in the works, but instead McKinley wanted to place Taft on the commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines. The appointment would require Taft's resignation from the bench; the president assured him that if he fulfilled this task, McKinley would appoint him to the next vacancy on the high court. Taft accepted on condition he was made head of the commission, with responsibility for success or failure; McKinley agreed, and Taft sailed for the islands in April 1900.


title: William Howard Taft

text: The American takeover meant the Philippine Revolution bled into the Philippine–American War, as Filipinos fought for their independence, but U.S. forces, led by military governor General Arthur MacArthur Jr. had the upper hand by 1900. MacArthur felt the commission was a nuisance, and their mission a quixotic attempt to impose self-government on a people unready for it. The general was forced to co-operate with Taft, as McKinley had given the commission control over the islands' military budget. The commission took executive power in the Philippines on September 1, 1900; on July 4, 1901, Taft became civilian governor. MacArthur, until then the military governor, was relieved by General Adna Chaffee, who was designated only as commander of American forces.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft sought to make the Filipinos partners in a venture that would lead to their self-government; he saw independence as something decades off. Many Americans in the Philippines viewed the locals as racial inferiors, but Taft wrote soon before his arrival, "we propose to banish this idea from their minds". Taft did not impose racial segregation at official events, and treated the Filipinos as social equals. Nellie Taft recalled that "neither politics nor race should influence our hospitality in any way".


title: William Howard Taft

text: McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, and was succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt. Taft and Roosevelt had first become friends around 1890 while Taft was Solicitor General and Roosevelt a member of the United States Civil Service Commission. Taft had, after McKinley's election, urged the appointment of Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and watched as Roosevelt became a war hero, Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States. They met again when Taft went to Washington in January 1902 to recuperate after two operations caused by an infection. There, Taft testified before the Senate Committee on the Philippines. Taft wanted Filipino farmers to have a stake in the new government through land ownership, but much of the arable land was held by Catholic religious orders of mostly Spanish priests, which were often resented by the Filipinos. Roosevelt had Taft go to Rome to negotiate with Pope Leo XIII, to purchase the lands and to arrange the withdrawal of the Spanish priests, with Americans replacing them and training locals as clergy. Taft did not succeed in resolving these issues on his visit to Rome, but an agreement on both points was made in 1903.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In late 1902, Taft had heard from Roosevelt that a seat on the Supreme Court would soon fall vacant on the resignation of Justice George Shiras, and Roosevelt desired that Taft fill it. Although this was Taft's professional goal, he refused as he felt his work as governor was not yet done. The following year, Roosevelt asked Taft to become Secretary of War. As the War Department administered the Philippines, Taft would remain responsible for the islands, and Elihu Root, the incumbent, was willing to postpone his departure until 1904, allowing Taft time to wrap up his work in Manila. After consulting with his family, Taft agreed, and sailed for the United States in December 1903.


title: William Howard Taft

text: When Taft took office as Secretary of War in January 1904, he was not called upon to spend much time administering the army, which the president was content to do himself—Roosevelt wanted Taft as a troubleshooter in difficult situations, as a legal adviser, and to be able to give campaign speeches as he sought election in his own right. Taft strongly defended Roosevelt's record in his addresses, and wrote of the president's successful but strenuous efforts to gain election, "I would not run for president if you guaranteed the office. It is awful to be afraid of one's shadow."


