On May 15, 1919, following the open fight against the Left Wing inaugurated by the New York State Committee and its Executive Committee, the Left Wing Locals of Boston, Cleveland and New York joined in a call for a National Conference of the Left Wing to convene in New York on June 21. This call opened with the following paragraph:
"The international situation and the crisis in the American Socialist Party; the sabotage the party bureaucracy has practised on the emergency national convention; the N. E. C. [National Executive Committee] aligning our party with the social-patriots at Berne, with the Congress of the Great Betrayal; the necessity of reconstructing our policy in accord with revolutionary events--all this and more, makes it necessary that the revolutionary forces in the Socialist Party get together for counsel and action."
Apparently so many bitter letters were sent to "The Call" that it found it expedient to publish the following notice in its edition of May 16, 1919:
"No letters dealing in personalities of any kind will be published in this column. All views and all arguments set forth must be confined strictly to the principles and tactics either defended or attacked. This ruling is by the unanimous vote of the Board of Managers of 'The Call.'"
Morris Hillquit, member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party till September, 1919, and one of the principle leaders of the Right, published in his paper, "The Call," May 21, 1919, a long article in large type, covering half of the editorial page, under the caption, "The Socialist Task and Outlook." After speaking of the gloomy conditions in the Socialist Party abroad, he thus comments on conditions in the American branch of the international organization: