Commonwealth Club of California
Encyclopedia
The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California
. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States
. Membership is open to everyone.
, culture, society, and the economy. Around 50,000 people attend these events in person annually. It is currently headed by an expert on international security and arms negotiations and former Pentagon official, Dr. Gloria Duffy
. Club events are broadcast on many public and commercial radio stations in the longest-lasting continuous radio program in the nation.
The Club has broadcast its forums since 1924, and current broadcasts are carried weekly by about 230 public and commercial radio stations across the nation. Local residents in the Bay Area can view televised programs from The Club on KGO TV, and video of nearly 500 Club programs is carried on the FORA.tv
web site. The Club also issues podcasts each week that are accessible through iTunes.com and on the Club's website (www.commonwealthclub.org), and a bi-monthly magazine, The Commonwealth, which is available to Club members.
In addition to hosting speeches and panels, The Club has initiated several recent public policy projects. These have included Voices of Reform, a nonpartisan effort to bring together California's policy makers and opinion leaders to improve state governance. Voices of Reform became the independent organization California Forward (www.caforward.org). Similarly, the Club's California Media Project merged into California Watch (www.californiawatch.org), part of The Center for Investigative Reporting. The Club also offers travel programs, with educational trips abroad each year to destinations such as Turkey, Southeast Asia and Iran.
The Commonwealth Club occasionally comes under criticism from people who think it represents one or another political philosophy, and they often center upon criticism of specific speakers with whom the critics disagree. But the Club's more than 400 events a year feature speakers from a wide range of viewpoints—conservative and liberal and moderate and radical, religious and secular, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. And its membership is split about 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats.
Other initial Club members included Bank of America Founder A.P. Giannini, architect Bernard Maybeck, U.S. President Herbert Hoover, Bechtel Corporation founder W. A. Bechtel, members of the Haas family who headed Levi Strauss, Inc., U.S. Senator James Phelan, San Francisco Mayor and California Governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, Matson Navigation founder William P. Roth, Stanford University President Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D. and U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Bank of California/Union Bank Founder William Chapman Ralston, Crown Zellerbach founder J. C. Zellerbach, department store founder Joseph Magnin, California Governor J. N. Gillette, Italian Swiss Colony winery founder Carlo Rossi and Isaias Hellman, prominent West Coast financier and first president of Wells Fargo Bank. Their goal was cooperation on civic betterment in spite of political and ideological differences. Speakers were invited to address Club members to inform them about different perspectives on important issues, after which in its early days the Club membership often issued reports, statements or recommendations on public policy issues.
Leadership of the Club over the years has continued to engage the most prominent and civic-minded Northern Californians. Presidents of the Club in the second half of the 20th Century included actress and Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin and UCSF Chancellor Dr. Julius Krevans. Club members include prominent national leaders like former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Defense Secretary William Perry, as well as the best informed and most thoughtful citizens from professions such as business, law, medicine, teaching, the arts and journalism.
The Club has hosted numerous world-class speakers including many U.S. Presidents and other major political leaders in the USA and abroad, business leaders and influential social activists. Speakers receive no honoraria.
The Club has offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley
. Though the majority of its programs are in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Lafayette
(in the East Bay area northeast of San Francisco), it also hosts occasional events in Sacramento and Southern California.
.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his New Deal
speech at the Club. While in office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
spoke at the Club, as did Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
. During his term as Vice President, Dan Quayle
delivered his famous Murphy Brown
speech to the group. One recent live "Address to the Club" was a wide-ranging discussion with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the end of her 2010 trip to the Balkans. Other major recent speakers include California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman
, California Attorney General Kamala Harris
, former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice
, George Shultz, James Baker
and Madeleine Albright
; California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali
and Greg Mortenson
; microcredit entrepreneur and Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus
; historian Victor Davis Hanson
; airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger
; CIA Director Leon Panetta
; former U.S. Comptroller General and Peter Peterson Foundation President David Walker
, and business leaders Richard Kovacevich
and David O'Reilly
.
