In early March 1993 President Clinton created what is now called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) and named Vice President Al Gore to serve as his point man in a drive to reinvent government in the United States.1 While on the surface it may appear to be nothing more than just another government management fad, it is anything but that.
The term "Reinventing Government" comes from a book with the same name written by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler. The concept however, has been in practice in the private sector since the mid 1980's where it is more commonly referred to as business process reengineering or simply reengineering. Today these terms are for the most part used interchangeably, although some in government still prefer to use the term reinvent as opposed to reengineer.
Trying to discover exactly what is meant by the term "reinventing government" is not an easy task. Much of what has been written about the subject gets bogged down in jargon that many of its users don't completely understand. Jerry Mechling, director of the Program on Strategic Computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of one of the most clear and concise articles written on the subject. In an article for GOVERNING magazine Mechling refers to reinventing government as "Public- Sector Reengineering".2 In explaining what reengineering is he simply states that "Reengineering is radical change".3 He then goes on to identify three elements necessary for reengineering to occur
Reengineering in the public sector is much more difficult than in the private sector. The reason for this is that very often it will "…require coordination and change across bureaucratic lines of authority."8 These bureaucratic lines can be corporate governmental boundaries as is the case with municipal governments, the constitutionally recognized boundaries between the 50 states or the lines that separate the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the federal government. They can also be the physical, economic and philosophical borders between sovereign nations. In fact, Mechling and company say that one of the major obstacles in the way of public-sector reengineering is "America's constitutionally embedded reluctance to authorize governmental innovations (the checks and balances which constrain government)".9 The net result is that governmental entities are able to resist radical change in ways that private sector organizations cannot.
Mechling says that, "In government the safest and even the fastest progress may often be made through small steps, rather than through reengineering. The revolutionary ends of reengineering are almost always valuable, but in government the risks of revolutionary means may be too high."10 In other words he is saying that you should remember that it is the radical change and not the reengineering process that is the goal. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reinventing government bulletin board, NPRNews.COE, cautions military personnel in a similar way noting, "As necessary as organizational improvements are, there is a danger that we can implement the Performance Measurement Process and other reinventing efforts in a way that does not fit the demands of the new world order."11 Clearly the military personnel are being told here that the goal of the radical change that is to be effected has to do with the creation of a new world order and not with the organizational improvement that would also occur as a result of the reengineering process.
Once it is determined that reengineering is the proper way to make the radical change that is desired, the first thing that must be done is to carefully make preparations and gain support for the planned operation, keeping in mind that the more radical the change, the more opposition that will be encountered.12 The opposition to reengineering projects generally comes from "insiders"-- people who are close to and aware of what is going on within the targeted institution and whose lives may be greatly affected by the outcome. Supporters on the other hand will come from two separate groups. The first of these, like its opponents, will come from insiders but this will be a relatively small group.13 "The second and larger group, however, is comprised of people who don't normally pay close attention. These 'outside' supporters get involved only if they think that there is an important issue to be resolved. They may not even notice small changes."14 Osborne and Gaebler make a similar comment in "Reinventing Government" when they state: "Just as Columbus never knew he had come upon a new continent, many of today's pioneers—from governors to city managers, teachers to social workers—do not understand the global significance of what they are doing."15 The last step in the process is to quickly implement your plan. This approach is described as "slow trigger, fast bullet."16 Mechling put it all in a nutshell when he wrote:
There is one exception to the rules regarding the implementation of a reengineering project. This happens when an outside event is so momentous that people become willing to accept change that under normal circumstances would never be permitted. The way that Mechling puts it is, "Once crises open the door, radical and rapid change can proceed."18
If, as Mechling, Osborne and Gaebler assert, most government employees have no idea what reinventing government is all about, how is it that they play such a crucial role in its implementation? The answer is quite simple. They read about it in magazines—magazines that are supplied to any government employee from the chief clerk at the local town hall to the heads of government in Washington D.C. In many instances the government entity that the employee works for will not pay for the subscription; in such cases a subscription is often supplied at no charge. Although there are numerous government trade journals and other such publications that deal with the subject, the three that directly address the issue of reengineering government are:
In addition to these publications there are several other government and non-governmental organizations that work together to supply government employees with advice on how to radically alter the public landscape. The Kennedy Schools' Program on Strategic Computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector is one example, some of the others are:
In order to fully grasp the meaning of the term "reinventing government" you must first study its history. The origins of this process are somewhat obscured. John Kemensky, of the Vice President's NPR staff, in an article for Public Administration Review acknowledges that the reinventing process began in the private sector but says little more about its history.25 In the same issue, James D. Carroll of Florida International University traces its history back to the 1930's.26 Paul Strassman, adjunct professor at the National Defense University and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point says that reengineering has been "…practiced as a formal discipline since the early 1920's. Then it was known as 'Methods and Procedure Analysis".27
It is a Forbes magazine article that provides the most valuable insight into its origins. In it Mary Parker Follett, an early 20th century educator and business management consultant from Boston, is identified as being the "mother" of reinventing government theory. The author further cites management theorist, Peter Drucker, and London School of Economics chairman, Sir Peter Parker, as being in agreement with her on this point.28 Among Folletts friends and supporters were some of the wealthiest and influential people in Boston including the Cabot and Shaw families, businessman Henry Dennison and the wife of Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis.29 In addition to the very wealthy, she also numbered among her acquaintances the academic elite of Boston. Albert Bushnell Hart, professor of history at Harvard University and president of both the American Historical Association and the American Political Science Association was among this group.30
As World War I was coming to a close, communists and radicals of every stripe were laying the groundwork for a socialist world government that they hoped would emerge from the ruins of the old world order. As it turns out, large banking interests and others of great wealth, in Britain and the United States, were thinking along similar lines—of course their brand of socialism would have two classes not one. In 1918, with the help of Albert Bushnell Hart, Follett wrote a book called The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government. In which she outlined the social, political and educational requirements necessary to build a world government and it was the banking interests to which it was addressed.31
Follett's political philosophy was based upon the teachings of 19th century Oxford University fine arts professor John Ruskin. In 1870 Ruskin began teaching the children of England's elite at Oxford University that if they did not extend their way of life to the lower classes of not only England but to the non-English-speaking world as well, ignorant commoners would eventually overwhelm their civilization.32 During this same period Karl Marx was predicting the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat. The choice for the Victorian elite was a simple one—give up a little wealth and remain in control or wait for the masses to revolt.
Early followers of Ruskin, like Arnold Toynbee, Alfred Milner and others teamed up to form the first settlement house in London--Toynbee Hall. This would eventually serve as the model for thousands of other such institutions including Hull House in Chicago. By 1891, British social reformer William T. Stead, brought the Milner group together with a wealthy South African named Cecil Rhodes--another of Ruskins students. Together they began laying the groundwork for the creation of a union of all English-speaking nations, including the United States, based upon the Ruskin philosophy. This federation would then, according to their plan, benevolently rule the rest of the habitable world.33 According to historian, Carroll Quigley, when Rhodes died in 1902 he left a considerable part of his fortune to fund "…the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford in order to spread the English ruling class tradition throughout the English-speaking world as Ruskin had wanted."34
Ruskin's ideas quickly spread throughout the English-speaking world including the United States where certain wealthy families, in the northeast, had begun to view themselves as the American equivalent of the English ruling class. It was during this period that Henry Cabot Lodge proclaimed America "an aristocratic republic."35 By the late 1890's American educators such as John Dewey, J.E. Russell--both of Columbia University--and Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University joined with wealthy businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller in pursuing this globally oriented agenda.
