At the same time that the industrial unionists were pushing their
strike propaganda some of them who were also members of the radical
political parties were trying to bring those parties (_viz._, the
Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party) together. To do this
they realized that the two parties must agree upon a policy in regard
to the attitude which the party should assume toward the trade unions.
With this object in view representatives of the two socialist parties
called a conference which was afterwards known as the New Jersey
Socialist Unity Conference. The sessions of this conference were held
in various New Jersey towns--Orange, Paterson, West Hoboken, Newark--at
irregular times between September 10, 1905, and March 4, 1906. The
purpose of the conference, as expressed in the Manifesto issued at the
close of its sessions, was "to consider the causes of the division
between the two [socialist] camps and ascertain, if possible, whether
solid grounds could be found for a union of the militant socialist
forces ... of the State...."[203]