Chicago Council on Foreign Relations records, 1922-1970

Old Resource ID was CCFR

Public understanding of foreign policy issues was always considered a necessary requirement in a democracy. The foreign relations of states in the twentieth century, however, have steadily gained in complexity and intricacy. It was natural, therefore, for a group of enlightened Chicago citizens to deliberate ways and means of acquainting the Midwestern region with the important foreign policy issues of the day. All were certain that ordinary channels of disseminating information were not suited to the involved nature of United States foreign policy. Coupled with this realization was the belief that the Midwestern region, being the heartland of isolationism, was urgently in need of clearer information on the country's foreign policy.

The origin of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations goes back to February of 1922, when 23 individuals gathered at the Union League Club, at the invitation of William B. Hale and Mrs. William Gold Hibbard. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a new organization in the Midwest which would provide the community with a neutral forum for the discussion of foreign affairs. Concurrent with the founding of this Council, another organization, the Foreign Policy Association, was taking roots in New York and seeking to establish branches in various cities. The Chicago Council's twenty-three founders decided in that first meeting to bypass the opportunity of becoming a branch of the Foreign Policy Association in favor of becoming an independent agency capable of reflecting the mood and temper of the American Midwest. Jacob M. Dickerson a distinguished judge and a former Secretary of War, was elected President, Mrs. Polly Root Collier was made the Executive Secretary, and William C. Boyden, Francis R. Dickenson, Victor Elting, Harry M. Fischer, William B. Hale, Mrs. William Gold Hibbard, Morton D. Hull, Mrs. Morris D. Johnson, George H. Mead, Mrs. J. W. Morrison, George F. Porter, Silas H. Strawn, and Mrs. Arthur Ryerson were made members of the first board of directors and executive committee. The organization's purpose was stated clearly:

"The immediate object being to afford a forum where there will be addresses by men of distinction in this country and upon proper occasion those from foreign countries and where in this forum there will be opportunity of free and unlimited discussion, where, w1thout undertaking to control or direct the discussion, there may be a free interchange of opinion upon the part of those who have studied and are interested in these Questions."(Chicago Council on Foreign Relations - A Record of Forty Years, 1963)

The new organization held its first regular meeting on March 18, 1922, with George W. Wickersham, a former Attorney General of the United States for a speaker. The address, titled "Treaties Negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference", proved to be a landmark of sorts. Having urged the ratification of these treaties by the Senate, Wickersham moved one listener to suggest that the Council go on record as favoring ratification. The Council refused to take this step, thus establishing the practice of strict neutrality on each and every issue that gets discussed under its auspices.

The first Executive Committee headed by William B. Hale, was vested with the power to elect Council members, to arrange regular meetings, engage speakers, prepare a budget, and take charge of all financial matters. An invitation from the New York Council on Foreign Relations to join it in publishing a quarterly magazine, Foreign Affairs, was rejected during the Chicago Council's first year. Because it did not feel ready for this undertaking, the Chicago Council allowed the opportunity of co-sponsoring this prestigious publication to slip by.

In April of 1925, a periodical titled News Bulletin, later renamed Foreign Notes, was established, Academic members of the Council, such as Professors Harold D. Lasswell, Samuel Northrup Harper and Quincy Wright, and Council officers Polly Collier, William B. Hale and William C. Boyden assumed editorial duties. The popularity of Foreign Notes encouraged the Council to publish a series of books under the heading of "American Policies Abroad", one of which, Mexico, being authored by J. Fred Rippy, a noted authority on Latin America.

In 1942, Mrs. Quincy Wright, then the Executive Director, and Mrs. Paul Douglas formed a pamphlet shop under the direction of the International Relations Center, to prepare small, paper-bound booklets on foreign affairs which the regular booksellers were reluctant to market. The Pamphlet Shop, the only one of its kind in the Midwest, was attached to the Chicago Council in 1945 and maintained from then on by a grant from the Field Foundation. During that same year, the Council took over the Speakers Bureau which provided small local organizations with speakers. Originally founded by the League of Nations Association in the late 1930's the Bureau was attached to the Council in 1945 and continues to thrive under its direction.

The Council's main sources of revenue were membership fees and voluntary contributions. For a ten dollar annual fee, regular members were invited to attend regular meetings which included a luncheon and an address. During the war years, how-ever, new methods were devised to increase the Council's income. In 1944, a new membership classification for members who donated upward of fifty dollars each year was devised. These honorary members were repaid by invitations to informal meetings with distinguished speakers such as George Frost Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Adlai Stevenson and Jean Paul Sartre. And in 1947, a plan was worked out to attract the young business executives and attorneys by giving them free memberships and providing them with special luncheon meetings suited to their tight schedules.

The Council's financial base was again broadened in the middle fifties. Two new categories of memberships were added, "Share the Expense" and "Community Service", while the Helen Morris Memorial Fund was devoted to financing experimental programs, was set up. Attempts to get corporate sponsorships for the Council were begun in 1951, and a special committee, the Corporate Sponsor Committee, was formed. Ever since that date, some of the Council's regular sponsors were Bell and Howell Company, Marshall Field and Company, Hilton Hotels, Harza Engineering Company, International Harvester Company, Sears, Roebuck and Company, Time, Incorporated, Northern Trust Company, and the Chicago Daily News.