Before such a plan could be implemented, however, common people would need to be specially educated to accept both an international government and their new station in life. One of the ways advocated to accomplish this task was to edit history books to reflect a more global perspective. This idea was first put forward at the first Universal Peace Conference in 1889.36
Early proponents of internationalism felt confident that the American people could be quickly educated into accepting such a system. At the beginning of the 20th century as ordinary Americans, in large numbers, began to attend high school for the first time it was decided that the traditional liberal arts curriculum would be dropped in favor of what John Dewey called "industrial education".37 The primary goal of industrial education was to divide people into two classes. Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, in a speech to the Federation of High School Teachers said that, "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."38
Under the old system children were taught, in their history classes, about how people came to America in search of religious freedom and how they fought a revolutionary war to escape tyranny. They were also taught about the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. This was to come to an end. In order for a two-class society to properly function the lower class would have to forgo more than just a liberal education—they would also have to give up their individual rights. In order to achieve this, the history of the Republic could no longer be taught the way it he had been in the past. Walter Karp, contributing editor of Harper's magazine, commenting on industrial education stated that, "With economic "interdependence" as its subject and a "socialized" worker as its goal the new "democratic" curriculum had little place for history. For political history, which recounts the diverse deeds of men, there was to be no place at all."39 The National Education Association (NEA) went so far as to advocate the elimination of all history courses and replacing them with social study courses.40 Karp noted that:
By 1911 Dewey and the others realized that this particular attempt to radically alter the public landscape had failed and that it would be necessary to make their attack from another direction.42 That same year Albert Bushnell Hart wrote that, "One of the chief obstacles in the way of a better international understanding is the patriotic historian who brings into the limelight the prowess and conquest of his own race of people as against rival races."43 Hart, an Anglophile, had his own ax to grind in this matter. Coming from the Ruskin school of thought, he believed that the history books should be slanted in such a way as to make a union between the United States and the British Commonwealth more desirable to Americans.44
Hart was not the only American educator advocating the alteration of the history books to reflect a kinder and gentler attitude toward Great Britain, numerous others joined him, among them were: Arthur M. Schlesinger, David S. Muzzey, H. Morse Stephens, Andrew McLaughlin, Claude Van Tyne and Owen Wister.45 American Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter Hines Page, also aided in this effort by helping Englishman, Evelyn Wrench, founder of the English-Speaking Union, to organize a chapter here in the United States.46 At this point in time however, the sun was already beginning to set on the British Empire and although an English-speaking union that would dominate the rest of the world would be discussed throughout the 1920's and 1930's—its time had already passed.
By the end of World War I textbook authors had been quietly editing their books for almost ten years.47 Woodrow Wilson's call for a League of Nations intensified this movement dramatically—both here and in Europe. In 1919 socialist author Anatole France became so excited about the prospect of re-writing the history books that while speaking before the French Congress of Elementary School Teachers, he shouted, "Burn the books, they teach hate, burn them all."48
It was at this point that Follets Book The New State made its debut. The world government that Follett advocated was to be a democracy but it would differ in some respects from democracy as most people then understood it. She summed up her feelings on the subject in the following manner, "From the Middle Ages the appreciation of the individual has steadily grown. The Reformation in the sixteenth century was an individualistic movement. The apotheosis of the individual, however, soon led us astray, involving as it did an entirely erroneous notion of the relation of the individual to society, and gave us the false political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."49 She considered the entire concept of the United States, from its Declaration of Independence to its Constitution—especially the Bill of Rights--to be part of this false political philosophy and therefore detrimental to the cause of world government.50 She felt that government based on individual rights had no place in modern political theory and disliked the system of checks and balances because it prevented power from being concentrated in the hands a small group of people.51 In order to correct this situation, she felt that, "We must reinterpret or restate the fundamental principles of democracy."52
In seventeenth and eighteenth century theory of democracy it was the individual that was considered to be the base unit of society and therefore it was individual rights that were paramount in documents like the U.S. Constitution. Follett referred to this system as a social contract. According to Follett, "The social contract theory was based on the idea of the state as an aggregate of units; it therefore followed that the rights of those units must be maintained. Thus individual rights became a kind of contractual rights."53 Follett went on to state that "But there is no such thing as the 'individual'…"54 and since there was no such thing as the individual, it would naturally follow there should be no such thing as individual rights.55
The concept of individual rights had many flaws according to Folletts political philosophy not least of which was the fact that they believed that people were to stupid to make an informed decision. This led to the realization that any system of government allowing an individual to participate in the decision making process by having the right to vote, could not but help being flawed itself. Follett referred to this as "la force stupide de nombre"56 So vehement was she against the concept of an individual having the right to vote that in her introduction to The New State she proclaimed that, "Ballot-box democracy is what this book is written to oppose."
The solution to this problem, according to Follett, was to eliminate the individual as the basic unit of society and replace him with group organizations: She noted that "Group organization is to be the new method of politics, the basis of our future industrial system, the foundation of international order."57 There were to be a whole series of groups that, together, would form this new international order beginning with the world government at the top and reaching all the way down to local neighborhood groups. In between there were to be national, state, local, occupational and numerous other undefined groups all of which combined would replace the individual at the ballot box.58 Group rights would now take the place of individual rights. Under the old order, man was endowed with certain God given rights—under the new system the only rights that man had were those that the group would bestow upon him.59 "The state was now not to be subordinate to the individual, but it was to be the fulfillment of the individual. Man was to get his rights and his liberty from membership in society."60
Another interesting characteristic of this new democracy was the interlocking nature that these groups were to have. Follett noted that, "Society, however, does not consist merely of the union of all these various groups. There is a more subtle process going on--the interlocking of groups. And in these interlocking groups we have not only the same people taking up different activities, but actually representing different interests."61 The real significance of the interlocking group, however, only became apparent when the directorates of these organizations were also interlocked. This makes it possible for a very small number of people to control a very large number of groups.
In Folletts vision of democracy there would be two classes of people… "those that govern and those that are governed."62 Those that were to govern would be part of an aristocracy. Follett wrote that, "Democracy, I have said is not antithetical to aristocracy, but includes aristocracy. And it does not include it accidentally, as it were, but aristocracy is a necessary part of democracy."63 The aristocracy that Follett was referring to was to be made up of a few "experts" It was into the hands of these experts that government was to be concentrated64 and they were to have control over every aspect of people's lives.65
Follett believed that world government could not be forced upon people from the top down but rather that it must begin at the bottom and then work its way up.66 She also believed that people would have to be educated in its ideals before it could be fully implemented. She was not opposed to socialism for the masses if that would further the ends of world government but she was against the concept of radical change through violent revolution. She cautioned socialists of her day telling them: "The wish for socialism is a longing for the ideal state, but it is embraced often by impatient people who want to take a short cut to the ideal state. That state must be grown—its branches will widen as its roots spread. The socialization of property must not precede the socialization of the will."67 She went on to say that, "We all need not merely opportunities to exercise democracy, but opportunity for a training in democracy. We are not going to take any kind of citizen for the new state, we intend to grow our own citizens."68 In order to achieve this goal—a socialized will—it would be necessary to train people from cradle to grave. Follett summed up the new education process as follows:
There are three main differences between the system that Follett described and socialism as Marx, Lenin, Stalin and other 19th and 20th century communist leaders viewed it. The first was the creation of the "socialized will". This could only be achieved over a long period of time using incremental adjustments. Communist leaders on the other hand believed that it could be accomplished quickly from the top down, first by violent revolution and then the elimination of anyone left that disagreed with them. This ideological difference between Folletts "New State" and that of Marx and the others is one of mechanics--not morality.
The second difference between the two was that while most socialist and communist leaders believed in a classless society, Follett advocated an aristocracy to rule over what she referred to as the "mob". This is an important distinction because it explains why large moneyed interests were so involved in what appeared to be a global socialist revolution.