title: William Howard Taft

text: Between 1905 and 1907, Taft came to terms with the likelihood he would be the next Republican nominee for president, though he did not plan to actively campaign for it. When Justice Henry Billings Brown resigned in 1906, Taft would not accept the seat although Roosevelt offered it, a position Taft held to when another seat opened in 1906. Edith Roosevelt, the First Lady, disliked the growing closeness between the two men, feeling that they were too much alike and that the president did not gain much from the advice of someone who rarely contradicted him.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Alternatively, Taft wanted to be chief justice, and kept a close eye on the health of the aging incumbent, Melville Fuller, who turned 75 in 1908. Taft believed Fuller likely to live many years. Roosevelt had indicated he was likely to appoint Taft if the opportunity came to fill the court's center seat, but some considered Attorney General Philander Knox a better candidate. In any event, Fuller remained chief justice throughout Roosevelt's presidency.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Through the 1903 separation of Panama from Colombia and the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, the United States had secured rights to build a canal in the Isthmus of Panama. Legislation authorizing construction did not specify which government department would be responsible, and Roosevelt designated the Department of War. Taft journeyed to Panama in 1904, viewing the canal site and meeting with Panamanian officials. The Isthmian Canal Commission had trouble keeping a chief engineer, and when in February 1907 John F. Stevens submitted his resignation, Taft recommended an army engineer, George W. Goethals. Under Goethals, the project moved ahead smoothly.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Another colony lost by Spain in 1898 was Cuba, but as freedom for Cuba had been a major purpose of the war, it was not annexed by the U.S., but was, after a period of occupation, given independence in 1902. Election fraud and corruption followed, as did factional conflict. In September 1906, President Tomás Estrada Palma asked for U.S. intervention. Taft traveled to Cuba with a small American force, and on September 29, 1906, under the terms of the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations of 1903, declared himself Provisional Governor of Cuba, a post he held for two weeks before being succeeded by Charles Edward Magoon. In his time in Cuba, Taft worked to persuade Cubans that the U.S. intended stability, not occupation.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft remained involved in Philippine affairs. During Roosevelt's election campaign in 1904, he urged that Philippine agricultural products be admitted to the U.S. without duty. This caused growers of U.S. sugar and tobacco to complain to Roosevelt, who remonstrated with his Secretary of War. Taft expressed unwillingness to change his position, and threatened to resign; Roosevelt hastily dropped the matter. Taft returned to the islands in 1905, leading a delegation of congressmen, and again in 1907, to open the first Philippine Assembly.


title: William Howard Taft

text: On both of his Philippine trips as Secretary of War, Taft went to Japan, and met with officials there. The meeting in July 1905 came a month before the Portsmouth Peace Conference, which would end the Russo-Japanese War with the Treaty of Portsmouth. Taft met with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Tarō. After that meeting, the two signed a memorandum. It contained nothing new but instead reaffirmed official positions: Japan had no intention to invade the Philippines, and the U.S. that it did not object to Japanese control of Korea. There were U.S. concerns about the number of Japanese laborers coming to the American West Coast, and during Taft's second visit, in September 1907, Tadasu Hayashi, the foreign minister, informally agreed to issue fewer passports to them.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt had served almost three and a half years of McKinley's term. On the night of his own election in 1904, Roosevelt publicly declared he would not run for reelection in 1908, a pledge he quickly regretted. But he felt bound by his word. Roosevelt believed Taft was his logical successor, although the War Secretary was initially reluctant to run. Roosevelt used his control of the party machinery to aid his heir apparent. On pain of loss of their jobs, political appointees were required to support Taft or remain silent.


title: William Howard Taft

text: A number of Republican politicians, such as Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou, tested the waters for a run but chose to stay out. New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes ran, but when he made a major policy speech, Roosevelt the same day sent a special message to Congress warning in strong terms against corporate corruption. The resulting coverage of the presidential message relegated Hughes to the back pages. Roosevelt reluctantly deterred repeated attempts to draft him for another term.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Assistant Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock resigned from his office in February 1908 to lead the Taft effort. In April, Taft made a speaking tour, traveling as far west as Omaha before being recalled to go to Panama and straighten out a contested election. At the 1908 Republican National Convention in Chicago in June, there was no serious opposition to him, and he gained a first-ballot victory. Yet Taft did not have things his own way: he had hoped his running mate would be a midwestern progressive like Iowa Senator Jonathan Dolliver, but instead the convention named Congressman James S. Sherman of New York, a conservative. Taft resigned as Secretary of War on June 30 to devote himself full-time to the campaign.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft's opponent in the general election was Bryan, the Democratic nominee for the third time in four presidential elections. As many of Roosevelt's reforms stemmed from proposals by Bryan, the Democrat argued that he was the true heir to Roosevelt's mantle. Corporate contributions to federal political campaigns had been outlawed by the 1907 Tillman Act, and Bryan proposed that contributions by officers and directors of corporations be similarly banned, or at least disclosed when made. Taft was only willing to see the contributions disclosed after the election, and tried to ensure that officers and directors of corporations litigating with the government were not among his contributors.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft began the campaign on the wrong foot, fueling the arguments of those who said he was not his own man by traveling to Roosevelt's home at Sagamore Hill for advice on his acceptance speech, saying that he needed "the President's judgment and criticism". Taft supported most of Roosevelt's policies. He argued that labor had a right to organize, but not boycott, and that corporations and the wealthy must also obey the law. Bryan wanted the railroads to be owned by the government, but Taft preferred that they remain in the private sector, with their maximum rates set by the Interstate Commerce Commission, subject to judicial review. Taft attributed blame for the recent recession, the Panic of 1907, to stock speculation and other abuses, and felt some reform of the currency (the U.S. was on the gold standard) was needed to allow flexibility in the government's response to poor economic times, that specific legislation on trusts was needed to supplement the Sherman Antitrust Act, and that the constitution should be amended to allow for an income tax, thus overruling decisions of the Supreme Court striking such a tax down. Roosevelt's expansive use of executive power had been controversial; Taft proposed to continue his policies, but place them on more solid legal underpinnings through the passage of legislation.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft upset some progressives by choosing Hitchcock as Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), placing him in charge of the presidential campaign. Hitchcock was quick to bring in men closely allied with big business. Taft took an August vacation in Hot Springs, Virginia, where he irritated political advisors by spending more time on golf than strategy. After seeing a newspaper photo of Taft taking a large swing at a golf ball, Roosevelt warned him against candid shots.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt, frustrated by his own relative inaction, showered Taft with advice, fearing that the electorate would not appreciate Taft's qualities, and that Bryan would win. Roosevelt's supporters spread rumors that the president was in effect running Taft's campaign. This annoyed Nellie Taft, who never trusted the Roosevelts. Nevertheless, Roosevelt supported the Republican nominee with such enthusiasm that humorists suggested "TAFT" stood for "Take advice from Theodore".


