This faction was led by Wilhelm Rosenberg and J. E. Bushe, editors of party newspapers Der Sozialist and The Workmens Advocate, respectively.
This gave impetus for the more stridently Marxist wing of the party, centered around the German daily New Yorker Volkszeitung and led by Alexander Jonas, Lucian Sanial and others.
Although originally quite strong, gradually lost members largely because of its lack of periodical of the stature of the daily Volkszeitung, though it did publish its own weekly newspaper Der Volks-Anwalt (The People's Advocate).
There was an abortive effort to unite with the Sanial faction in 1892, by which time the SLP had already embraced independent political action and had grown to over 100 sections.
In 1896 the group changed its name to the Social Democratic Federation, hoping to gain members from the SLP during its internal conflict.
[8] In 1898, the SDF merged into the Social Democracy of America, providing the SDA its second foreign language publication, Der Volkanswalt.