American Liberty League
The American Liberty League was a political organization founded on August 15, 1934, primarily by prominent business leaders and politicians who opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. The league presented itself as a nonpartisan entity dedicated to defending the Constitution and individual liberties, featuring leadership that included both Democrats and Republicans. However, the group was characterized by its conservative stance, advocating for free markets, personal responsibility, and the preservation of private property. It argued that the New Deal was unconstitutional and posed a threat of socialism to American enterprise.
Despite ambitions to recruit a mass membership of up to four million, the league never exceeded 75,000 members and primarily represented elite business interests. It engaged in extensive public relations efforts to communicate its views, distributing millions of publications that critiqued Roosevelt's administration. However, public perception turned against the league, particularly after a notable speech by one of its leaders that drew criticism for being out of touch with the economic realities of the time. Following Roosevelt's decisive reelection in 1936, the league's influence waned, leading to its eventual disbandment in September 1940, after losing key financial support.
American Liberty League
Identification Nongovernmental organization opposing the New Deal
Also known as Liberty League
Date Established on August 15, 1934
In the interests of business, the American Liberty League opposed the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It engaged in an extensive public-relations campaign to convince the American public that Roosevelt was subverting the Constitution and the free market system. Democrats were successful in portraying the group as representing the same forces that caused the Great Depression.
Many business leaders opposed President Roosevelt’s New Deal from the beginning of his administration in 1933. However, there was no single organization that united the various segments of the business community to publicly oppose the president. This changed on August 15, 1934, with the formal pronouncement of the founding of the American Liberty League.
The organization described itself as a nonpartisan group founded to protect the Constitution and preserve liberty. To reinforce this nonpartisanship, the leadership of the American Liberty League was composed of three prominent Democrats (including the 1924 and 1928 nominees for president, John W. Davis and Alfred E. Smith) and three Republicans. Nevertheless, from the start, the fact that the group was composed of conservative politicians and business interests that opposed the policies of Roosevelt was apparent. Undergirding this opposition was a belief in free markets, personal responsibility, and private property. The American Liberty League argued that the New Deal was unconstitutional and would lead to socialism and the demise of private enterprise. To stop the perceived threat of the New Deal, the league’s primary objective became defeating Roosevelt in his bid for reelection in 1936.
Leadership of the American Liberty League sought to build a broad-based organization that incorporated all facets of American society. Its goal was a mass membership of three to four million people. However, the league never had more than seventy-five thousand members and remained primarily an organization of prominent members of the business community.
Described as a “Who’s Who” of American business leadership, the league’s members helped fund an expensive campaign to defeat Roosevelt. They created a sophisticated public-relations system to relate their agenda to the press and ultimately the American public. From the league’s inception until the 1936 presidential election, the league sent to media outlets more than five million copies of 177 publications that they had produced. These publications, along with frequent editorials, consistently carried the theme of the organization: Roosevelt was presiding over the demise of the American way of life and leading the country toward a nightmarish future of governmental control.
Roosevelt and the Democratic Party were able to use the affluence of the American Liberty League against it. They portrayed the league’s members as the cause of the economic failures that led to the Great Depression and claimed that its ideas of laissez-faire economics and small government were rooted in its own economic self-interest rather than the interest of the common person.
Ultimately the league came to be viewed by the public as out of touch with the economic realities of the 1930’s. This perception was crystallized when Smith gave a speech before an affluent crowd of league supporters at the exclusive Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on January 25, 1936. Smith implied that members of the Roosevelt administration were more in tune with Karl Marx and the Soviet Union than with the founders of the United States. His speech received widespread attention and the extreme views voiced were ultimately seen as helping the cause of the New Deal and marginalizing the American Liberty League politically.
The overwhelming reelection victory of Roosevelt in 1936 signaled the beginning of the end for the American Liberty League. Stung by its massive defeat, the leadership of the league ended its attempts to persuade public opinion. It cut its staff and focused on providing Congress with analyses of New Deal legislation. The group hung on for several more years but disbanded in September, 1940, when the last of its major funders withdrew support.
Impact
The American Liberty League was the most vocal and well-financed lobbying group of the 1930’s. Backed by prominent businessmen, the organization labeled New Deal legislation as contrary to traditional views of the Constitution, the role of government in society, and personal responsibility. The group never gained public support because its objectives ran counter to the public opinion of the 1930’s.
Bibliography
Archer, Jules. The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR. New York: Skyhorse, 2007.
Wolfskill, George. All but the People: Franklin D. Roosevelt and His Critics, 1933-39. New York: Macmillan, 1969.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934-1940. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.