The second convention was the occasion of the first split in the ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World. At this time the friction seemed to be chiefly personal, whereas the second schism in 1908 was primarily due to differences in regard to principles and policies. It is true that principles and policies were involved in the feud of 1906, but they lurked obscurely in the background, while personal antagonisms--charges and counter-charges of graft, corruption and malfeasance in office--held the center of the stage. From the inception of the movement the year before a smouldering dissension developed between the poorer and less skilled groups of workers--largely migratory and casual laborers, the "revolutionists" or the "wage-slave delegates" as they were called in the second convention--these on the one side, and the more highly skilled and strongly organized groups called (by the other side) the "reactionaries" or the "political fakirs." It might be remarked in passing that, in this ultra-revolutionary I. W. W., the "conservatism" of the "reactionaries" ought to be heavily discounted and the radicalism of the "revolutionists" raised to the _n_th degree to get the true perspective! Involved with this group hostility was the trouble stirred up by various members of the two Socialist political parties. The first years [writes Mr. St. John] was one of internal struggle for control by these different elements. The two camps of socialist politicians looked upon the I. W. W. only as a battle-ground on which to settle their respective merits and demerits. The labor fakirs strove to fasten themselves upon the organization that they might continue to exist if the new union was a success.[222] But all this internal antagonism was very obscure. It evidenced itself chiefly in the personal fight between the Sherman-Hanneman-Kirkpatrick faction and the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction at the second convention, which finally resulted in the deposition of C. O. Sherman as General President. Mr. St. John has described the situation as it appeared from his side of the controversy. At the second convention it soon developed, he says,