From Book to Movement
Since 1939, Streit's organization has sought to keep the principles of federalism and their application to international integration before world leaders and the public. Today, the Streit Council carries this legacy forward by working to unite democracies as the basis for greater individual freedom, international solidarity, and global peace.
Union Now!
The Origins of Streit's Vision for a Postwar Order
Throughout the 1930s, Clarence K. Streit – the New York Times correspondent at the League of Nations – witnessed the rise of Hitler-Mussolini-Hirohito totalitarian forces, and the failure of Western democracies to agree on measures to enable the League to work. Alarmed, he published his landmark book Union Now: A Proposal for a Federal Union of the Leading Democracies in 1939.
The book called for a federal union of democratic nations, which Streit hoped would prevent a second world war. As Streit saw it, the union would have a common foreign policy, defense force and economy, enabling it to deter, and if necessary defeat, any combination of dictatorships of the time. It would also become the nucleus of an expanding area of democratic government as people in Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia would seek to join rather than fight it.
More than a response to crisis, Streit envisoned federative beginning: an institutional form that could scale liberty, bind its members, and grow by consent. Streit drew from the U.S. founding tradition of the compound republic, in which free peoples federate without dissolving into a unitary state. Crucially, this union would derive its authority from individuals, not just states, making citizenship, not sovereignty, its operative foundation.
"There is a world of difference between the motives behind Union and those behind...the present policy in each democracy of arming for itself or the proposals for alliance among the democracies."
- Clarence K. Streit, Union Now (1939)
1940-1944
Following Union Now's publication, a spontaneous movement was born—Federal Union, Inc. The movement had a leading role in the WWII debate on world organization. It shaped public and elite debates in the United States and the world. As war intensified, Federal Union members worked alongside other internationalist organizations and yet made their support conditional to the creation of an alternative world order based on federative structures. Federal Union members and supporters were among the leaders of organizations that, in close cooperation with the Roosevelt Administration, helped bring the United States from neutrality to intervention in World War II. [1]
1945-1949
In 1945, Streit’s proposal helped pave the way for the formation of a more carefully structured international organization: the United Nations. Post-World War II Euro-Atlantic structures were, in certain respects, a delayed outcome of the movement for international federation. In 1949, Federal Union members founded the Atlantic Union Committee (AUC), a political action group that played a significant role in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). AUC's officers included Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, Secretary of War Robert Patterson, Under Secretary of State Will Clayton, and Elmo Roper of Roper Polls. Prime Minister of Canada Lester Pearson was also a strong supporter, as were many leaders in Europe.
1950-1967
During the 1950s, Federal Union and AUC pursued initiatives that led to the formation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In 1959, they held the Atlantic Congress in London, which 600 leaders from NATO nations attended.[2] They also called the Atlantic Convention, held in Paris in 1962 to work out a plan for a true Atlantic Community, and this resulted in the Declaration of Paris.[3] During this time, federalists also appeared before Congress to promote a transatlantic vision.[4]
1968-1979
The 1970s marked a pivotal moment when Federal Union leaders began to examine and readjust their strategies for encouraging global democratic cooperation. By 1978, Board members of Federal Union formed the Committee (later renamed Council) for a Community of Democracies, which developed plans for an organization of the world's democracies. These plans were subsequently championed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, leading to the "Community of Democracies" coalition that has met several times.
1980-Present
During the 1980s, Federal Union- renamed the Association to Unite the Democracies (AUD) in 1985- started to pivot its attention to the major democratic reformist movements taking place in Eastern Europe. It was the first Western organization to foresee the expansion of the EU and NATO in the event of Communism’s retreat. It also proposed that the opportunity be used to deepen Western integration along democratic lines while opening the door to the East.
In 2002, AUD held a conference in Moscow to explore the future of U.S.-Russian relations, with a focus on reconciling the security concerns of both sides as a path toward permanent East-West structures of democratic integration.[5] Participants included Strobe Talbott, a former Deputy Secretary of State; Robert Hunter, a former ambassador to NATO; and their Russian counterparts. While the union that Streit sought is still only half-formed at best in its structures, his vision of the spread of democratic government has materialized as the people of Germany, Italy, Japan, Eastern Europe and Russia successively sought to join European and Atlantic institutions that were built in the spirit of Streit's proposal - or in the case of Japan, extended Atlantic-Pacific institutions such as the OECD and G7.
[1] See the articles of incorporation: Federal Union Inc., “Certificate of Amendment of the Certificate of Incorporation of Federal Union, Inc.,” March 1984.
[2] “Proceedings and Debates of the 99th Congress, Second Session: History of the North Atlantic Assembly,” Congressional Record (1986).
[3] “Declaration of Paris,” reprinted in Freedom & Union, February-March 1962.
[4] “Statement of D. Bruce Shine” in “Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Eighty-Ninth Congress, Second Session on Pending Resolutions to Establish an Atlantic Union Delegation,” August 30-31 and September 1, 8 and 20, 1966.
[5] “Euro-Atlantic Integration and Russia After September 11,” conference, May 30-31, 2002.
For Additional Resources on Streit Council History
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The Streit Council’s digital collections bring history right to your screen. Spanning decades of thought, advocacy, and policy, these archives feature rare documents, photographs, and publications that illuminate the Council’s mission to promote democratic cooperation and a united transatlantic community. Whether you’re a researcher, student, or curious reader, you can explore these materials from anywhere in the world—connecting past visions with present challenges and future possibilities.
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