Social Democratic League of America

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The Social Democratic League of America (SDLA) was a short-lived social-democratic political party established in 1917 by electorally-oriented socialists who favored the participation of the United States in World War I. Led by such intellectuals as John Spargo, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, and William English Walling, the SDLA maintained effective control over the venerable American socialist newspaper The Appeal to Reason (then known as The New Appeal) during 1918, the year of the group's greatest public influence.

Claiming a membership of 2,500 at its peak — a number possibly inflated — the SDLA achieved some limited success in building support for the military effort among the wavering socialists of France and Great Britain during the last weary months of the war. Following the end of the European fighting, the SDLA lost much of its raison d'être and dissolved amidst personal acrimony, as did the National Party, a parallel political umbrella organization with which it was closely associated.