Growing out of Study Sections that were formed in the Club's early days, today the Club has fifteen on-going Member-Led Forums, each of which meets frequently to host speakers and engage in discussion on topics including the Arts, Bay Gourmet (food and wine), Asia-Pacific Affairs, Business and Leadership, Environment and Natural Resources, Grownups (second half of life issues), Health and Medicine, Humanities, International Relations, LGBT issues, the Middle East, Personal Growth, Psychology and Science and Technology.
An intensive look at a single subject is sponsored each August through the Club's Platforum, where events are held daily throughout the month on the topic, examined from the perspective of many different fields. Annual Platforum topics have included China Rising (2006), Cool Clear Water (2007), How We Eat (2008), For Richer, for Poorer: Surviving and Thriving in the Great Recession (2009), and The Ascent of Woman (2010). The Platforum series include not just lectures and discussions, but often meals, travel and experiential learning such as kayaking on San Francisco Bay (Cool Clear Water).
One of the most extensive of these studies was commissioned in 1953 and lasted until 1956. It resulted in the book California Social Welfare: Legislation, Financing, Services, Statistics published by Prentice-Hall. Vaughn Davis Bornet, a recent Ph.D. recipient from Stanford University, authored the book.
One current initiative is Climate One, which convenes leaders from business, government and civil society to discuss a low-carbon, global economy. Climate One holds private leadership roundtables as well as public discussions. Recent Climate One guests include California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC Rajendra Pachauri, and General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner.
Another current project is the Club's Social Entrepreneurship series, interviews with American social entrepreneurs that form the basis of a book to be published by Stanford University Press.
Because the Club is strictly non-partisan and does not take positions on issues, when a project matures to the point that policy prescriptions are being considered, as in the case of Voices of Reform, the Club assists the project to become a separate entity from the Club itself.
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Membership is open to everyone.
Activities
The Commonwealth Club has 15,000 members who sponsor over 400 events each year on topics ranging across politicsPolitics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, culture, society, and the economy. Around 50,000 people attend these events in person annually. It is currently headed by an expert on international security and arms negotiations and former Pentagon official, Dr. Gloria Duffy
Gloria Duffy
Gloria Charmian Duffy is a former US defense official and a non-profit executive. Currently she is the President and CEO of the Commonwealth Club of California, the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States....
. Club events are broadcast on many public and commercial radio stations in the longest-lasting continuous radio program in the nation.
The Club has broadcast its forums since 1924, and current broadcasts are carried weekly by about 230 public and commercial radio stations across the nation. Local residents in the Bay Area can view televised programs from The Club on KGO TV, and video of nearly 500 Club programs is carried on the FORA.tv
FORA.tv
FORA.tv, Inc. runs a website that gathers a large collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates at universities, think tanks and conferences....
web site. The Club also issues podcasts each week that are accessible through iTunes.com and on the Club's website (www.commonwealthclub.org), and a bi-monthly magazine, The Commonwealth, which is available to Club members.
In addition to hosting speeches and panels, The Club has initiated several recent public policy projects. These have included Voices of Reform, a nonpartisan effort to bring together California's policy makers and opinion leaders to improve state governance. Voices of Reform became the independent organization California Forward (www.caforward.org). Similarly, the Club's California Media Project merged into California Watch (www.californiawatch.org), part of The Center for Investigative Reporting. The Club also offers travel programs, with educational trips abroad each year to destinations such as Turkey, Southeast Asia and Iran.
The Commonwealth Club occasionally comes under criticism from people who think it represents one or another political philosophy, and they often center upon criticism of specific speakers with whom the critics disagree. But the Club's more than 400 events a year feature speakers from a wide range of viewpoints—conservative and liberal and moderate and radical, religious and secular, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. And its membership is split about 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats.
