In January 1919 a joint meeting of representatives of all the SP branches of Local Greater New York was called.
When delegates from Queens attempted to win the floor at 11:30 pm, only to be ruled out of order, a number of radicals bolted the hall and gathered in a meeting room of their own.
The group was to compose a manifesto and wage a campaign to win over the rank and file of the party to the ideas of revolutionary socialism.
[1] The document begins:[2] This "Left Wing Manifesto" was published in pamphlet format and was hotly debated throughout the American socialist movement prior to the split of the Socialist Party at the 1919 Emergency National Convention held in Chicago during the first week of September.
Ruthenberg, I.E. Ferguson, Benjamin Gitlow, and others for violation of the New York Criminal Anarchism statutes.