title: William Howard Taft

text: Bryan urged a system of bank guarantees, so that depositors could be repaid if banks failed, but Taft opposed this, offering a postal savings system instead. The issue of prohibition of alcohol entered the campaign when in mid-September, Carrie Nation called on Taft and demanded to know his views. Taft and Roosevelt had agreed the party platform would take no position on the matter, and Nation left indignant, to allege that Taft was irreligious and against temperance. Taft, at Roosevelt's advice, ignored the issue.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In the end, Taft won by a comfortable margin. Taft defeated Bryan by 321 electoral votes to 162; however, he garnered just 51.6 percent of the popular vote. Nellie Taft said regarding the campaign, "There was nothing to criticize, except his not knowing or caring about the way the game of politics is played." Longtime White House usher Ike Hoover recalled that Taft came often to see Roosevelt during the campaign, but seldom between the election and Inauguration Day, March 4, 1909.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft was sworn in as president on March 4, 1909. Due to a winter storm that coated Washington with ice, Taft was inaugurated within the Senate Chamber rather than outside the Capitol as is customary. The new president stated in his inaugural address that he had been honored to have been "one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor" and to have had a part "in the reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform on which I was elected if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my administration". He pledged to make those reforms long-lasting, ensuring that honest businessmen did not suffer uncertainty through change of policy. He spoke of the need for reduction of the 1897 Dingley Tariff, for antitrust reform, and for continued advancement of the Philippines toward full self-government. Roosevelt left office with regret that his tenure in the position he enjoyed so much was over and, to keep out of Taft's way, arranged for a year-long hunting trip to Africa.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Soon after the Republican convention, Taft and Roosevelt had discussed which cabinet officers would stay on. Taft kept only Agriculture Secretary James Wilson and Postmaster General George von Lengerke Meyer (who was shifted to the Navy Department). Others appointed to the Taft cabinet included Philander Knox, who had served under McKinley and Roosevelt as Attorney General, as the new Secretary of State, and Franklin MacVeagh as Treasury Secretary.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft did not enjoy the easy relationship with the press that Roosevelt had, choosing not to offer himself for interviews or photo opportunities as often as his predecessor had. His administration marked a change in style from the charismatic leadership of Roosevelt to Taft's quieter passion for the rule of law.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Early in Taft's term, in May 1909, his wife Nellie had a severe stroke that left her paralysed in one arm and one leg and deprived her of the power of speech. Taft spent several hours each day looking after her and teaching her to speak again, which took a year.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft made it a priority to restructure the State Department, noting, "it is organized on the basis of the needs of the government in 1800 instead of 1900." The Department was for the first time organized into geographical divisions, including desks for the Far East, Latin America and Western Europe. The department's first in-service training program was established, and appointees spent a month in Washington before going to their posts. Taft and Secretary of State Knox had a strong relationship, and the president listened to his counsel on matters foreign and domestic. According to historian Paolo E. Coletta, Knox was not a good diplomat, and had poor relations with the Senate, press, and many foreign leaders, especially those from Latin America.


