Gilbert Jonas

One Shining Moment: a Short History of the American Student World Federalist Movement 1942-1953 Gilbert Jonas

During the darkest hours of World War II, a Scarsdale, NY, high school student experienced a "vision" of the possibilities of a peaceful postwar world. From this mystical moment came the most powerful American student movement of the postwar decadethe Student Federalistswho pressed their elders and their contemporaries to consider the establishment of a world government based on the same principles which guided our nation's Founding Fathers more than a century-and-a-half earlier. Damned by the fanatics of the extreme right, and of the extreme left, the Student Federalists rapidly expanded after VJ Day, reaching a high point of some 15,000 members and almost four hundred local chapters. No student movement ever grew as fast and as broadly as the Student Federalist between 1943 and 1949. Nor did any fade as precipitously in the face of a widening Cold War. Few other American movements have produced so many future leaders in academia, politics, international aid and public affairs as did this non-partisan and non-sectarian phenomenon. This storynever told beforeis documented by the correspondence, proceedings and news articles of the student participants and includes a 150-page appendix containing scores of documents, essays, statements of purpose, and official pamphlets.