The third difference between Follett and socialist leaders like Lenin and Stalin is not as apparent as the other two. It involves the route that the Russian Revolution took after its initial success. Vladimir I. Lenin began forming a socialist nation-state from which revolution could be exported to capitalist countries around the globe. Joseph Stalin continued to expand on this program causing a rift between those that believed in world government as the primary goal of their efforts and those who saw socialism as their primary goal.70
While Follett was busy outlining plans for how individuals were to be governed in the new order, others were making plans to structure the coming peace in such a way that a world government would be sure to emerge when the war was over. On 02 September 1917, President Woodrow Wilson wrote to close friend and advisor, Col. Edward M. House, asking him to organize a group of men to outline U.S. plans for the post war world. House quickly accepted the task and was given a free hand to organize such a group without interference from Secretary of State Robert Lansing. This organization became known as The Inquiry.71
Col. House carefully chose the people that were to be part of The Inquiry. Among them were Columbia University professor James T. Shotwell, New Republic writer Walter Lippmann, Isaiah Bowman of the American Geographical Society, numerous other intellectual luminaries, trusted business associates and relatives.72 In late 1917 President Wilson asked him to have his group put together a report outlining U.S. war aims in order to help prepare for a speech that he intended to give sometime after Christmas. The requested information was delivered to Wilson in a meeting with House on 04 January 1918. In the report was a reference to a League of Nations being formed following the war. The idea of creating such an organization was not new but apparently they felt that the time was ripe to announce their intentions. The two men continued discussing the subject for several days and out of these discussions came the material for his famed "Fourteen Points" speech, which was delivered before Congress on 08 January 1918.73 It was in this speech that Wilson first proposed the creation of the League of Nations.
By the time the American delegation arrived at the Paris Peace Conference, in December 1918, Col. House and the President had had a falling out and Secretary of State Lansing now took personal charge of The Inquiry.74 The fact that House was out of the way and that he was now in charge of the planning body came as no consolation to Lansing because Wilson was not listening to him either. The President had decided to handle the negotiations without the assistance of either of them.75 This left the Inquiry group with little to do but discuss things amongst themselves. Members of this elite debating society included: The Dulles brothers (John Foster and Allen), Samuel Eliot Morison, Walter Lippman, William Allen White, Lincoln Steffens, English economist John Maynard Keynes and others.76
When the Paris Peace Conference was finally over, Wilson's League was part of the treaty but little else of his dream was. To make matters worse the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it and since the Covenant of the League of Nations was part of the treaty, it also was rejected. Wilson was devastated, emotionally and physically. He never recovered from the blow that he had been dealt. The staff of The Inquiry however, was more determined than ever to see his dream of a world government come to fruition and many of its members spent the next twenty-five years working tirelessly to get the U.S. to participate in a world organization.77 The immediate result of their efforts was the founding of two organizations—the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International affairs. The Royal Institute originated in Britain, an offshoot of another organization there known as the Round Table group and the Council on Foreign Relations was organized by an American group that Carroll Quigley referred to as the "Eastern Establishment".
J.P. Morgan originally dominated the Council on Foreign Relations. Some Morgan operatives that played key roles in the organization were: Thomas W. Lamont, John W. Davis, Isaiah Bowman, Allen and John Foster Dulles, James T. Shotwell, and Stephen P. Duggan. While the House of Morgan may have originally been the most important player in this game here in America, it was really only a case of being first among equals--other large banking interests and wealthy individuals were also involved. Among this group was John D. Rockefeller, Julius Rosenwald of Sears Roebuck and the Harris family (Harris Bank in Chicago).
The Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs were only the first of many such organizations to come—all of which had as their primary goal: the education of people in the necessity of world government. These groups would also be interlocked as Follett suggested. In the period 1919 through 1923, three other key organizations came into being: the Institute of Pacific Relations, the League of Nations Association and the Norman Wait Harris Memorial Foundation.
The origins of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) are somewhat clouded. In 1929 University of Chicago professor of international law, Quincy Wright, gave the following account of its origins: "The Institute of Pacific Relations was organized in 1925 among unofficial groups in several countries washed by the Pacific, to study the political, economic and social problems presented by the contacts of the diverse civilizations in that area."78 Carroll Quigley, in a remarkably similar account of its origins went a little further noting that the IPR, the Royal Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations were interlocked organizations.79
Professor Paul Hooper of the University of Hawaii, however, gives a much more revealing account of its history in an article called A Brief History of the Institute of Pacific Relations.80 Hooper notes that the YMCA first organized the group in 1919, with Honolulu as the planned site for a conference that was to find "a common basis of understanding and motivation for the Pacific peoples."81 Things went along slowly at first and it wasn't until 1923 that it was decided that this conference should be a short-term institute that would be comprised of various round-table discussion groups made up of prominent individuals from the area. International leaders of the YMCA, meeting in Austria, quickly endorsed the idea and made plans to expand the institute, which was now scheduled to be held in July of 1925, to include representatives from several other nations. The IPR agenda was also expanded at this time to include the study of the "biological and social effects of race mixture" and the planned cooperation with other groups that had goals similar to their own.82 By the time that the conference was held in July of 1925 the YMCA had relinquished control of the organization and at the conference the delegates created a permanent organization, that would also be known as the Institute of Pacific Relations.83
On 10 January 1923 two groups, the American Association for International Cooperation and the League of Nations Non-Partisan Committee were merged and became known as the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association. This name was eventually shortened to simply the League of Nations Association (LNA). Raymond B. Fosdick, an American, who had served as the under secretary-general of the League of Nations until he resigned after the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the peace treaty, was instrumental in organizing the group and later served as its president.84 The League of Nations Association, which still exists today as United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA--USA), can also claim numerous other prominent individuals among its membership, among them: John W. Davis, Thomas W. Lamont, Adlai Stevenson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Sumner Welles and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Also involved with this organization were Quincy Wright, James T. Shotwell and a former student of Wright's, Clark Eichelbeger.85
The Norman Wait Harris Foundation was typical of the internationally oriented institutions that popped up in the early 1920's. The foundation was donated to the University of Chicago by the heirs to the Harris Trust Company fortune that came in the form of a $150,000.00 grant and was to be run by a committee chosen by the President of the University of Chicago.86 "The purpose of the Foundation, as stated in the letter of gift, is 'the promotion of a better understanding on the part of American Citizens of the other peoples of the world, thus establishing a basis for improved international relations and a more enlightened world order."87
The audience for this group was to be different from that of the Council on Foreign Relations in that it would not be geared towards informing individuals from the general public on matters of international significance but rather would concentrate its efforts on those in academia.88 The format was to be an annual institute that would use round table discussions to enlighten its attendees on issues of world order. "Institutes were to be held each summer where students and teachers from around the country but particularly those in the mid-west could be lectured by prominent individuals about international issues which they then would carry back to their own universities for further dissemination."89 The use of round table groups was common to many of these globally oriented organizations, the reason being that it was thought that this would help promote "group thought" which in turn would "minimize biases in the approaches to international problems."90 Mary Parker Follett considered "group thought" to be one of the cornerstones upon which the world government was to be built.
One of the more unusual aspects of these institutes was that participants were promised that any statements that they made would not be attributed to them in newspaper accounts of the proceedings.91 This is an interesting proposition because not only were many of the media outlets aware of the activities of the Harris Foundation and other such groups but very often they were invited to attend the institutes. On occasion, if they could not attend, they were sent not only copies of reports meant for public consumption but the confidential ones also.92 Tiffany Blake of the Chicago Tribune, after stating that she would not be able to attend the 1933 institute went on to say; "I hope I may be favored with a copy of the proceedings, which, of course, I shall respect as confidential."93
The Harris Foundation was strictly a University of Chicago show and Quincy Wright was its ringmaster—and remained so throughout the 1920's, 30's, 40's and into the 1950's.94 When the Harris Foundation held its annual institute it was viewed not just as a local item of interest but rather as a civic event--at least among those that were aware of its existence. Everybody at the University pitched in to help, including Prof. Paul H. Douglas a future U.S. Senator and Prof. Charles Merriam of the Social Science Research Council.95 Local groups and institutions also contributed to this effort--the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the First National Bank of Chicago among them.96
While each of these groups played an important role in the planning for world government, they also had something else in common—University of Chicago professor of international law, Quincy Wright. By following his activities in these three groups and their various spin-off organizations one can trace not only the origins but also the evolution of internationalist planning and preparation for world government throughout most of the 20th century.