title: William Howard Taft

text: There was broad agreement between Taft and Knox on major foreign policy goals; the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs, and would use force if necessary to enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the Americas. The defense of the Panama Canal, which was under construction throughout Taft's term (it opened in 1914), guided United States foreign policy in the Caribbean and Central America. Previous administrations had made efforts to promote American business interests overseas, but Taft went a step further and used the web of American diplomats and consuls abroad to further trade. Such ties, Taft hoped, would promote world peace. Taft pushed for arbitration treaties with Great Britain and France, but the Senate was not willing to yield to arbitrators its constitutional prerogative to approve treaties.


title: William Howard Taft

text: At the time of Taft's presidency, protectionism through the use of tariffs was a fundamental position of the Republican Party. The Dingley Tariff had been enacted to protect American industry from foreign competition. The 1908 party platform had supported unspecified revisions to the Dingley Act, and Taft interpreted this to mean reductions. Taft called a special session of Congress to convene on March 15, 1909 to deal with the tariff question.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Sereno E. Payne, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, had held hearings in late 1908, and sponsored the resulting draft legislation. On balance, the bill reduced tariffs slightly, but when it passed the House in April 1909 and reached the Senate, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, attached many amendments raising rates. This outraged progressives such as Wisconsin's Robert M. La Follette, who urged Taft to say that the bill was not in accord with the party platform. Taft refused, angering them. Taft insisted that most imports from the Philippines be free of duty, and according to Anderson, showed effective leadership on a subject he was knowledgeable on and cared about.


title: William Howard Taft

text: When opponents sought to modify the tariff bill to allow for an income tax, Taft opposed it on the ground that the Supreme Court would likely strike it down as unconstitutional, as it had before. Instead, they proposed a constitutional amendment, which passed both houses in early July, was sent to the states, and by 1913 was ratified as the Sixteenth Amendment. In the conference committee, Taft won some victories, such as limiting the tax on lumber. The conference report passed both houses, and Taft signed it on August 6, 1909. The Payne-Aldrich tariff was immediately controversial. According to Coletta, "Taft had lost the initiative, and the wounds inflicted in the acrid tariff debate never healed".


title: William Howard Taft

text: In Taft's annual message sent to Congress in December 1910, he urged a free trade accord with Canada. Britain at that time still handled Canada's foreign relations, and Taft found the British and Canadian governments willing. Many in Canada opposed an accord, fearing the U.S. would dump it when convenient as it had the 1854 Elgin-Marcy Treaty in 1866, and farm and fisheries interests in the United States were also opposed. After talks with Canadian officials in January 1911, Taft had the agreement, which was not a treaty, introduced into Congress and it passed in late July. The Parliament of Canada, led by Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, had deadlocked over the issue. Canadians turned Laurier out of office in the September 1911 election and Robert Borden became the new prime minister. No cross-border agreement was concluded, and the debate deepened divisions in the Republican Party.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft and his Secretary of State, Philander Knox, instituted a policy of Dollar Diplomacy towards Latin America, believing U.S. investment would benefit all involved, while diminishing European influence in regions where the Monroe Doctrine applied. The policy was unpopular among Latin American states that did not wish to become financial protectorates of the United States, as well as in the U.S. Senate, many of whose members believed the U.S. should not interfere abroad. No foreign affairs controversy tested Taft's policy more than the collapse of the Mexican regime and subsequent turmoil of the Mexican Revolution.


