American Liberty League
Encyclopedia
The American Liberty League was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 political organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats
History of the United States Democratic Party
The history of the Democratic Party of the United States is an account of the oldest political party in the United States and arguably the oldest democratic party in the world....

 to oppose the 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...

 of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

. It was active for just two years. Following the landslide re-election of Roosevelt in 1936, it sharply reduced its activities and disbanded in 1940.

Formation and leadership

The creation of the League was announced in Washington, D.C., on August 22, 1934, by a group of Democrats and a smaller number of Republicans. Jouett Shouse, who had been prominent in Democratic politics and the anti-Prohibition movement, became the group's first chairman. The makeup of the League's executive committee was designed to demonstrate its bipartisan nature. It included: John W. Davis
John W. Davis
John William Davis was an American politician, diplomat and lawyer. He served as a United States Representative from West Virginia , then as Solicitor General of the United States and US Ambassador to the UK under President Woodrow Wilson...

 and Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...

, former Democratic candidates for president; wealthy businessman Irénée du Pont
Irénée du Pont
Irénée du Pont was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.-Biography:A descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, he graduated from Andover in 1894 and MIT in 1897, then worked for Fenn’s Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before...

, who left the Republicans to support Al Smith in 1928 and Roosevelt in 1932; and two New York Republicans, Nathan L. Miller, the state's former governor, and Representative James W. Wadsworth. The moving spirit behind the launch of the organization was John Jacob Raskob, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

 and the foremost opponent of prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...

, former director of General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 and a board member of the DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

.

Reaction to the League formation was generally skeptical of its non-partisan nature. President Roosevelt told a press conference that the League seemed founded "to uphold two of the Ten Commandments," stopping at protecting property and drawing no inspiration from the command to "Love they neighbor as thyself." Arthur Krock
Arthur Krock
Arthur Krock was a journalist and received the nickname "Dean of Washington newsmen". Born in Glasgow, Kentucky in 1887, he grew up with his grandparents, Emmanuel and Henrietta Morris...

 wrote a few weeks later, just after the November election, that the League was prepared to announce more eminent members of its leadership group "to eradicate the purely political and anti-administration tinge that colored the league in the beginning."

The League proceeded to name a National Executive Committee of 25 and a National Advisory Council of about 200. Those named constituted a geographically diverse group, almost all drawn from the upper echelons of American industry. Among the notable exceptions were Hollywood movie producer Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

 and naval hero Richmond Pearson Hobson
Richmond Pearson Hobson
Richmond Pearson Hobson was a United States Navy Rear Admiral who served from 1907-1915 as a U.S. Representative from Alabama...

. More typical were Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation...

 of General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 and J. Howard Pew
J. Howard Pew
J. Howard Pew was an American philanthropist and co-founder of Sunoco .Joseph Howard Pew was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1882 and raised as a devout Presbyterian. In 1886 Pew’s father, Joseph Newton Pew, Sr. started an oil business in Pennsylvania, expanding to Texas when oil was discovered...

 of Sun Oil Company.

Membership exceeded 36,000 in July 1935, only 27% of whom were contributors. It doubled by January 1936, peaked at 125,000 in the middle of 1936, and then declined rapidly following the 1936 election.

The League targeted college students for membership and had particular success at state universities. There were 345 chapters with more than 10,000 members by April 1936. Academics played a variety of roles. For example, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 economist Walter Spahr gave speeches that the League reproduced in pamphlet form, though an attempt to organize a committee of academic economists failed.

Philosophy

The League said in its founding statement that it was a "nonpartisan organization founded to defend the Constitution and defend the rights and liberties guaranteed by that Constitution." It eschewed participation in elections. Its stated goal was:
to teach the necessity of respect for the rights of persons and property as fundamental to every form of government...to teach the duty of government, to encourage and protect individual and group initiative and enterprise, to foster the right to work, earn, save and acquire property, and to preserve the ownership and lawful use of property when acquired.


It proposed to educate the public and legislators on legislative issues. In particular, it proposed to help the Roosevelt administration with its research and denied it was anti-Roosevelt either at present or with regard to the 1936 presidential election.

Financing

On the national level, the League's total expenditures over its six-year life amounted to $1,200,000, with more than a million of that being spent during its most active months before the 1936 election. Wealthy donors dominated, so that "fewer than two dozen bankers, industrialists, and businessmen" accounted for more than half the League's 1935 monies on the national level, with the du Pont family
Du Pont family
The Du Pont family is an American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours . The son of a Paris watchmaker and a member of a Burgundian noble family, he and his sons, Victor Marie du Pont and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, emigrated to the United States in 1800 and used the resources of...

 responsible for 30% of the total. The next year, 30 donors provided two-thirds of the funds and the du Ponts' share of the total exceeded 25%. Few continued to contribute after the 1936 elections.

During the 1936 campaign, Postmaster General James Farley
James Farley
James Aloysius Farley was the first Irish Catholic politician in American history to achieve success on a national level, serving as Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as Postmaster General simultaneously under the first two...

, FDR's campaign manager, mocked it as the "du Pont Liberty League."