The interlocking nature of these groups often makes it difficult to distinguish where the activity of one group ends and where another begins. In 1926, for example, Edward C. Carter of the Institute of Pacific Relations and Wright met in Chicago to begin planning some cooperative ventures between the IPR and the Harris Foundation.97 A similar proposal was made in 1927 between Wright and Isabel McLaughlin concerning the activities of the Harris Foundation, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the English-Speaking Union.98 Letters outlining plans for one organization were sometimes written on the letterhead of another without any reference to the organization upon whose letterhead the plans were written. One of the best examples of this can be found in a letter from Stephen P. Duggan, written on Institute of International Education letterhead, to Robert M. Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago. In the letter Duggan makes the following comments:
Revenue for these groups came, primarily, from two sources: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation—although there were other players involved such as the Harris family and Julius Rosenwald.100 Duggan's letter to Hutchins also sheds a little light on the funding of these groups. In it he went on to note that:
This being the case we will dispense with the fiction that these groups (with all their sub-organizations) acted in any way independent of each other but rather performed specific functions as prescribed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations. According to Carroll Quigley, the work of these two groups represents the pooling of resources by America's two richest men—J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller.102
The early 1920s was a growth period for the textbook revision program. In 1921 The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace began its own study of the history books and the following year the League of Nations entered the field with its International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). According to Merrill Hartshorn of the National Council for the Social Studies, "The ICIC planned a positive program for the future. It made recommendations to local school boards and to governments for official campaigns to revise textbooks, and requests for support were sent to major international governmental agencies."103 In 1926 the League expanded this program by adopting what became known as the "Casares Resolution". Casares, the League's Spanish representative, realizing that it would be unacceptable to simply demand that textbooks reflect an international point of view, instead suggested that committees be set up in each country to review their own books and when an offending passage was found, they were to see to it that it was removed.104 In addition to forming these national committees the resolution also set guidelines for them to follow, one of which stated; "It is strictly forbidden to make or except applications for emendations referring to personal views of a moral, political, or religious order."105
With all the activity that accompanied the textbook program, opposition to it was bound to appear sooner or later. The Hearst newspaper syndicate first began the assault on the program in 1921.106 The following year Charles Grant Miller further fanned the flames with his book Treason to the American Tradition: The Spirit of Benedict Arnold Reincarnated in United States History Revised in Textbooks.107 The most intense opposition to the program, however, would not appear until 1927 and then in a most unlikely place.
In 1915 the people of Chicago elected a mayor, William Hale Thompson, who firmly believed in the U.S. government, the American people and in general accepted the concept of democracy as defined by the founding fathers. Thompson's opposition to U.S. entry into WW I incurred the wrath of some the more internationally oriented professors at the University of Chicago. In 1919, Charles E. Merriam, professor of political science at the University and one of the founding members of the Social Science Research Council108 ran against him.109 Among Merriam's supporters were Harold L. Ickes and Jane Addams of Hull House.110 Merriam, however, was soundly defeated.111 In Thompson's second term, he continued his opposition to the international agenda by opposing U.S. entry into the League of Nations.112 As his second term was coming to a close and he was preparing to run for a third, a scandal developed involving one of his top aides and he was forced to drop out of the race. This opened the way for Charles E. Merriam's "reform" candidate, William E. Dever, to succeed him as mayor.113 Merriam would serve Dever as a close, but unofficial, advisor.114
Early in Dever's term he was able to appoint seven members to the Chicago school board.[115] In 1924 they bypassed the logical candidate for the job of Superintendent of Chicago public schools[116] and instead appointed Merriams' candidate, William McAndrew, to the position.[117] This appointment was an unpopular one and eventually led to Dever being thrown out of office—the reason being McAndrew's insistence on using the revised history books written by Arthur M. Schlesinger and Albert Bushnell Hart.
By 1926, Parents and other individuals who were aware that the altered textbooks were being used in the Chicago Public Schools formed an organization called the Citizens Committee on School Histories. This group, made up primarily of lawyers, doctors and other professionals, approached Mayor Dever and requested that the offending books be removed from the schools but he ignored them and the books remained in use. They next approached former mayor, William Hale Thompson, who was planning another bid for the mayor's office and he entered the fray with fists flying. Thompson, who had opposed internationalism throughout his political career, made the textbook issue one of the cornerstones of his campaign. Dever, Merriam and what was referred to by some as "The University of Chicago Brain Trust" never new what hit them.118 In 1927 Thompson was re-elected to the mayors office, in a three-way race, with an absolute majority of the vote cast.119
One of the first items on Thompson's agenda was the removal of William McAndrew. This battle was long and drawn out with the pro-League of Nations media throughout the world, having a field day. Thompson was ridiculed in papers like the New York Times, the London Daily Express and the Evening Standard, but he continued his efforts to have McAndrew removed. The textbook issue soon moved into the Chicago Public Library where once again a book written by Albert Bushnell Hart came into question--this time it was his American Nation.120 This led to charges of book burning by his opponents. These charges, while untrue,121 were so widely reported in the press and other media outlets that even today a historian as eminent as Gary B. Nash states that, "Chicago's mayor, "Big Bill" Thompson, ordered Schlesinger's New Viewpoints burned on the steps of the Chicago Public Library in 1927."122
Eventually Thompson won his battle against McAndrew and his textbooks but the victory was short-lived. In 1931, Anton Cermak, with the assistance of Merriam, Julius Rosenwald and Harold Ickes again defeated him.123 Arthur M. Schlesinger gleefully noted the passing of this event in a letter to Merriam in which he said, "After reading your canned speech on the mayoralty campaign, I have made a mental resolve that before I run for high office I shall first make sure of your support. No wonder the [politically] late Bill Thompson lost out."124
The school textbook issue is generally used to discredit Thompson and demonstrate that he was a buffoon. However, an exchange of letters between Quincy Wright, whom Merriam brought to the University of Chicago in 1923, and Edward C. Carter of the Institute of Pacific Relations seems to show otherwise. On 03 May 1932 Carter wrote to Wright stating:
Wright's response to Carter was even more intriguing:
With Thompson safely out of the way plans were now laid to take the textbook program on the road. Carter and Wright not only decided to expand it across the U.S., they also decided that the history books of China and Japan also were desperately in need of some editing.127
While Thompson was busy battling Merriam, Wright and the blue pencil brigade in Chicago, an internal feud over the control of the Institute of Pacific Relations was beginning to develop. Due to the altered nature of the Institute following the 1925 conference, there were now two factions within it—the original Hawaiian and Pacific coast group and an eastern group.128 This new group consisted of some of the most wealthy and politically connected people in the east, among them: Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Julius Rosenwald, Thomas W. Lamont of J.P. Morgan and Nicholas Murray Butler of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.129 By the time that the IPR held its next conference, in 1927, almost half its grant money was coming from the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations.130 Along with the moneyed interests came the intellectuals that were closely associated with them, Isaiah Bowman, James T. Shotwell, Roger S. Greene, William Allen White, Walter Lippman, John W. Davis and University of Chicago professor, Quincy Wright among them.131
The 1928 Institute membership list consisted of 169 names and of these only 47 were from the West Coast. The remaining 122 members were almost exclusively from major eastern cities.132 As their numbers and influence in the organization grew the eastern contingent began to demand changes in the operations and goals of the group. This resulted in a dispute that simmered for a year or two before erupting into an open battle over control of the Institute. The battle continued until 1933 when Edward C. Carter, leader of the eastern contingent, assumed the position of Secretary General. Carter, who maintained close contact with Quincy Wright, then began filling the remaining key positions not already under their control with their supporters—among them Owen Lattimore and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family who would eventually become known as the "Wall Street Red".133 By 1935 the Institute was completely under the control the Eastern faction and its home was moved to New York.134
The stock market crash of 1929 set in motion a series of events that energized the drive for world government. The great depression that followed the crash so completely undermined peoples confidence in Herbert Hoover, the Republican Party in general and Americas economic system that they elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt President in 1932.
Roosevelt, an ardent supporter of the League of Nations, was a committed internationalist. His political appointments reflected this internationalism and a close relationship between government officials and groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the League of Nations Association and the Harris Foundation quickly developed. This was particularly true in the State Department.