title: William Howard Taft

text: When Taft entered office, Mexico was increasingly restless under the grip of longtime dictator Porfirio Díaz. Many Mexicans backed his opponent, Francisco Madero. There were a number of incidents in which Mexican rebels crossed the U.S. border to obtain horses and weapons; Taft sought to prevent this by ordering the US Army to the border areas for maneuvers. Taft told his military aide, Archibald Butt, that "I am going to sit on the lid and it will take a great deal to pry me off". He showed his support for Díaz by meeting with him at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the first meeting between a U.S. and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president visited Mexico. The day of the summit, Frederick Russell Burnham and a Texas Ranger captured and disarmed an assassin holding a palm pistol only a few feet from the two presidents. Before the election in Mexico, Díaz jailed opposition candidate Madero, whose supporters took up arms. This resulted in both the ousting of Díaz and a revolution that would continue for another ten years. In the U.S.'s Arizona Territory, two citizens were killed and almost a dozen injured, some as a result of gunfire across the border. Taft was against an aggressive response and so instructed the territorial governor.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Nicaragua's president, José Santos Zelaya, wanted to revoke commercial concessions granted to American companies, and American diplomats quietly favored rebel forces under Juan Estrada. Nicaragua was in debt to foreign powers, and the U.S. was unwilling to let an alternate canal route fall into the hands of Europeans. Zelaya's elected successor, José Madriz, could not put down the rebellion as U.S. forces interfered, and in August 1910, the Estrada forces took Managua, the capital. The U.S. compelled Nicaragua to accept a loan, and sent officials to ensure it was repaid from government revenues. The country remained unstable, and after another coup in 1911 and more disturbances in 1912, Taft sent troops to begin the United States occupation of Nicaragua, which lasted until 1933.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Treaties among Panama, Colombia, and the United States to resolve disputes arising from the Panamanian Revolution of 1903 had been signed by the lame-duck Roosevelt administration in early 1909, and were approved by the Senate and also ratified by Panama. Colombia, however, declined to ratify the treaties, and after the 1912 elections, Knox offered $10 million to the Colombians (later raised to $25 million). The Colombians felt the amount inadequate, and requested arbitration; the matter was not settled under the Taft administration.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Due to his years in the Philippines, Taft was keenly interested as president in East Asian affairs. Taft considered relations with Europe relatively unimportant, but because of the potential for trade and investment, Taft ranked the post of minister to China as most important in the Foreign Service. Knox did not agree, and declined a suggestion that he go to Peking to view the facts on the ground. Taft considered Roosevelt's minister there, William W. Rockhill, as uninterested in the China trade, and replaced him with William J. Calhoun, whom McKinley and Roosevelt had sent on several foreign missions. Knox did not listen to Calhoun on policy, and there were often conflicts. Taft and Knox tried unsuccessfully to extend John Hay's Open Door Policy to Manchuria.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In 1898, an American company had gained a concession for a railroad between Hankow and Szechuan, but the Chinese revoked the agreement in 1904 after the company (which was indemnified for the revocation) breached the agreement by selling a majority stake outside the United States. The Chinese imperial government got the money for the indemnity from the British Hong Kong government, on condition British subjects would be favored if foreign capital was needed to build the railroad line, and in 1909, a British-led consortium began negotiations. This came to Knox's attention in May of that year, and he demanded that U.S. banks be allowed to participate. Taft appealed personally to the Prince Regent, Zaifeng, Prince Chun, and was successful in gaining U.S. participation, though agreements were not signed until May 1911. However, the Chinese decree authorizing the agreement also required the nationalization of local railroad companies in the affected provinces. Inadequate compensation was paid to the shareholders, and these grievances were among those which touched off the Chinese Revolution of 1911.


