[1] During its early phase, Dos Abend Blatt rivaled the readership of the anarchist Freie Arbeiter Stimme and, later, the bourgeois-orthodox Yiddisher Tagesblatt.
The majority group, represented by Philip Krantz, Benjamin Feigenbaum, Jacob Milch and Joseph Schlossberg, retained control over Dos Abend Blatt.
Two political issues, in which Forverts adopted a far more pragmatic approach in appealing to Jewish communal sentiments, proved decisive in the competition; the Dreyfus affair and the Spanish–American War.
Those loyal to Daniel De Leon retained control over Dos Abend Blatt, but several prominent members (such as Krantz and Feygenbaum) had joined the other camp and subsequently left the paper.
However, this shift in editorial policy gave little benefit, as Forverts had already won over major sections of readership by consistently appealing to the notion of Yiddishkeit.