The relationship between these organizations and the U.S. government in the 1920's was cordial but not intimate. Throughout the 1920's there were individuals in government that were in close contact with these groups. People like Arthur Schoenfeld of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City,135 and Herbert Feis moved quickly between jobs at the State Department and the Council on Foreign Relations,136 but this did not reflect the feelings of then Secretary of State Frank Kellogg. Kellogg did not completely trust these groups and on at least one occasion ordered his people not to cooperate with them. This order came in the form of a confidential State Department memo from Kellogg to Schoenfeld, which he immediately forwarded to Wright.137 Roosevelt's appointment of Cordell Hull as Secretary of State changed all this. Now not only were the actions of these groups tolerated but their input was eagerly sought. Wright and Hull developed a particularly close relationship.
The prospect of Roosevelt winning the 1932 Presidential election so thrilled the proponents of internationalism that they could barely control themselves—and in some cases they didn't. On 28 October 1932, Wright wrote to Professor Samuel N. Harper, a Harris Foundation trustee who greatly admired the Soviet model of socialism, to see if he could arrange for Leon Trotsky or Karl Radek to attend the Harris Institute on propaganda that was to be held in June 1933.138
The timing of this particular Institute is interesting because it came at a time when Trotsky was looking for a place to live, having been banished from the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. The main difference between the two was that Stalin believed in socialism based within one nation that could then be exported to other nations while Trotsky and his followers still believed in an international state. In 1933 Trotsky found a safe haven in France.139 At about the same time Wright dropped him from his short list of guests and began to concentrate instead, on Karl Radek, a strong supporter of Trotsky's who had also spent time in exile. Radek was no stranger to the groups that Wright was involved with having had contact with the Council on Foreign Relations dating back to the early 1920's.140
The first snag in getting Radek to the 1933 Institute developed when Boris Skvirsky, Wright's contact man with Moscow, asked for assurances that there would be no problems in obtaining a visa for him.141 Wright then contacted the State Department and was told that it was illegal to issue a visa to anyone affiliated with the Communist International and since the U.S. still did not recognize the Soviet Union he could not be brought in under any kind of diplomatic immunity either. The plan was originally conceived based upon the expectation that Roosevelt would recognize the Soviet Union immediately upon assuming office but apparently in anticipation of problems with the Congress, this action was delayed. When Wright finally realized that there was no way that he was going to get him into the U.S. he wrote Edward C. Carter of the Institute of Pacific Relations to see if he could arrange an invitation for him to its conference in Bamff, Canada later in the year.142 This effort also failed.
In October of 1934 Wright and Samuel Harper both traveled to the Soviet Union and again an effort was made to bring Radek to the U.S.143 Once again the stated reason for the request was to address a Harris Foundation Institute. This time the State Department relented and agreed to issue him a visa144 but when the Institute convened in late June 1935 Radek was not among the Soviet guests. Instead they sent Alexander A. Troyanovsky, the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Ivan V. Boyeff of the Amtorg Trading Company and Vladimir Romm of the Moscow Isvestia.145
Things went slightly awry when the University of Chicago made its official announcement of scheduled events at the 1935 Institute. The Chicago Tribune ran an article the following day in which it was stated that the Harris Banking family controlled the agenda of the foundation. Furthermore, it commented on radical professors involved with the group and referred to an investigation by a state senate special committee into "subversive indoctrination at the University of Chicago."146
Wright immediately wrote to Hayden B. Harris apologizing for the error, blaming a student on the campus that was employed as a reporter by the Tribune.147 A hint as to who really controlled the Harris Foundation can be found in a letter from Frederic C. Woodward, vice president of the University of Chicago, to Quincy Wright on 20 November 1926. Woodward wrote:
Woodward went on to note that, "He would like to see the problems of Russia taken up by the Foundation, but is inclined to agree with us that the time is not yet ripe."149
The 1935 Institute turned out to be Wright's last chance to get Radek to the U.S. for an Institute—or anything else for that matter. The following year Stalin had him arrested for being involved in a plot to dismember the Soviet Union in a Trotskyite type plan. Radek, unlike the others that were tried, was not executed. Instead he was given a ten-year sentence but he apparently did not survive it.150 Wright's attempts to get Radek to the U.S. and Radek's own previous contacts with the Council on Foreign Relations were probably not helpful to him. Stalin and other communists of the time, such as R. Palme Dutt, were convinced that socialist movements outside the Soviet Union had been corrupted and were working for international banking interests.151 Carroll Quigley makes a similar statement in his book Tragedy and Hope. He notes that Wall Street powers and the organizations that they controlled, such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute on Pacific Relations, had frequently worked with the communists and at times even financed their operations in order to achieve their own ends.152 In 1988 the Soviet Unions Supreme Court overturned Karl Radeks conviction. The following year however, when Mikhail Gorbachev was visiting the Council on Foreign Relations and was shown some of the material that Radek had sent to them he simply stated, "he was a traitor".153 This is an interesting statement considering that it came from the man that presided over the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
In addition to cooking the history books, planning the takeover of the Institute of Pacific Relations and, apparently, trying to help Radek get out of the Soviet Union, Wright was also helping Shotwell and Clark Eichelberger who were still trying to involve the U.S. in the League of Nations. This came in the form of getting the U.S. to sign on to various treaties and agreements that were international in nature such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Their main effort however, was to get the U.S. to join the World Court which would have effectively served as a back door to world government. The court, however, went down to defeat in 1935 with its supporters blaming three individuals for its demise: Father Charles E. Coughlin, William Randolph Hearst and Huey Long.154
By the late 1930's it was becoming apparent to everyone that there was a possibility of another war in Europe. Supporters of world government, however, simply viewed this as another opportunity to implement their ideas. The planning stages for this began early in January 1939, nine months before the onset of actual war in Europe.155 Realizing that the League of Nations was now dead they set out to build a new international organization. The League of Nations Association was to play an important part in this new effort but under a new name. In a letter to Edward C. Carter of the Institute of Pacific Relations Quincy Wright stated:
Wright went on to note that: "In regard to the League of Nations I think a great many feel that any future organization of the world would necessarily make use of the experience and much of the machinery of Geneva, but so far as general public opinion is concerned I think any plan for world organization should emphasize that what it proposes is something new and not merely the rehabilitation of the League."157
The two organizations that Wright mentioned in his letter to Carter, the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace both came into being in the Fall of 1939 shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Clark Eichelberger, a key player in both organizations remarked that: "As time went on, it seemed more and more remarkable that pretty much the same group of leaders, in the same office, with the same staff, and supported primarily by the same national organizations, should undertake planning for the future and for giving maximum support to the allies as the war grew more intense."158
As with most of these committees, commissions and organizations The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies began life under a different name. Originally called the Non-Partisan Committee for Peace Through Revision of the Neutrality Law, its purpose was to counter the efforts of Father Coughlin who was one of the leaders of those opposing world government and U.S. involvement in another European war. William Allen White, editor and publisher of the Emporia Gazette in Kansas, was selected as chairman of this committee with James T. Shotwell having the final say so on all who were to serve on the committee. In accepting the chairmanship, White, who must have been a little naïve, insisted that: "We must have no money from international bankers or from munitions makers which includes big and little steel."159 The official announcement of the formation of the committee came on 20 May 1939 and less than six months later on 27 October 1939, the U.S. Senate repealed the Neutrality Law. White, thinking that his mission was complete, was preparing to close up shop. Eichelberger, however, and some of the other members of the League of Nations Association, had other ideas.160
William Allen White was a respected member of the Midwest press, an area the country where isolationism got its strongest support, and therefore an asset that the League of Nations Association would not want to lose. Following the repeal of the Neutrality Law, Eichelberger, remained in close contact with White. Six months later, in April 1940, they asked White to reactivate his committee—this time as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies.161 White agreed and he immediately began cheerleading efforts on behalf of Roosevelt's plan to trade U.S. destroyers for British military bases in the Caribbean, his lend-lease proposal and other schemes to aid the Allies cause.162