title: William Howard Taft

text: After the revolution broke out, the revolt's leaders chose Sun Yat-sen as provisional president of what became the Republic of China, overthrowing the Manchu dynasty, Taft was reluctant to recognize the new government, although American public opinion was in favor of it. The U.S. House of Representatives in February 1912 passed a resolution supporting a Chinese republic, but Taft and Knox felt recognition should come as a concerted action by Western powers. Taft in his final annual message to Congress in December 1912 indicated that he was moving towards recognition once the republic was fully established, but by then he had been defeated for reelection and he did not follow through.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft continued the policy against immigration from China and Japan as under Roosevelt. A revised treaty of friendship and navigation entered into by the U.S. and Japan in 1911 granted broad reciprocal rights to Japanese people in America and Americans in Japan, but were premised on the continuation of the Gentlemen's Agreement. There was objection on the West Coast when the treaty was submitted to the Senate, but Taft informed politicians that there was no change in immigration policy.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft was opposed to the traditional practice of rewarding wealthy supporters with key ambassadorial posts, preferring that diplomats not live in a lavish lifestyle and selecting men who, as Taft put it, would recognize an American when they saw one. High on his list for dismissal was the ambassador to France, Henry White, whom Taft knew and disliked from his visits to Europe. White's ousting caused other career State Department employees to fear that their jobs might be lost to politics. Taft also wanted to replace the Roosevelt-appointed ambassador in London, Whitelaw Reid, but Reid, owner of the "New-York Tribune", had backed Taft during the campaign, and both William and Nellie Taft enjoyed his gossipy reports. Reid remained in place until his 1912 death.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft was a supporter of settling international disputes by arbitration, and he negotiated treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. These were signed in August 1911. Neither Taft nor Knox (a former senator) consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Although no general arbitration treaty was entered into, Taft's administration settled several disputes with Great Britain by peaceful means, often involving arbitration. These included a settlement of the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, a long-running dispute over seal hunting in the Bering Sea that also involved Japan, and a similar disagreement regarding fishing off Newfoundland. The sealing convention remained in force until abrogated by Japan in 1940.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft continued and expanded Roosevelt's efforts to break up business combinations through lawsuits brought under the Sherman Antitrust Act, bringing 70 cases in four years (Roosevelt had brought 40 in seven years). Suits brought against the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company, initiated under Roosevelt, were decided in favor of the government by the Supreme Court in 1911. In June 1911, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives began hearings into United States Steel (U.S. Steel). That company had been expanded under Roosevelt, who had supported its acquisition of the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company as a means of preventing the deepening of the Panic of 1907, a decision the former president defended when testifying at the hearings. Taft, as Secretary of War, had praised the acquisitions. Historian Louis L. Gould suggested that Roosevelt was likely deceived into believing that U.S. Steel did not want to purchase the Tennessee company, but it was in fact a bargain. For Roosevelt, questioning the matter went to his personal honesty.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In October 1911, Taft's Justice Department brought suit against U.S. Steel, demanding that over a hundred of its subsidiaries be granted corporate independence, and naming as defendants many prominent business executives and financiers. The pleadings in the case had not been reviewed by Taft, and alleged that Roosevelt "had fostered monopoly, and had been duped by clever industrialists". Roosevelt was offended by the references to him and his administration in the pleadings, and felt that Taft could not evade command responsibility by saying he did not know of them.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft sent a special message to Congress on the need for a revamped antitrust statute when it convened its regular session in December 1911, but it took no action. Another antitrust case that had political repercussions for Taft was that brought against the International Harvester Company, the large manufacturer of farm equipment, in early 1912. As Roosevelt's administration had investigated International Harvester, but had taken no action (a decision Taft had supported), the suit became caught up in Roosevelt's challenge for the Republican presidential nomination. Supporters of Taft alleged that Roosevelt had acted improperly; the former president blasted Taft for waiting three and a half years, and until he was under challenge, to reverse a decision he had supported.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt was an ardent conservationist, assisted in this by like-minded appointees, including Interior Secretary James R. Garfield and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot. Taft agreed with the need for conservation, but felt it should be accomplished by legislation rather than executive order. He did not retain Garfield, an Ohioan, as secretary, choosing instead a westerner, former Seattle mayor Richard A. Ballinger. Roosevelt was surprised at the replacement, believing that Taft had promised to keep Garfield, and this change was one of the events that caused Roosevelt to realize that Taft would choose different policies.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt had withdrawn much land from the public domain, including some in Alaska thought rich in coal. In 1902, Clarence Cunningham, an Idaho entrepreneur, had found coal deposits in Alaska, and made mining claims, and the government investigated their legality. This dragged on for the remainder of the Roosevelt administration, including during the year (1907–1908) when Ballinger served as head of the General Land Office. A special agent for the Land Office, Louis Glavis, investigated the Cunningham claims, and when Secretary Ballinger in 1909 approved them, Glavis broke governmental protocol by going outside the Interior Department to seek help from Pinchot.


title: William Howard Taft

text: In September 1909, Glavis made his allegations public in a magazine article, disclosing that Ballinger had acted as an attorney for Cunningham between his two periods of government service. This violated conflict of interest rules forbidding a former government official from advocacy on a matter he had been responsible for. On September 13, 1909 Taft dismissed Glavis from government service, relying on a report from Attorney General George W. Wickersham dated two days previously. Pinchot was determined to dramatize the issue by forcing his own dismissal, which Taft tried to avoid, fearing that it might cause a break with Roosevelt (still overseas). Taft asked Elihu Root (by then a senator) to look into the matter, and Root urged the firing of Pinchot.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft had ordered government officials not to comment on the fracas. In January 1910, Pinchot forced the issue by sending a letter to Iowa Senator Dolliver alleging that but for the actions of the Forestry Service, Taft would have approved a fraudulent claim on public lands. According to Pringle, this "was an utterly improper appeal from an executive subordinate to the legislative branch of the government and an unhappy president prepared to separate Pinchot from public office". Pinchot was dismissed, much to his delight, and he sailed for Europe to lay his case before Roosevelt. A congressional investigation followed, which cleared Ballinger by majority vote, but the administration was embarrassed when Glavis' attorney, Louis D. Brandeis, proved that the Wickersham report had been backdated, which Taft belatedly admitted. The Ballinger–Pinchot affair caused progressives and Roosevelt loyalists to feel that Taft had turned his back on Roosevelt's agenda.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft announced in his inaugural address that he would not appoint African Americans to federal jobs, such as postmaster, where this would cause racial friction. This differed from Roosevelt, who would not remove or replace black officeholders with whom local whites would not deal. Termed Taft's "Southern Policy", this stance effectively invited white protests against black appointees. Taft followed through, removing most black office holders in the South, and made few appointments of African Americans in the North.