California Book Awards
The Commonwealth Club sponsors the California Book Awards, which were initiated in 1931 to honor "exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers". Medals (gold and silver) are now awarded in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, First Work of Fiction, Californiana, Young Adult Literature (up to age 10), Juvenile Literature (age 11-16) and Notable Contribution to Publishing. The winning books are selected by an independent jury.History
The Commonwealth Club was founded in 1903. Its motto is "find the truth, and turn it loose in the world," and its mission is the non-partisan study of public affairs. The idea for the Club came from Edward F. Adams, an editorial writer at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. Four prominent California leaders - University of California President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, San Francisco Chronicle Managing Editor John P. Young, San Francisco Normal School (later San Francisco State University) President Frederick Burk, and William P. Lawler, a judge who later became a California Supreme Court Justice - co-founded the organization with Adams.Other initial Club members included Bank of America Founder A.P. Giannini, architect Bernard Maybeck, U.S. President Herbert Hoover, Bechtel Corporation founder W. A. Bechtel, members of the Haas family who headed Levi Strauss, Inc., U.S. Senator James Phelan, San Francisco Mayor and California Governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, Matson Navigation founder William P. Roth, Stanford University President Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D. and U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Bank of California/Union Bank Founder William Chapman Ralston, Crown Zellerbach founder J. C. Zellerbach, department store founder Joseph Magnin, California Governor J. N. Gillette, Italian Swiss Colony winery founder Carlo Rossi and Isaias Hellman, prominent West Coast financier and first president of Wells Fargo Bank. Their goal was cooperation on civic betterment in spite of political and ideological differences. Speakers were invited to address Club members to inform them about different perspectives on important issues, after which in its early days the Club membership often issued reports, statements or recommendations on public policy issues.
Leadership of the Club over the years has continued to engage the most prominent and civic-minded Northern Californians. Presidents of the Club in the second half of the 20th Century included actress and Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin and UCSF Chancellor Dr. Julius Krevans. Club members include prominent national leaders like former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Defense Secretary William Perry, as well as the best informed and most thoughtful citizens from professions such as business, law, medicine, teaching, the arts and journalism.
The Club has hosted numerous world-class speakers including many U.S. Presidents and other major political leaders in the USA and abroad, business leaders and influential social activists. Speakers receive no honoraria.
The Club has offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. Though the majority of its programs are in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Lafayette
Lafayette Library and Learning Center
The Lafayette Library and Learning Center is a library and learning center in Lafayette, California that opened in 2009. The Lafayette Library and Learning Center is also home to the Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium, a partnership with the region’s leading arts, culture, and educational...
(in the East Bay area northeast of San Francisco), it also hosts occasional events in Sacramento and Southern California.
Speakers
The list of notable speakers and speeches numbers in the thousands and includes domestic and foreign political and military leaders, Nobel prize-winning scientists, authors, activists, and artists. A book of important Club speeches, Each a Mighty Voice, was published in 2004 by Heyday BooksHeyday Books
Heyday Books is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California.Heyday was founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974 when he wrote, typeset, designed, and distributed The East Bay Out, a guide to the natural history of the hills and bayshore around Berkeley and Oakland...
.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
speech at the Club. While in office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
spoke at the Club, as did Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
. During his term as Vice President, Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
delivered his famous Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988, to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television...
speech to the group. One recent live "Address to the Club" was a wide-ranging discussion with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the end of her 2010 trip to the Balkans. Other major recent speakers include California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman
Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman is an American business executive. She is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard. A native of Long Island, New York, she is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School...
, California Attorney General Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris is an American attorney. She is the 32nd and current Attorney General of California following the 2010 California state elections. Harris has worked as an author and a politician and has served as District Attorney of San Francisco since 2004...
, former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, George Shultz, James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...
and Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...
; California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
and Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson, SPk is an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer, and former mountaineer. He is the co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute as well as the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace...
; microcredit entrepreneur and Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...