Things progressed smoothly throughout the summer and fall of 1940. In late December, however, while giving a statement to Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard news service, White once again showed his lack of understanding concerning the people that he was dealing with and their ultimate goals. In responding to a question concerning the committees' position on whether or not America should actually enter the war, White said: "The only reason in God's world I am in this organization is to keep this country out of war."163 He then went to say: "I have no doubt that some members of our organization who are not officially representing us are martial-minded. To condemn all of us for our more belligerent brethren is as foolish and unfair as it would be to call the Knights of Columbus appeasers because Joe Kennedy gave Roosevelt the Judas kiss."164 Eichelberger and the other committee members were furious. When they called for a retraction--White refused--the committee then demanded his resignation, which he gave on 01 January 1941. This, however, created another problem for them. The reason that the committee was held in such high esteem was due almost entirely to William Allen White's reputation as a man of integrity with both the public and the media. In order to avoid the public relations nightmare that would ensue if White were to be publicly sacked he was named honorary chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. It continued operating until after America's entry into World War II when it then merged with other organizations supporting the war effort.165
The Commission to Study the Organization of Peace was much smaller than the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies having about 60 members whereas the Committee to Defend America had hundreds.166 It was, however, destined to have a much greater impact on world affairs than its sister organization. The commission was to play a major role in the formation of the soon-to-be created United Nations. In the introduction to its' "Building Peace: Reports of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace 1939 to 1972" commission chairman, Louis B. Sohn stated:
The key players in this group were James T. Shotwell, Quincy Wright, Clark Eichelberger, and Clyde Eagleton. Shotwell was the chairman of the commission, Eichelberger its director. Eagleton chaired the commission's studies committee, and Wright supervised the section that explored the creation of a political international organization.168 Other prominent individuals on the commission included: John W. Davis 1924 Democratic Party presidential candidate and attorney for J.P. Morgan169, the Dulles brothers—John Foster and Allen Welsh-- of the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell a Morgan law firm, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Thomas W. Lamont of J.P. Morgan and his son, Corliss, who was the founder of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship170, and Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles. In 1940, historian Harry Elmer Barnes described the commission and its members as follows: "These names stand for the League of Nations and collective security. They are to be found on the interlocking directorates of the numerous committees and associations mothered by Nicholas Murray Butler and his Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Though their views have never been shared by a majority of the American people, they have tried with unlimited funds to set themselves up as the sole guardians of peace."171
The Commission to Study the Organization of Peace was set up to serve as a sort of unofficial Enquiry similar to the one that James T. Shotwell participated in during and after World War I. Its main goal was to plan the organization of international society following war. Although the commission's work was not officially sanctioned, it did operate with the blessings of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Commission member Clark Eichelberger was the contact man with the White House. He met with Roosevelt on at least 10 occasions, giving him copies of commission reports and updating him on their activities. According to commission records Eleanor Roosevelt eventually became a member of the organization.
In addition to its work designing a new world order, the commission was also to serve as a sort of information agency on world affairs for the general public. The statement announcing the creation of the organization said that, "One of the purposes of the Enquiry is to help the American people think their way through the problems of the fundamental bases of world peace and the responsibility of the United States."172 People, however, were not going to be told that the solution to the problems of world peace was the creation of a world government until they had been properly prepared.173 In order to achieve this, commission member planned to spend a six to twelve-month period organizing a report that would then be presented to the public.174 The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), one of the commission's main supporters, agreed not only to broadcast periodic statements by the commission but it also agreed to broadcast the entire proceedings of its final report--a planned two-day event—over its Columbia network.175 The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) also aired Commission programs.176 Following the broadcast they planned to begin a new drive to create world government--this time with the United States participating. The reason they were so optimistic about their chances for success was that, although war had been declared in Europe, it was the period of the "sitzkrieg" or phony war and many believed that a fighting war could still be avoided. Eichelberger wrote:
In May of 1940 sitzkrieg turned to blitzkrieg and by June France had fallen and Great Britain had been kicked off the continent of Europe. Always planning ahead, the commission decided that in the event that a shooting war did develop, it would be used as an excuse to create a new world body to replace the League of Nations.178
Planning for the creation of an entirely new world organization could not be done in the 6 to 12-month period that the commission originally allocated for this work. Since, however, the world would be at war for the foreseeable future this did not seem to be a problem. They simply used their preliminary report to serve as an outline and continued the project.
By early November 1941, work had progressed far enough that in an interview with, United Press Associations reporter, William Lovell that would be considered forward-looking even today, Quincy Wright described what he referred to as the "New World Order".179 Lovell wrote that, "Dr. Quincy Wright of the University of Chicago predicts that if Hitler is defeated, the Nazi chiefs projected 'new order' will be replaced by a world organization patterned in many respects after the League of Nations--but immeasurably strengthened by American participation and the use of the British and United States navies to enforce its edicts."180
The global system that Wright described was to be a federation made up of three branches, a legislative branch, an administrative branch, and a world court.181 Membership in this world organization was to be open to all states and those that did not accept this offer would be subject to certain disadvantages.182 The new global system was also going have powers never dreamt of by the League of Nations. Commission member Clyde Eagleton noted that, "This organization should have some power to lay down rules, binding upon all members, without requirement of unanimity, and without permitting a state to legally reject it."183 He then went on to list nine areas in which the world government should have control. Among them: communications, health care, social services, raw materials, markets, money and exchange, barriers to trade, armaments, and the ability to prevent war.184
The idea of using the British and American navies as a means of preventing war was quickly expanded to include Russia and China and rather than using naval power to keep the peace it was decided that air power alone would be sufficient in most cases.185 The use of national military forces was only a temporary solution to the problem. Eventually national forces were to be reduced drastically or completely eliminated with international military forces taking their place.186 Commission reports in early 1940's state:
The question of who would be represented in this new world government was not as straightforward as one might think. Individual Nations would not necessarily have any voice in the new government. Some commission members argued exactly this point while others like Quincy Wright were more liberal on the subject. Wright said that, "Although I believe that Nations should also be given a representation and perhaps functional international organizations, my conception of an assembly would be that every important group with a distinctive opinion ought to have some representation whether that group is national, regional or universal."188 Individuals were to have no voice in the new democracy.
In addition to the global system, Wright outlined a continental or regional system. There would be three main regional systems, a United States of Europe (also referred to as a European Union), a Pan-American union consisting of North and South America, and an Asian system. The Soviet Union, while it would be a member of the global system, was not to be part of any of the continental systems.189 The idea of creating a regional system in addition to the global system was not new. The League of Nations had been exploring a similar idea.190 In the Commission's Preliminary Report is stated that, "Whatever the outcome of the present war, it is unlikely that there will again be twenty-seven independent national sovereignties in Europe, each having the right to make war, to surround itself with tariff walls, and to maintain a different currency."191 The regional systems were also to be permitted their own military force.