title: William Howard Taft

text: At the time Taft was inaugurated, the way forward for African Americans was debated by their leaders. Booker T. Washington felt that most blacks should be trained for industrial work, with only a few seeking higher education; W. E. B. DuBois took a more militant stand for equality. Taft tended towards Washington's approach. According to Coletta, Taft let the African-American "be 'kept in his place'  ... He thus failed to see or follow the humanitarian mission historically associated with the Republican party, with the result that Negroes both North and South began to drift toward the Democratic party."


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft, a Unitarian, was a leader in the early 20th century of the favorable reappraisal of Catholicism's historic role. It tended to neutralize anti-Catholic sentiments, especially in the Far West where Protestantism was a weak force. In 1904 Taft gave a speech at the University of Notre Dame. He praised the "enterprise, courage, and fidelity to duty that distinguished those heroes of Spain who braved the then frightful dangers of the deep to carry Christianity and European civilization into" the Philippines. In 1909 he praised Junípero Serra as an "apostle, legislator, [and] builder" who advanced "the beginning of civilization in California."


title: William Howard Taft

text: A supporter of free immigration, Taft vetoed a bill passed by Congress and supported by labor unions that would have restricted unskilled laborers by imposing a literacy test.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft made six appointments to the Supreme Court; only George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt have made more. The death of Justice Rufus Peckham in October 1909 gave Taft his first opportunity. He chose an old friend and colleague from the Sixth Circuit, Horace H. Lurton of Georgia; he had in vain urged Theodore Roosevelt to appoint Lurton to the high court. Attorney General Wickersham objected that Lurton, a former Confederate soldier and a Democrat, was aged 65. Taft named Lurton anyway on December 13, 1909, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote a week later. Lurton is still the oldest person to be made an associate justice. Lurie suggested that Taft, already beset by the tariff and conservation controversies, desired to perform an official act which gave him pleasure, especially since he thought Lurton deserved it.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Justice David Josiah Brewer's death on March 28, 1910, gave Taft a second opportunity to fill a seat on the high court; he chose New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes. Taft told Hughes that should the chief justiceship fall vacant during his term, Hughes would be his likely choice for the center seat. The Senate quickly confirmed Hughes, but then Chief Justice Fuller died on July 4, 1910. Taft took five months to replace Fuller, and when he did, it was with Justice Edward Douglass White, who became the first associate justice to be promoted to chief justice. According to Lurie, Taft, who still had hopes of being chief justice, may have been more willing to appoint an older man than he (White) than a younger one (Hughes), who might outlive him, as indeed Hughes did. To fill White's seat as associate justice, Taft appointed Willis Van Devanter of Wyoming, a federal appeals judge. By the time Taft nominated White and Van Devanter in December 1910, he had another seat to fill due to William Henry Moody's retirement because of illness; he named a Louisiana Democrat, Joseph R. Lamar, whom he had met while playing golf, and had subsequently learned had a good reputation as a judge.


title: William Howard Taft

text: With the death of Justice Harlan in October 1911, Taft got to fill a sixth seat on the Supreme Court. After Secretary Knox declined appointment, Taft named Chancellor of New Jersey Mahlon Pitney, the last person appointed to the Supreme Court who did not attend law school. Pitney had a stronger anti-labor record than Taft's other appointments, and was the only one to meet opposition, winning confirmation by a Senate vote of 50–26.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft appointed 13 judges to the federal courts of appeal and 38 to the United States district courts. Taft also appointed judges to various specialized courts, including the first five appointees each to the United States Commerce Court and the United States Court of Customs Appeals. The Commerce Court, created in 1910, stemmed from a Taft proposal for a specialized court to hear appeals from the Interstate Commerce Commission. There was considerable opposition to its establishment, which only grew when one of its judges, Robert W. Archbald, was in 1912 impeached for corruption and removed by the Senate the following January. Taft vetoed a bill to abolish the court, but the respite was short-lived as Woodrow Wilson signed similar legislation in October 1913.


