{"value"=>"<p>The Executive Council was the governing body of NCF. Chaired by Ralph Easley, it consisted of the current president of NCF as presiding officer, two vice presidents, and chairmen of departments. The members of the council, such as Vincent Astor, Gertrude Beeks Easley, Marshall Fields, Jeremiah Jenks, Samuel Gompers, Seth Low, George W. Perkins, Maude Wetmore, and Talcott Williams, determined the social, economic, and political issues NCF would study and the patriotic causes it would support. The indefatigable and persuasive Ralph Easley was an active chairman, drawing on his skills as a journalist in writing the bulk of the council's (and, by and large, the Federation's) general correspondence and memoranda, and serving as an informed advisor to department and committee chairmen. Easley was a catalyst, and as a rule the work of the Executive Council has his stamp on it, even when it was presided over by others, including such commanding figures as Seth Low, Andrew Carnegie, Elihu Root, Jeremiah Jenks, Talcott Williams, and Samuel Gompers.</p> <p>The meetings of the Executive Council during the period 1916-1919 were dominated by the war in Europe. Among the subjects discussed were the adjustments that would have to be made to economic and industrial arrangements if the United States entered the war; which of the measures devised by the government pertaining to labor and capital should be retained after the war; what mandatory changes in immigration laws could be expected as a result of the war; and the problems linked to the demobilization of the armed forces and the conversion of industries back to pre-war production. One issue that caused great concern in the council during the war was the rise in the United States of a movement of pacifists, socialists, Irish revolutionaries, and German spies which, in the council's opinion, comprised an international conspiracy committed to putting an end to colonialism and nationalism. The unstable economy of the 1920s and 1930s, and the fear of revolution, focused the Council's attention on the Soviet Union and communist agitation in the United States. This anti-communism set the tone for much of NCF's post-World War I activities right up to the beginning of the Cold War.</p> <p>The chronologically arranged correspondence relates to meetings and consists chiefly of form-letter invitations to members of the Executive Council and its subordinate Executive Committee and guest speakers, and responses. Some of the correspondents are Carrie Chapman Catt, Coleman du Pont, and Samuel Gompers. Also in the records are miscellaneous papers including minutes of meetings (both the stenographer's official version and excerpts), shorthand notes, speeches, remarks, lists of names, and statistics.</p> <p>The records of the meetings of the Executive Council and the Executive Committee have been integrated into one chronological sequence -- the council records for a particular year preceding the committee records for that year. It is sometimes difficult to identify which records were created by the Executive Council and which by the Executive Committee. Whenever unclear, the records were arranged on the basis of the sense of the texts. The duties of the Executive Committee included hosting dinner-conferences focussing on different questions. The members were divided into three sections representing the public, the employers, and labor, and included Nicholas M. Butler, Louis Coolidge, George Cortelyou, Samuel Gompers, Timothy Healy, Franklin MacVeagh, Ogden Mills, Warren S. Stone, and William H. Taft. The correspondence consists almost completely of invitations to attend meetings.</p>"}