a candidate besides Debs had been nominated for the Socialist presidential nomination. Lincoln Steffens initially believed that Debs was not suitable for the presidency, but later told Brand Whitlock, the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, to vote for Debs after Steffens interviewed Debs and Berger. Haywood fundraised for the purchase of a train, which had over 200,000 contributors, that was later named the Red Special. Debs' train left on August 30, 1908, and traveled over 9,000 miles and gave 187 speeches over twenty-five days. Twenty-two million copies of Appeal to Reason were distributed during the campaign and the newspaper gained 50,000 subscribers. Theodore Roosevelt believed that the Socialists would take progressive votes away from Taft and stated that Debs' speeches were "mere pieces of the literature of criminal violence". Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor and who had endorsed Bryan, criticized Debs accusing him of receiving secret funding for his train from the Republicans. The Socialists published the names of every contributor to the train fund and the amount they donated and also challenged Gompers to a debate, but he refused. Former President Grover Cleveland and Chicago Tribune predicted that the Socialists would receive over one million votes. Debs hoped to receive over a million votes, but only received 420,852 votes which was a 20,000 vote increase from the 1904 election. Debs stated that the reason for the small increase was due to Democrats who had supported him in 1904 over Parker had voted for Bryan and that those who remained were pure socialist votes. Socialist Labor Party nomination Nominees The Socialist Labor Party met in New York, New York from July 2 to July 5 in Arlington Hall, St. Mark's Place. While increasingly dwarfed by the growing membership of the Socialist Party led by Eugene Debs and Bill Haywood, Daniel De Leon and his compatriots remained committed to maintaining their separate course, considering Debs and his platform as "reactionary". An attempt was made to depose Leon from his position of editor of the Party's papers in favor of a more moderate candidate, fearing that Leon's writings were alienating voters who might otherwise be sympathetic to their cause. The report was overwhelmingly voted down after Leon spoke in defense of his conduct as the Party's editor, with a rival report being adopted praising his leadership. When it came time for the nominations, Leon personally nominated Martin Preston