; historian Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, notable as a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and other media outlets...
; airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger
Chesley Sullenberger
Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III is an American airline transport pilot , safety expert, and accident investigator from Danville, California...
; CIA Director Leon Panetta
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is the 23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama since 2011. Prior to taking office, he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...
; former U.S. Comptroller General and Peter Peterson Foundation President David Walker
David M. Walker (U.S. Comptroller General)
David M. Walker served as United States Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008, and is now the Founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative.- Career as Comptroller General :...
, and business leaders Richard Kovacevich
Richard Kovacevich
Richard M. "Dick" Kovacevich, is retired chairman of the board of directors and previous CEO of Wells Fargo & Company.A native of Tacoma, Washington, he grew up in Enumclaw, Washington. At Stanford University he received BS and MS degrees in industrial engineering, followed by an MBA degree from...
and David O'Reilly
David O'Reilly
David O'Reilly may refer to:* David O'Reilly , Irish filmmaker and artist* David O'Reilly, BBC Northern Ireland presenter more commonly known as Rigsy* David J. O'Reilly , chairman of Chevron Corporation...
.
Growing out of Study Sections that were formed in the Club's early days, today the Club has fifteen on-going Member-Led Forums, each of which meets frequently to host speakers and engage in discussion on topics including the Arts, Bay Gourmet (food and wine), Asia-Pacific Affairs, Business and Leadership, Environment and Natural Resources, Grownups (second half of life issues), Health and Medicine, Humanities, International Relations, LGBT issues, the Middle East, Personal Growth, Psychology and Science and Technology.
An intensive look at a single subject is sponsored each August through the Club's Platforum, where events are held daily throughout the month on the topic, examined from the perspective of many different fields. Annual Platforum topics have included China Rising (2006), Cool Clear Water (2007), How We Eat (2008), For Richer, for Poorer: Surviving and Thriving in the Great Recession (2009), and The Ascent of Woman (2010). The Platforum series include not just lectures and discussions, but often meals, travel and experiential learning such as kayaking on San Francisco Bay (Cool Clear Water).
Projects
Over the years a number of issues have been studied in-depth by Club leaders, member committees, or scholars commissioned by The Commonwealth Club. Among the topics studied have been direct democracy (the initiative process), air pollution, a statewide water plan, restrictions on child labor, automobile and industrial accident compensation, and legislative procedures. The long-standing mandate of many such studies has been "to investigate and discuss problems affecting the welfare of the Commonwealth and to aid in their solution." Many policy innovations in California - such as public defenders' offices and a printed voter explanation booklet to go with ballots - originated in studies and discussions at the Commonwealth Club.One of the most extensive of these studies was commissioned in 1953 and lasted until 1956. It resulted in the book California Social Welfare: Legislation, Financing, Services, Statistics published by Prentice-Hall. Vaughn Davis Bornet, a recent Ph.D. recipient from Stanford University, authored the book.
One current initiative is Climate One, which convenes leaders from business, government and civil society to discuss a low-carbon, global economy. Climate One holds private leadership roundtables as well as public discussions. Recent Climate One guests include California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC Rajendra Pachauri, and General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner.
Another current project is the Club's Social Entrepreneurship series, interviews with American social entrepreneurs that form the basis of a book to be published by Stanford University Press.
Because the Club is strictly non-partisan and does not take positions on issues, when a project matures to the point that policy prescriptions are being considered, as in the case of Voices of Reform, the Club assists the project to become a separate entity from the Club itself.
External links
- Video of Commonwealth Club panel discussion - Golden Gate Park Under Siege
- Commonwealth Club of California Podcast Feed
- Commonwealth Club of California INFORUM Podcast Feed
- Commonwealth Club of California
- Commonwealth Club of California Video @ FORA.tv
- The Commonwealth Club of California records at the Hoover Institution Archives includes sound recordings of Commonwealth Club of California radio programs