In June 1919, the Left Wing Section held a conference in New York City to discuss their organizational plans. The group found themselves deeply divided, with one section, led by NEC members Alfred Wagenknecht and L. E. Katterfeld and including famed radical journalist John Reed favoring a continued effort to gain control of the SPA at its forthcoming Emergency National Convention in Chicago, to be held at the end of August, while another section, headed by the Russian Socialist Federation of Alexander Stoklitsky and Nicholas Hourwich and the Socialist Party of Michigan seeking to wash their hands of the Socialist Party and immediately move to the establishment of a new Communist Party of America. Eventually, this latter Federation-dominated group was joined by important Left Wingers C. E. Ruthenberg and Louis Fraina, a depletion of Left Wing forces which made the result of the 1919 Socialist Convention a foregone conclusion.