American Liberty League

The American Liberty League was an American political organization formed in 1934, primarily of wealthy business elites and prominent political figures because they opposed the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was highly active for just two years. Following the landslide re-election of Roosevelt in 1936, it sharply reduced its activities and disbanded entirely in 1940.

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 and Al Smith, former Democratic candidates for president; wealthy businessman Irénée du Pont, 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 and the foremost opponent of Prohibition, former director of General Motors and a board member of the DuPont.

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 thy neighbor as thyself."Arthur Krock 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."

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