In the United Press interview Wright also discussed the issue of national sovereignty. Lovell wrote that, "Sovereignty and independence of individual nations will be retained, subject to limitations necessary to operation of the continental and world systems, Wright predicted." In the commissions Preliminary Report it is stated that, "A sovereign state, at the present time, claims the power to judge its own controversies, to enforce its own conception of its rights, to increase its armaments without limit, to treat its own nationals as it sees fit, and to regulate its economic life without regard to the effect of such regulations upon its neighbors." It then goes on to say that, "These attributes of sovereignty must be limited."192 This however, is somewhat of an understatement of the commission's real feeling on the issue of national sovereignty. In a letter to Shotwell, Wright noted that, "Our general thought was that we must recognize the inadequacy of the sovereign state as it has been under the present conditions of economic and cultural interdependence and that consequently the world faces the alternatives of empire a' la Hitler or world federation, which is the only method compatible with democracy."193 Wright further clarified this point in a letter to The Daily Maroon, the student newspaper at the University of Chicago, in which he wrote, "In order to establish permanent peace in the world it is necessary to stop the clustering of all political loyalties around the same symbols." He then went on to explain, "My point was that excessive loyalties to certain sacred cows, such as sovereignty, nationality, neutrality, and domestic jurisdiction is ruining civilization."194
From the beginning, the new world government, unlike its predecessor, the League of Nations, was planned to be a sovereign global federation from the beginning. Implementation of such a grand scheme would require an enormous amount of time and effort. Realizing this, the Commission planned for a transitional period during which the political and economic mechanisms for such a system could be put in place. The Commission's second report The Transitional Period, released in February of 1942 addressed this subject. In it, it is stated:
One of the main obstacles to U.S. participation in the League of Nations was the U.S. Senate's objection to American involvement in a world political organization that would clearly limit its rights as a sovereign nation. Having learned from their previous mistake, it was decided that this time, economic integration would precede political integration. As early as April 1940 Shotwell wrote to Wright stating:
The new world economic order was to be based upon three financial institutions—the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Trade Organization.197 Economic integration at the regional level was also being planned. Former U.S. ambassador to Spain, Richard N. Gardner, wrote that, "The Marshall Plan was conditioned on the dismantling of intra-European trade barriers and other concrete measures toward European economic unity. It thus led directly to the establishment of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation and paved the way for the creation of the European Common Market and eventually the European Union."198
Political and military control of the world during the transition period was to be in the hands of the four great powers that they thought would make the largest contributions to the war effort—Britain, China, Russia, and the United States.199 It was also planned that during the transition period membership in the world organization was to be expanded to include neutral countries and the defeated Axis powers. Prior to being allowed into the new world order, however, the Axis powers would have to undergo a period of extended military occupation during which the people in these countries were to be psychologically prepared for participation in it. When this goal was achieved the military occupation was to end and national and international governments were to take their place.200 Commission reports also note that, "In the permanent order to be established, absention or withdrawal will be impossible."201 These reports also made it very clear who was going to pay the lion's share of this global reconstruction project—the American people.202
In late December 1941 a new term, the "United Nations", began to creep in to the lexicon of globalization. According to, playwright and adviser to President Roosevelt, Robert E. Sherwood, the term was coined by Roosevelt himself on 29 December 1941203 and was first used publicly on 01 January 1942 in a document called the Declaration by the United Nations.204 This Declaration had four main signatories the United States, United Kingdom, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China. In addition to these four powers, 22 other countries signed at this time.205 The main body of the declaration dealt entirely with the defeat of "Hitlerism". In its pre-amble, however, it mentioned the Atlantic Charter. This reference is significant because while there is no mention of a future world organization in the Declaration by the United Nations there is a suggestion of such a body in the Atlantic Charter.206 Regardless of what was stated in the document Wright, Eichelberger, Shotwell and the rest knew exactly what the President meant. Eichelberger wrote:
The first U.S. government official to openly speak about the United Nations and the roll it would play following the war was Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Wallace, an outspoken socialist and great admirer of the Soviet way of life, believed that the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was as important a milestone in mankind's fight for freedom as was the Fourth of July.208 On 08 November 1942, as U.S. troops were landing in North Africa to fight for the first time in the European war as part of "Operation Torch", Wallace was addressing the Congress of American-Soviet Friendship at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In the speech, Wallace outlined plans for creating a "new democracy of common man ".209 The "new democracy of common man" that Wallace spoke of bore a striking resemblence to democracy as defined by Mary Parker Follett. According to Wallace the Founding Fathers were in error when they based our government on what he called "political or Bill of Rights" democracy. He stated that, "Carried to its extreme form, it leads to rugged individualism, exploitation, impractical emphasis on states' rights, and even anarchy."210
Wallace felt it necessary to discard traditional American democracy because it could not guarantee world peace. He stated:
Further noting the shortfalls of American political democracy, the Vice President went on to advocate the creation of several new types democracy then being practiced in the Soviet Union:212
On 13 November 1942, five days after Wallace gave his speech at Madison Square Garden, Clark Eichelberger again met with President Roosevelt. According to Eichelberger, Roosevelt immediately turned the topic of conversation to the United Nations and his plans for the future. He said that, Roosevelt felt that the only way for the world government to be successful would be for it to be dictatorial in nature. By this he meant that the U.N., using the strength of its four main members, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China, was going to have to force its will upon the remaining nations the world. Although when the U.N. was finally formed, France was among the five permanent members of the Security Council, its initial exclusion was intentional. Roosevelt did not think much of France--or Frenchman in general for that matter--and twice at this meeting made statements that were critical of them.213
Roosevelt, apparently, was interested in more than just being an organizer of the planned new world government--he also harbored a desire to be its first President. As their meeting was coming to close, Eichelberger made reference to the possibility of him serving as President of United Nations of the World. At first F.D.R. said that he would be too old for such a job and that he planned to retire to Hyde Park to raise Christmas trees but Eichelberger, pursuing the point a bit further, noted that, "His mood suddenly changed. He said something like, well, perhaps for two years."214
The Congress of American-Soviet Friendship originally began life, in the 1920s, as the Friends of the Soviet Union.215 Correspondence between Corliss Lamont, the organizations chairman, and Quincy Wright suggests that it underwent several name changes over the years--the American Council on Soviet Relations and the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship among them.216 Early on there was nothing remarkable about the membership of this group with the possible exception of Corliss Lamont who was the son of Thomas W. Lamont, senior partner at J.P. Morgan but by 1942 this had changed. Its membership rolls now included some of the most well known names in government, business, academia, and the entertainment fields among them:
| Cordell Hull-Secretary of State | Joseph E. Davies-Ambassador |
| Harold L. Ickes-Secretary of Interior | Jesse Jones-Secretary of Commerce Breckinbridge |
| Long-State Department | Edward Stettinius- Special Assistant to FDR |
Paul McNutt-Defense Health Welfare | Thurmon W. Arnold- Asst. Attorney General |
| Albert Einstein-Princeton Univ. | Oscar L. Chapan- Interior Dept. |
| Thomas Mann-Princeton Univ. | Charles Chaplin-Actor |
| Eugene O'Neill-Playwrite | Frederic March-Actor |
| Paul Robeson-Actor | Edward G. Robinson-Actor |
The list also included seven members of the United States Senate and one member of the House of Representatives.217 In addition to these notable individuals, the League of Nations Association, Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, Harris Foundation and Institute of Pacific Relations were all well represented in the organization continuing the tradition of the interlocking groups. Among the representatives of these groups were: Dr. Frank Aydelotte, Edward C. Carter, William Allen White, Samuel N. Harper, Thomas W. Lamont, William Allen Neilson, and James T. Shotwell.218 Quincy Wright served on the initiating committee of the Chicago branch of this organization.219
Edward C. Carter belonged to several of these type organizations. In addition to the Congress of American-Soviet friendship he also was a director of The American Russian Institute and president of Russian Relief.200 It was, however, his role as Secretary General of the Institute of Pacific Relations and that organizations position on communism in postwar China that would propel him into the national limelight. Although China, on paper at least, was always considered by Roosevelt to be one of the big four powers that was to rule the world following war, the reality was much different. On the surface it appeared to be united in its opposition to Japanese aggression but China was further divided by two internal factions as opposed to each other as they were the Japanese, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek in southern China and the Communists under Mao Tse-tung in northern China. By September 1944, Roosevelt, fearing that Chiang was more interested in preventing further Communist expansion into southern China than he was in opposing the Japanese, demanded that command of all Chinese forces be turned over to U.S. general Joseph Stilwell. Roosevelt could not have made a worse choice. Stilwell who had been operating in China since early 1942 had nothing but contempt for Chiang, his army, and its officer cadre. Chiang for as part had little use for Stilwell and in late September he demanded his removal from China. On 18 October Roosevelt relented and announced that Stilwell would be recalled.221 This incident fueled the suspicions of Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters in both China and the United States. Many began to openly question which side America was really supporting—the Kuomintang or the Communists.
