How We Began
In 1935 a group of Louisville businessmen, including
Henley V. Bastin, Samuel Greenbaum, J. Edward Hardy, J. Van Dyke Norman Jr., and
Charles G. Tachau, formed an organization known as the Louisville Branch of Southern
Regional Council. Bastin was superintendent of the Lousiville and Jefferson
County Children's Home. Greenbaum was a lawyer and later became senior partner of
Greenbaum, Doll and McDonald. Hardy was president of Brinly-Hardy Co., manufacturers
of farm equipment. Norman was vice president of Kentucky Title Trust Co. (now First
Kentucky Trust Co.), and later became chairman of First National Bank Trustees
(National City Bank). Tachau was an insurance agent and later became senior partner
of E.S. Tachau & Sons, Inc.
This organization was created at the suggestion of Francis Pickens Miller, A Virginia
legislator, a Rhodes Scholar and a student of government, and Raymond Leslie
Buell, both of whom served as coordinators between the Southern Regional Council and
branches in various cities in the southern part of the United States.
The purpose of the Southern Regional Council was to study issues affecting the
southern states to determine why the economy of the South was lagging behind most of
the other states, also to develop ideas of what might be done to improve this
situation. A year or two later the scope of studies by members of the Southern
Regional Council was broadened to include the study of pressing national problems,
and the name was changed to the National Policy Committee.
In 1937, the Council on Foreign Relations (founded 1921),
contemplating the crisis developing in Europe prior to World War II, decided to
promote serious discussion of international affairs by leading citizens in widely
separated communities in the United States. The Council provided its members the
opportunity to hear the views of foreign policy experts from the U.S. and abroad.
The creation of the organization was strongly influenced by the disappointing outcome
of the Versailles negotiations (in which most of the founding members had been
participants), and by the short-sited rejection, as they saw it, by the United States
of membership in the League of Nations.
They proposed the following structure for regional study and discussion groups.
- Each group would be an autonomous committee.
- Membership would be limited.
- Freedom of discussion would be assured.
- Discussions would be “off the record” and only for the enlightenment of the members.
- Committees would not serve as action groups nor sponsor particular policies.
A grant for $37,500.00 was obtained from the Carnegie Corporation in
1937. Using part of this grant, the Council retained Francis Pickens Miller to survey
selected cities and he was given authority to organize the proposed committees. Miller’s
tour during the spring of 1938 included the Louisville Branch of the Southern
Regional Council.
The Louisville Branch members liked the idea of expanding their scope to include
foreign affairs, but would agree to become the Louisville Committee only on the
condition that some of their meeting would be restricted to other national or
regional issues. While this condition was accepted by the Council on Foreign
Relations, international problems became so important with the outbreak of war in
Europe that the Louisville Committee concentrated discussions on them after the first
year or two of meetings.
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