The Commission to Study the Organization of Peace

In the “battle of committees” which has raged over the foreign policy of the United States in recent months, the committees which have played the most active and most publicized rôles have been such propaganda groups as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, the America First Committee, and the No Foreign War Committee. Such groups have left untouched an important task: careful, sober research into the problems which the organization of peace presents to the American people. This latter task, however, has not been wholly neglected. A Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, initiated by Professor James T. Shotwell of Columbia University in the fall of 1939, has undertaken at least a part of the task. Its methods of functioning, its work, and its objectives are of current interest to political scientists, and the present note is intended to call attention to the more important features of the Commission's work.