Under attack

The League came under heavy attack from the Left. In 1934 General Smedley Butler
Smedley Butler
Smedley Darlington Butler was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S...

, a speaker who denounced bankers, said the League was plotting to overthrow the government and wanted Butler to lead the coup. No evidence of him having contact with the League was presented.

Education campaign

The League produced 135 pamphlets during its first two years, printed for easy distribution by mail. Half of them originated as speeches or radio addresses delivered by League officers or its most prominent supporters. A total of more than 5 copies went to newspapers and government agencies, public and college libraries, all members of Congress, and other political groups, often generating new stories and reports in other publications. It also produced 2-page monthly bulletins in a more popular style, but distributed to the same audience as the pamphlets. A different promotional tactic that downplayed the role of the League itself was the creation of a syndicated news service. Before its discontinuation near the end of 1936, the League reached 1600 newspapers through the Western Newspaper Union. Finally, the League took advantage of offers of free radio time.

Issues

Regarding the controversial NRA
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...

, the League was ambivalent. Jouett Shouse, the League president commented that "the NRA has indulged in unwarranted excesses of attempted regulation"; on the other, he added that "in many regards [the NRA] has served a useful purpose." Shouse said that he had "deep sympathy" with the goals of the NRA, explaining, "While I feel very strongly that the prohibition of child labor, the maintenance of a minimum wage and the limitation of the hours of work belong under our form of government in the realm of the affairs of the different states, yet I am entirely willing to agree that in the case of an overwhelming national emergency the Federal Government for a limited period should be permitted to assume jurisdiction of them."

The League labeled Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Administration "a trend toward Fascist control of agriculture" and supported the Farmers Independence Council of America
Farmers Independence Council of America
The Farmers Independence Council of America was an American political organization formed in the 1930s to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's effort to reform American agriculture through the Agricultural Adjustment Act during the Great Depression...

 to oppose the administration. Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...

 was said to "mark the end of democracy."

Lawyers for the American Liberty League challenged the validity of the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), but in 1937, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...

 accused the League of hiring detectives to infiltrate labor unions and incite strikes and violence.

1936 campaign

Roosevelt’s campaign manager accused the Liberty League of being an "ally of the Republican National Committee" which would "squeeze the worker dry in his old age and cast him like an orange rind into the refuse pail."

The Republican campaign, not content with the League's declaration of non-partisanship, asked it to "stay aloof from too close alliance with the Landon campaign." FDR's campaign manager used that information as the basis for saying that the League had behaved so badly that it "had to be repudiated by the regular Republican organization," further drawing the League into protestations of nonpartisanship that highlighted its partisan role.

Dissolution

Following the 1936 elections in which FDR won by a landslide
United States presidential election, 1936
The United States presidential election of 1936 was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes. In terms of the popular vote, it was the third biggest victory since the election of 1820, which was not seriously contested.The election took...

 and his party expanded its majorities in both houses of Congress, the League eliminated its public activities and restricted itself to reviewing legislation and sending its assessments to members of Congress. A small national staff remained, but all state and local offices closed. Only the 3 du Pont brothers, Irénée
Irénée du Pont
Irénée du Pont was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.-Biography:A descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, he graduated from Andover in 1894 and MIT in 1897, then worked for Fenn’s Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before...

, Lammot
Lammot du Pont II
Lammot du Pont II was an American businessman who was the head of the du Pont family's E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company for 22 years....

 and Pierre
Pierre S. du Pont
Pierre Samuel du Pont was president of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company from 1915 to 1919, and served on its Board of Directors until 1940...

, financed the organization, until the du Ponts decided to devote as much of their financial resources as possible to Republican Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...

's 1940 campaign. The League closed its Washington office in September 1940.

Later mentions

In 1940, Pulitzer
Pulitzer
Pulitzer may refer to:* Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award* Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain* Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization for journalists- People :...

-prize winning Washington reporter and later columnist Thomas L. Stokes looked back on the American Liberty League and called it "a very vulnerable straw man" for New Deal Democrats. FDR wanted to run in 1936, he wrote, without emphasizing his Democratic identity. The League's alliance of conservative Democrats "in whom the rank and file long ago had lost confidence" like Al Smith with "conservative Republicans, among whom were lawyers for great corporations" helped President Roosevelt's backers to present him as a man independent of traditional politicians and political alliances.

In 1950, President Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

branded critics who labeled his programs "socialism" as the heirs of the Liberty League of the 1930s.

Sources

  • John Braeman, Robert H. Bremner and David Brody, eds., The New Deal: The National Level. (Ohio State University Press, 1975)
  • Douglas B. Craig, After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920-1934 (University of North Carolina Press, 1992)
  • Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal (NY: W.W. Norton, 2009)
  • Frederick Rudolph, "The American Liberty League, 1934-1940," American Historical Review 56 (October 1950): 19-33, in JSTOR
  • Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine (University Press of Kentucky, 1998), ISBN 0-8131-0957-4
  • Ronen Shamir, Managing Legal Uncertainty: Elite Lawyers in the New Deal (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995)
  • George Wolfskill, The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934-1940 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962)

External links

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