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Edward A Goedeken, Every Citizen a Statesman: The Dream of a Democratic Foreign Policy in the American Century, Journal of American History, Volume 111, Issue 3, December 2024, Pages 599–600, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaae221
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Formed in the spring of 1918, the League of Free Nations Association was devoted to promoting President Woodrow Wilson's plan for a successful Paris Peace Conference followed by a U.S.-supported launch of the League of Nations. By the early 1920s the group shifted its focus from advocacy to education and changed its name in 1922 to the more generic-sounding Foreign Policy Association (Fpa), the history of which is the subject of David Allen's well-crafted book.
The question of how foreign policy should be conducted in a democratic society, and how the average American should act to influence its practice, is the focus of Allen's study. The author admits at the outset that his scholarly result does not provide clear answers to this question, and his effort to seek understanding joins the work of the many other scholars who have struggled unsuccessfully over the years with the same challenge.
The history of the Fpa encompasses the group's four different approaches toward encouraging popular involvement in American foreign affairs. During the early years, the Fpa sponsored luncheons at swanky hotels where speakers generated vigorous debate. For these progressive-minded Americans, talk mattered. From its earliest days, the Fpa welcomed women as active participants, many of whom were veterans of the women's peace and suffrage movements. Allen emphasizes that despite its desire to broaden its membership, the Fpa overwhelmingly represented white, well-read, and often well-heeled participants. Nonwhite Americans were seldom involved, and the Fpa had little presence in the American South. At its peak in the early 1940s, the Fpa boasted a paid membership of about 31,000 and local branches in nearly a dozen large cities spanning from New England to California and Oregon, and enjoyed the financial support of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations.
