Social Democracy in other cities around the state, but he was ultimately called away to the West Virginia coal fields to help organize striking miners then engaged in a heated economic battle with mine-owners. Berger and Heath, the two leading figures in the Wisconsin movement, sought to expand the size and influence of their movement among Wisconsinites by establishing a daily newspaper, which they hoped to launch on New Year's Day, 1898. In a surprising move intended to unite the warring factions of American socialism, an offer was made to Daniel DeLeon to come to Wisconsin from New York City in order to edit the new paper. There is no evidence that DeLeon ever answered this proposal, which seems to have been made in good faith. The idea for an English daily was ultimately abandoned at this time. The first city convention of the Social Democratics in Milwaukee was held on February 1, 1898, and included substantial representation from the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council and individual unions. An initial slate of four candidates was put forward by the organization to run in the Milwaukee municipal election which followed on April 5. Those nominated were the first of many subsequent Socialist candidates to be bound to the party program through the submission of signed-but-undated "blank resignations," which were entrusted to the party organization to be dated and submitted if the elected candidate were to ever lose the party's trust. The electoral platform guiding these candidates has been described by one historian as one of "detailed reformism," including calls for city-owned utilities, public works projects, free textbooks for schoolchildren, and the development of recreation areas in poor sections of the city of Milwaukee. The Social Democratic candidate for mayor, machinist Robert Meister, ultimately received 2400 votes, trailing the 26,000 ballots received by the Democratic Party's victorious nominee and the 18,000 votes for his Republican opponent. The Social Democratic campaign was taken statewide for the first time in the fall of 1898, with a platform calling for establishment of a progressive income tax and a new property tax to replace the current system of taxation, universal suffrage for all literate adults, establishment of the initiative and referendum, abolition of the veto power of the governor, abolition of the Wisconsin State Senate, and prohibition of child labor and night work for women. This set of substantial reforms was not met with favorably by the