Raymond B. Fosdick (1883–1972):Ardent Advocate of Internationalism

Abstract

RAYMOND B. FOSDICK, WHO would serve as the President of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1936 to 1948, was a lifetime disciple of Woodrow Wilson. His family was not wealthy but managed to scrape up enough money to send him to Princeton University. There he met Wilson, at that time president of the university, later to become the president of the United States (1913–1921). Fosdick described Wilson as an outstanding teacher, intellectually brilliant, who held his students spellbound.1 Fosdick graduated from Princeton in 1905, and then studied law at New York Law School. In 1912, during the presidential campaign, Wilson appointed Fosdick the secretary and auditor of the finance committee of the National Democratic Committee. Once elected President, Wilson made several other job offers which Fosdick declined, perhaps because by this time, he had met John D. Rockefeller Sr and his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr, possessors of an enormous fortune. By January 1913, the elder Rockefeller had asked him to prepare a report on the police systems of Europe, and then appointed him a trustee of two Rockefeller philanthropies: the General Education Board and the International Education Board. When the United States entered World War I, Fosdick was appointed chairman of the Commission on Training Camp Activities of the War Department. The goal of this commission was to promote athletics and other healthy activities and to distract the men from prostitutes, gambling, and excessive drinking.2 As the war was ending, Fosdick served as Special Representative of the War Department in France and as civilian aide to General Pershing during the Paris Peace Conference. On the journey, Woodrow Wilson discussed his vision of a League of Nations, an organization to be dedicated to the prevention of war, the maintenance of peaceful cooperation among nations, and free trade. On his return to the United States, Wilson asked Fosdick to become Under-Secretary of the League of Nations, then in formation. Fosdick accepted, although he was concerned about his own qualifications for so momentous an undertaking. From that time on, he would be dedicated to the goal of realizing Wilson’s ideal.3 Problems, however, arose in the United States Senate. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led a group of senators strongly opposed to the League; the Senate was locked in months of contentious debate which Fosdick called an “unrelieved nightmare.”1(p200) Increasingly upset and angry with American opposition to the League, Fosdick decided to resign his position. Instead, he became a strong public advocate for the League of Nations, a stance he maintained for the remainder of his life. Fosdick soon became a leading trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 1936, became president, working in this position until his retirement in 1948. While Fosdick was trustee, the Rockefeller Foundation made significant contributions to the Health Organization of the League. In addition, Fosdick was directly responsible for persuading John D. Rockefeller Jr to become an active supporter of the League of Nations and to fund the splendid League Library.3 Fosdick maintained his strong international commitments throughout the 1930s and during World War II, as is evident in his 1944 speech to the American Public Health Association, excerpted here. In 1946, John D. Rockefeller Jr donated $8.5 million worth of prime Manhattan real estate to become the Headquarters of the United Nations. Using his influence with his friends, the wealthy Rockefeller philanthropists, Fosdick had achieved much to realize Woodrow Wilson’s vision; in 1972, at the age of 89, he died in Newton, Connecticut.