THE NEGLECTED HALF

The new student membership announced by the Foreign Policy Association is an important step toward doing away with a situation in the United States which has become increasingly glaring since the commencement of Mr. Roosevelt's erstwhile New Deal.

Since the decline of "American imperialism" almost a generation ago, American foreign affairs have been carried on in a manner at once negligent, piecemeal, and confused. Intelligent work by the government has been almost completely restricted to domestic affairs, and the present regime in Washington is devoting a still smaller proportion of its energy to foreign policy. Americans of the more intelligent sort, who should know better, have gradually come to the point of assuming that a foreign policy is a superfluous luxury needed only by the squabbling countries of Europe, with the result, that America has generally substituted marines, battleships, and the speeches of such men as Senator Hiram Johnson, for an intelligent integrated policy.

A consciousness of the necessity of a definite foreign policy and a knowledge of the means by which that policy can be worked out are indispensable in any country. Also, the people of a nation must be able to judge the value of the foreign policy pursued by their statesmen. The aim of the Foreign Policy Association is to make Americans aware of the importance of an intelligent foreign policy and also of the importance of a large group of people capable of criticizing the foreign policy pursued by their government. The student membership which the Foreign Policy Association is offering will be welcomed by all who believe that modern government has two parts--the domestic and the foreign.