He was for many years a leading figure in what later became the Draper Corporation, the dominant manufacturer of cotton textile process machinery in the world during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Eben's father, a major shareholder of the community, capitalized on financial difficulties in the businesses and the informal means by which they were organized to gain complete control of them in the 1850s.

He then took advantage of patents developed by his brother Ebenezer and protectionist tariffs to build a dominant monopoly position in the production of cotton textile processing machinery, and expanded his business interests to include a variety of other industrial manufacturing in Hopedale.

The Drapers owned most of the housing in the town, but did not charge excessive rents to the factory workers, and offered services such as medical care to their employees.

[4] The company was, however, a nonunion shop that did not pay very high wages, and the Drapers also moved some of their production to lower-wage areas of the southern United States during his administration of the business.

[1] During the convention, he was instrumental in assisting Henry Cabot Lodge to secure a plank in the party platform favoring the gold standard.

[1] In 1905, Draper was nominated and elected as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, considered by the party to be a stepping stone in an "escalator" of statewide offices culminating in the governorship.

These positions led to a loss of support in the state's urban centers, but did not prevent him from winning reelection over Vahey in 1909, albeit by a reduced margin.

Eugene Noble Foss, a Boston businessman, bolted the Republican Party, and ran for election as a Democrat, effectively self-financing his campaign.

Draper, running for a third term, upset local dairy farmers by allowing the railroads to raise rates on milk shipments.

This led to protests and a brief embargo of deliveries to the Boston area, which Draper countered weakly by criticising railroad management for its pricing tactics.

Although they nominally sought higher wages and a shorter work week, there was a political dimension to the strike: the IWW specifically targeted Draper because of his protectionist and anti-labor actions taken while governor.