One such individual was Alfred Kohlberg an importer of Chinese textiles and also a long-standing member of the Institute of Pacific Relations. On 09 November 1944 Kohlberg sent a letter to Edward Carter demanding an explanation for certain publications that the Institute had distributed that he felt were critical of Chiang's government and favorable to the Communists. According to Kolhberg, one such publications stated that, "They (the American, British and Soviet governments) have, however, limited their economic and military assistance because of fear that any supplies they send might be used in civil strife rather than against the Japanese."222 This was written at a time when Roosevelt was claiming that all available aid was being given to China. In his letter, Kohlberg stated:
At this point, Kohlberg, made no mention of the fact that one of Carter's key staff members, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, also happened to be on the editorial boards of the New Masses and its sister publication, the Daily Worker, both Communist Party journals.224
This was not Kohlberg's first run-in with Carter. Three or four years earlier he threatened to resign from the Institute because he thought Carter had to many Communists on his staff. After Carter assured him that these people were hired based solely upon their work product and not for political reasons, Kohlberg withdrew his resignation. In 1943, he again approached Carter to complain about the Communist influence in the IPR but again nothing was done.225
By December 1944 the China problem was becoming critical. In order to help defuse the situation, Stephen Duggan, wrote to Quincy Wright requesting him to sign a letter inviting Dr. Chang Po-ling, one of China's "foremost" educators, to visit the United States "…in the hope and belief that misunderstandings may be removed and cordial relations reestablished."226 According to Duggan this was being done at the request "…of non-political Chinese who have nothing to do with the political division within China."227 The letter was to be signed by representatives from eight organizations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Rockefeller Foundation among them. Wright was being requested to sign as president of the American Association University Professors.228 The China incident was the beginning of what would eventually become known as the "McCarthy Era".
As the situation in China was beginning to unravel, Roosevelt was making plans to unveil his blueprint for world government to the American people and the world at-large. A conference to draft the United Nations Charter was to be held in San Francisco beginning on 25 April 1945. This conference was intentionally planned to take place before the war ended. The reason for this was that FDR knew that once the war was over, opposition to his plan would quickly materialize.229 The conference took place as scheduled, lasting from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945, but Roosevelt did not live to see it.
The opposition Roosevelt feared began to appear almost immediately and the organizations that helped plan the world government quickly became the objects of very close examination. One of the first things that investigators noticed was that these organizations all seemed to have, at the very least, an extreme left and in many cases, what appeared to be, an outright communist point view. In June and July of 1946 the Chicago Journal of Commerce ran a series of articles by Andrew Avery called "The Communist Fifth Column".230 In the series, Avery examined numerous organizations and individuals that seemed to advocate the agenda of the radical left, among these was the Institute of Pacific Relations and its secretary-general, Edward C. Carter. Avery, apparently, had also been tactless enough to let the cat out of the bag concerning Frederick V. Field and his ties to Communist Party publications. Carter, immediately realizing the seriousness of the situation, wrote to an IPR trustee in Chicago, Louise Wright, to see if she or her husband, Quincy, could intervene, in some manner, with the editor of the Chicago Journal of Commerce on his behalf. Carter, blaming Kohlberg for the story, assured her that, "It so happens that I do not know of a single Communist in our 2000, but there may be a few. Certainly our board would be reluctant to exclude from membership a person solely on the ground that he was Communist Party number."231
A week later, on 25 July 1946, Carter sent a second, more desperate note to Louise Wright. In this letter Carter admitted that some small portions of Avery's article may be true such as the fact that IPR staff member, Frederick V. Field, also was on the staff of both the New Masses and the Daily Worker, New York's two most prominent Communist publications.232 In an attempt to defend Field and the Institute, Carter claimed that while, "It is true that Frederick Field used to be Secretary of the American Council and that he is now a member of the Board of Trustees. None of his writings for the IPR have ever expressed a leftist point view. His work in the Institute has been most objective."233 Carter then discussed his own involvement with what appeared to be Communist organizations. In 1944 he was photographed at the International Workers Order headquarters. In explaining his presence there he stated that, "With reference to my connection with the IWO, it is true that as President of Russian Relief I was photographed two years ago at the IWO headquarters receiving in token a gift of some millions of good American cigarettes for the Russian Army. As you know, we repeatedly announced to the public that we would take gifts for Russia for any source."234 Carter neglected to mention his association with two other groups, the American Russian Institute235 and the Congress of American Soviet Friendship.236 His failure to mention these last two organizations was probably not as large an oversight as it may appear seeing as Louise Wrights' husband, Quincy, was also, to some extent, involved with these organizations. It is interesting to note that in his second letter Carter was then claiming that Avery had gotten his information from the House Un-American Activities Committee as opposed to Kohlberg.237
Louise Wright's first move was to contact, Walter Fisher, an attorney with the prominent Chicago law firm of Bell, Boyd & Marshall. Her choice of Fisher is an interesting one. There are two possible ways in which she could have approached him. The first and most obvious was that she was acquainted with him through the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations of which he was president238 and she a director.239 The second possibility is that she approached him through the wife of the law firms senior partner Laird Bell. Mrs. Bell and the Wrights would have been acquainted through the Chicago Council of American-Soviet Friendship of which Mrs. Bell was a sponsor.240 In any case she forwarded Carters second letter and the Avery article to Fisher and asked him for advice.
Fisher wrote back saying that he did not know if everything in the article was accurate but that, "What is said about the National Lawyers Guild and the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee is entirely consistent with my direct knowledge of those organizations."241 He also noted that while Carter was accusing Avery of getting his information from the House Un-American Activities Committee, Avery, in fact, had ridiculed the committee stating:
Fisher's response, at first glance, would seem to indicate a complete lack of understanding, on his part, of what he was involved in. It must be remembered however, that the socialist philosophy that most of these people believed in was not based upon the classless society of Marx and very few took their orders from Moscow. The Eastern Establishment and the organizations that it spawned, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the League of Nations Association and all their various sub-groups were simply using the communists243 to achieve their own vision of world government. When the heat came on, as it did in the years following World War II, they simply through the communists to the wolves.244
Quincy Wright did not like this solution—and with good reason. Certain of these organizations maintained very high-profiles, with thousands of prominent members, many of whom had, like Kohlberg, never questioned the goals of the group. The Institute of Pacific Relations was one such organization. Wright and Carter knew that any hint that an organization had a communist political philosophy would immediately result in its funds drying up. In his first letter to Louise Wright, Carter told her that Paul Hoffman, the President of Studebaker, and its Board of Directors was already expressing their concern about the situation due to the financial support they had given the IPR.
Fisher, in his letter to Louise Wright, had also mentioned that the Chicago Journal of Commerce intended to reprint Avery's articles in booklet form.245 At this point Quincy Wright intervened, personally contacting the editor in an attempt to prevent further distribution of the article.246 Then things began to calm down a bit--at least as far as the Institute of Pacific Relations was concerned. The reason for this may have been that another publication, also located in Chicago, with a much wider circulation than that of the Chicago Journal of Commerce, had just printed an even more sensational series of articles.
On 06 August 1946 as Quincy and Louise Wright were preparing their defense of Carter and the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Chicago Daily Tribune began running a two-part series of articles, by Willard Edwards, about an organization called "Americans United for World Government". In the piece, Edwards stated that several organizations were pooling their efforts in order to further the cause of world government. He also claimed that Edward R. Stettinius Jr. organized this drive, while actively serving as Secretary of State, in order to gain support among the American people for the United Nations.247 Among the groups that Edwards identified as being part of this umbrella organization were the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, the United Nations Association (formerly called the League of Nations Association), and a group called Citizens for Victory.248
The World State that this new organization was advocating was to consist of an executive body, a legislature, a judicial branch (with jurisdiction over the individual), and a world army. This military force was to be "… so recruited and so based that no individual, group, or nation could seize control of it."249 It was also noted that, "Upon the achievement of world government, all national armaments save limited quantities for internal policing should be abolished, and the manufacturer of armaments, save those required by a world army and for internal policing, should be banned."250
One of the basic functions of this organization was to serve as a political action group that would actively attempt to defeat candidates that were opposed to world government. In this endeavor they were somewhat successful. Among their victims were Sen