Radicals, including socialists, anarchists, and syndicalists, argued that capitalism, imperialism, and the competition for markets caused the war. The Socialist Party of America (SP) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were the most important radical groups to oppose the war and the draft. In April 1917, the SP condemned the war, opposed American intervention, and vowed support for "all mass movements" against conscription. The IWW, a revolutionary industrial union opposed to capitalism and militarism whose members were known as Wobblies, led wartime strikes that disrupted wartime production. Individual radicals also opposed the war, including anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who formed the No-Conscription League, which prompted their arrest.
Pacifists formed a number of organizations to oppose the conflict and the preparedness campaign. Jessie Wallace Hughan, a New York socialist pacifist feminist, founded the Anti-Enlistment League (1915), which collected pledges of war resistance to persuade the government to stay out of the conflict. The liberal American Union Against Militarism (AUAM, 1915), which was
created to oppose the preparedness movement, claimed 6,000 members and 50,000 sympathizers nationwide. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR, 1915) became the major religious pacifist organization in America. Founded by Jane Addams, the Women's Peace Party (WPP, 1915) provided a link between the peace and suffrage movements; in 1919, the WPP became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
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