A weekly television series, titled "World Spotlight", was initiated by the Council in 1955 and featured the Council's Director, Carter Davidson and selected guests. The Foreign Policy Association awarded the Council a special award in 1959 in recognition of the program's excellence. Another project was launched in 1961, namely, the formation of "The Chicago Committee". Chicago's leading citizens were invited to organize an autonomous group affiliated with the council and given access to all of its facilities. Two hundred and twenty persons accepted this invitation and became charter members of the Committee. The Committee had two objectives: to provide high-level briefings for prominent Chicago citizens, and to allow the Midwest to influence the course of America's foreign policy. In the 1960's the Council also began to sponsor charter trips to all parts of the world for interested members.

The basic activity of the Council remained the same throughout its history, namely availing its members of authoritative persons who spoke on a variety of topics. Several renowned scholars and statesmen made their appearances at the Council's gatherings, including Georges Clemenceau, John Foster Dulles, Jawaharlal Nehru, Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, George C. Marshall, Herbert Hoover, Walter Lippmann, Edward R. Morrow, Reinhold Niebuhr, Jean Paul Sartre, Arnold Toynbee, and George Maynard Keynes, to mention a few. Adlai Ewing Stevenson devoted many years of his life to the Council, as a speaker, as the Secretary in 1930 when only an aspiring Chicago lawyer, and as the President from 1935 to 1937. He was a perfect example of how the Council provided the necessary public exposure for some of the city's promising young men. The first headquarters of the Council were maintained in a tiny office at35 North Dearborn Street. Presently, the Council's offices are located in the Lake View Building at 116 South Michigan. Herbert Prochnow is the current President, Augustin Hart, Richard Hoefs, Alex Seith, Hermon D. Smith, Herman Stein, are the Vice-Presidents, Kenneth Kinney is the Treasurer, Edmond Eger is the Executive Director and Secretary. The Council continues to serve the community not as an apologist for United States foreign policy, but as a non-partisan platform from which issues can be discussed, analyzed and assessed.

Records filed in the Department of Special Collections consist of addresses; lists of sponsors; financial papers; photographs of speakers; memoranda; newspaper clippings; seating charts for luncheons and concerts; registration forms; hotel and catering agreements; correspondence with speakers and potential speakers, 1955-1964; minutes of annual, general, and executive committee meetings, 1922-1949; programs and schedules of conferences sponsored by the Council; statistical reports, 1955-1956; biographical sketches of speakers; press releases regarding conferences; and questionnaires to high school students who participated in some of the Council's activity. These records pertain to the 1963 national conference of the United States National Commission for UNESCO on European Unity; major foreign policy issues of the past fifty years, such as the naval disarmament treaties, reparations payments, American membership in the League of Nations, the economic depression of 1929, the fascist states, the Second World War, the atomic age, foreign aid to underdeveloped countries, the United Nations, the Korean War, and the rise of communism.

Ten subsequent supplements to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations Records were received after the initial installment, with the most recent supplement donated in 1998. The first two supplements are included in the Detailed Description/Box and Folder Listing below. For information about the remaining supplements, please consult paper inventories located in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Supplement I contains more recent records than those in the original installment. These records filed in the Department of Special Collections consist of public addresses on current foreign policy issues, newspaper clippings, periodicals, office memoranda, biographical sketches of speakers, lists, and correspondence with potential speakers, 1955-1956. These papers pertain to cooperation with the Foreign Policy Association of New York; information on speakers available for outside engagements; the effectiveness of the Alliance for Progress; assistance to the emerging nations; racism in the republic of South Africa; the Sino-Indian border dispute and its implications; peaceful co-existence; Woodrow Wilson's contribution to the world; and the developing crisis in Vietnam.

Supplement II of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations Records consists exclusively of printed addresses delivered at the Council's regular meetings between the years 1923 and 1944. These addresses pertain to European countries, between the two world wars; law in the Soviet Union; American foreign policy in the Far East and Latin America; industrial wax-time production in the Chicago area; the reparations question; the International Court of Justice; British-Indian relations; the Munich Conference; American air power during the Second World War; the Palestine question.

The initial collection of papers was received on February 7, 1967 through the Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus.

Supplement I of the papers of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations was obtained through the Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus. These papers were receuncil on Foreign Relations was obtained through the Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus. These papers were received on November 7, 1967.

Supplement II materials were received through the Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus. These were received on January 17, 1968.

Eight subsequent supplements to the original collection materials have been added to this collection in 1968, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1994, and 1998.

Chicago Council on Foreign Relations Records, Special Collections, University of Illinois at Chicago.

The finding aid for this collection was revised from a collection description and inventories prepared in 1967 and 1968 (by Ghada Talhami), and was subsequently marked up for web presentation in July 2008.

When received, the initial installment of collection materials was subject-classified. This arrangement was maintained, the folders being arranged alphabetically by title.

Material in Supplement I was originally subject-classified, with the exception of the following folders, which were created out of unarranged material: Wilson, Woodrow - Centennial; Correspondence: and Miscellaneous. All folders were subsequently arranged in alphabetical order by title.

The addresses that comprise Supplement II were unarranged. They were subsequently given an alphabetical classification by name of the lecturer followed by the lecture's title.

• NamesChicago Council on Foreign Relations. -- Archives
• Subject
  • Chicago Community Organizations.
  • Chicago Political and Civic Life.
  • Diplomatic relations.
• Geographic CoverageUnited States.