title: William Howard Taft

text: During Roosevelt's fifteen months beyond the Atlantic, from March 1909 to June 1910, neither man wrote much to the other. Taft biographer Lurie suggested that each expected the other to make the first move to re-establish their relationship on a new footing. Upon Roosevelt's triumphant return, Taft invited him to stay at the White House. The former president declined, and in private letters to friends expressed dissatisfaction at Taft's performance. Nevertheless, he wrote that he expected Taft to be renominated by the Republicans in 1912, and did not speak of himself as a candidate.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Stanley Solvick argues that Taft abided by the goals and procedures of the "Square Deal" that Roosevelt promoted in his first term. The deepening dispute came as Roosevelt and the more radical progressives moved on to more aggressive goals, such as curbing the judiciary, which Taft rejected.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Taft and Roosevelt met twice in 1910; the meetings, though outwardly cordial, did not display their former closeness. Roosevelt gave a series of speeches in the West in the late summer and early fall of 1910. Roosevelt not only attacked the Supreme Court's 1905 decision in "Lochner v. New York", he accused the federal courts of undermining democracy, and called for them to be deprived of the power to rule legislation unconstitutional. This attack horrified Taft, who privately agreed that "Lochner" had been wrongly decided. Roosevelt called for "elimination of corporate expenditures for political purposes, physical valuation of railroad properties, regulation of industrial combinations, establishment of an export tariff commission, a graduated income tax" as well as "workmen's compensation laws, state and national legislation to regulate the [labor] of women and children, and complete publicity of campaign expenditure". According to John Murphy in his journal article on the breach between the two presidents, "As Roosevelt began to move to the left, Taft veered to the right."


title: William Howard Taft

text: During the 1910 midterm election campaign, Roosevelt involved himself in New York politics, while Taft with donations and influence tried to secure the election of the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Ohio, former lieutenant governor Warren G. Harding. The Republicans suffered losses in the 1910 elections as the Democrats took control of the House and slashed the Republican majority in the Senate. In New Jersey, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected governor, and Harding lost his race in Ohio.


title: William Howard Taft

text: After the election, Roosevelt continued to promote progressive ideals, a New Nationalism, much to Taft's dismay. Roosevelt attacked his successor's administration, arguing that its guiding principles were not that of the party of Lincoln, but those of the Gilded Age. The feud continued on and off through 1911, a year in which there were few elections of significance. Wisconsin Senator La Follette announced a presidential run as a Republican, and was backed by a convention of progressives. Roosevelt began to move into a position for a run in late 1911, writing that the tradition that presidents not run for a third term only applied to consecutive terms.


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt was receiving many letters from supporters urging him to run, and Republican office-holders were organizing on his behalf. Balked on many policies by an unwilling Congress and courts in his full term in the White House, he saw manifestations of public support he believed would sweep him to the White House with a mandate for progressive policies that would brook no opposition. In February, Roosevelt announced he would accept the Republican nomination if it was offered to him. Taft felt that if he lost in November, it would be a repudiation of the party, but if he lost renomination, it would be a rejection of himself. He was reluctant to oppose Roosevelt, who helped make him president, but having become president, he was determined to be president, and that meant not standing aside to allow Roosevelt to gain another term.


title: William Howard Taft

text: As Roosevelt became more radical in his progressivism, Taft was hardened in his resolve to achieve re-nomination, as he was convinced that the progressives threatened the very foundation of the government. One blow to Taft was the loss of Archibald Butt, one of the last links between the previous and present presidents, as Butt had formerly served Roosevelt. Ambivalent between his loyalties, Butt went to Europe on vacation; he died in the sinking of the RMS "Titanic".


title: William Howard Taft

text: Roosevelt dominated the primaries, winning 278 of the 362 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Chicago decided in that manner. Taft had control of the party machinery, and it came as no surprise that he gained the bulk of the delegates decided at district or state conventions. Taft did not have a majority, but was likely to have one once southern delegations committed to him. Roosevelt challenged the election of these delegates, but the RNC overruled most objections. Roosevelt's sole remaining chance was with a friendly convention chairman, who might make rulings on the seating of delegates that favored his side. Taft followed custom and remained in Washington, but Roosevelt went to Chicago to run his campaign and told his supporters in a speech, "we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord".