<P> Historians divide the views of American political and social leaders into four distinct groupings--the camps were mostly informal: </P> <P> The first of these were the Non-Interventionists, a loosely affiliated and politically diverse anti-war movement which sought to keep the United States out of the war altogether . Members of this group tended to view the war as a clash between British imperialism and German militarism, both of which they regarded as equally corrupt . Others were pacifists, who objected on moral grounds . Prominent leaders included Democrats like former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, industrialist Henry Ford and publisher William Randolph Hearst; Republicans Robert M. La Follette, Senator from Wisconsin and George W. Norris, Senator from Nebraska; and Progressive Party activist Jane Addams . </P> <P> At the far - left end of the political spectrum the Socialists, led by their perennial candidate for President Eugene V. Debs and movement veterans like Victor L. Berger and Morris Hillquit, were staunch anti-militarists and opposed to any US intervention, branding the conflict as a "capitalist war" that American workers should avoid . However, after the US did join the war in April, 1917 a schism developed between the anti-war Party majority and a pro-war faction of Socialist writers, journalists and intellectuals led by John Spargo, William English Walling and E. Haldeman - Julius . This group founded the rival Social Democratic League of America to promote the war effort among their fellow Socialists . </P> <P> Next were the more moderate Liberal - Internationalists . This bipartisan group reluctantly supported a declaration of war against Germany with the postwar goal of establishing collective international security institutions designed to peacefully resolve future conflicts between nations and to promote liberal democratic values more broadly . This groups's views were advocated by interest groups such as the League to Enforce Peace . Adherents included US President Woodrow Wilson, his influential advisor Edward M. House, former President William Howard Taft, famed inventor Alexander Graham Bell, Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch and Harvard University President Abbott Lawrence Lowell . </P>

What hastened the entry of the united states into world war i