The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birth of the opportunistic trade unionism of Strasser and Gompers,[76] did not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of "intellectuals" and "intellectualized" wage earners, mainly Germans. These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude of enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent though friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During the greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of foreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in 1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations. When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since 1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who, had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon. DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York. For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886 and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements, had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be used.