Page:Russian-American Relations - ed. Caroline King Cumming and Walter William Pettit (1920).djvu/9



The League of Free Nations Association, through encouragement of research by competent scholars, through the organization of study groups and open forums in all parts of the country, and by means of its own publications, is working for a liberal and constructive American foreign policy. It stands for America's entrance into the present League of Nations with the object of aiding its development into a truly democratic and world-inclusive organization.

It is axiomatic that upon the re-establishment of normal cultural, commercial, and political relations with the Russian people depends any adequate solution of the problems of food supply and the revival of industry and trade which involve the whole world. In the belief that the first requisite for the renewal of these essential relationships between the United States and Russia is a fuller knowledge of our Government's Russian policy during the past three years, this Association on August 2, 1919, invited Dr. John A. Ryan, Mr. J. Henry Scattergood, and Mr. William Allen White to direct a study of Russian-American relations since the overthrow of the tsar.

The result is this volume of documents which, because of its objective and non-partisan character will, we believe, contribute towards the formation of an enlightened public opinion on this most important aspect of our foreign relations.

This Association plans to conduct, as one of its activities, further investigations of similar character into other phases of our foreign policy.

3em Chairman of the League of Free Nations Association.