Nearly all the strikes which have taken place during the life of the organization have been in the eastern States. The workers at those points, being so poorly paid, it has been necessary for them to immediately appeal for benefits, which demonstrates the fact that we must prepare for war before war is declared. Many of our strikes ... have taken place immediately after the local union was organized, before the members involved in such strikes were hardened and drilled in the principles of industrial unionism.... One local union in the East ... becomes a greater responsibility to the general organization than three local unions in the West.[202] At the same time that the industrial unionists were pushing their strike propaganda some of them who were also members of the radical political parties were trying to bring those parties (_viz._, the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party) together. To do this they realized that the two parties must agree upon a policy in regard to the attitude which the party should assume toward the trade unions. With this object in view representatives of the two socialist parties called a conference which was afterwards known as the New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference. The sessions of this conference were held in various New Jersey towns--Orange, Paterson, West Hoboken, Newark--at irregular times between September 10, 1905, and March 4, 1906. The purpose of the conference, as expressed in the Manifesto issued at the close of its sessions, was "to consider the causes of the division between the two [socialist] camps and ascertain, if possible, whether solid grounds could be found for a union of the militant socialist forces ... of the State...."[203] The conference believed that any union between the revolutionary groups in America depended upon a proper solution of two problems: "First, the proper attitude for a political party of socialism to assume toward the burning question of trades unionism; and second, the proper attitude for a political party of socialism to assume toward the ownership of its press, the voice of the movement."[204]