Hagerty was further radicalized during 1903 and 1904, a period marked by particular violence among the mining communities of the American west. Hagerty emerged as a leading critic of electorally-oriented socialist gradualists, who sought slow evolution towards the ultimate socialist goal by means of "boring from within" the established craft unions of the American Federation of Labor. Hagerty was not long in moving outside of the Socialist Party's orbit altogether, changing the focus of his efforts to the construction of new radical industrial unions.