FINAL WARNING: The Council on Foreign Relations
Allied governments), which gave him a key role in the Wilson
Administration.At the age of 70, he took over the leadership of the Institute for
Government Research (IGR, founded by lawyer and economist
Frederick A. Cleveland in 1916), and raised $750,000 from 92
corporations and a dozen private citizens, to get it moving. Their first
project was to push for legislation creating a federal budget, which
was successful. The first U.S. Budget Director, under President
Harding, was Charles G. Dawes, who relied heavily on the IGR’s staff.
The Institute was also involved in civil service reform legislation in the
1920’s. Among their members: Supreme Court Chief Justice William
Howard Taft (who was Chief Justice from 1921-30, after his
Presidential term), Herbert Hoover (President, 1929-32), and Elihu Root.Brookings decided that economics was the biggest issue, and not the
administrative aspects that the Institute was covering, so in June,
1922, with a $1,650,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation, he
established the Institute of Economics to represent the interests of the
labor unions and the general public. In 1924, he established the Robert
S. Brookings School of Economics and Government (an outgrowth of
Washington University in St. Louis), to allow doctoral students to
spend time in Washington, D.C. to work on the staffs of the IGR and
the Institute of Economics.In 1927, he merged all three organizations to form the Brookings
Institution, whose purpose was to train future government officials. He
put $6 million, and 36 years of his life, into the nonpartisan, nonprofit
center, which analyze government problems, and issue statistical
reports. They produce an annual report, Setting National Priorities,
which analyze the President’s Budget.Their headquarters is an eight story building, eight blocks from the
White House, at 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. They have a staff of
about 250, including about 45 senior fellows and 19 research
associates. Salaries go as high a $40,000 a year.After serving close to ten years in the State Department, Leo
Pasvolsky returned to the Brookings Institution in 1946, along with six
other members of the State Department. With the financial backing of