League to Enforce Peace (U.S.)

The League's program, adopted upon its organization in June 1915, was to support the United States as it joined the League of Nations at the end of the first World War. The League was criticized by pacifist organizations for its apparent advocacy of the use of force to enforce peace. Former President William Howard Taft was the League's President.

League to Enforce Peace (U.S.) [LEP] was founded in New York City in 1914 by wealthy citizens alarmed at the outbreak of WWI. Its purpose was to work in the U.S. to establish an international organization to ensure world peace. The League's secretary was William H. Short; it's president, former U.S. President William Howard Taft. The League did not associate itself with pacifist opposition to WWI. With the establishment of the League of Nations,the LEP took upon itself organizing political and grassroot support for the association of the U.S. with the League of Nations. The LEP was moribund after the elections of 1920 and ceased to exist in 1923.