men willing to help her. Experience
had taught her that the struggle for woman's rights was no peaceful
academic debate, but real warfare which demanded political strategy,
self-sacrifice, and unremitting labor. She was prouder than ever of
her _Revolution_ and its liberal hard-hitting policy.

* * * * *

Convinced that the National Woman Suffrage Association must publicize
its existence and its value, Susan began the year 1870 with a
convention in Washington which even Senator Sumner praised as
exceeding in interest anything he had ever witnessed there. Its
striking demonstration of the vitality and intelligence of the
National Association was the best answer she could possibly have given
to the accusations and criticism aimed at her and her organization.

Jessie Benton Fremont, watching the delegates enter the dining room of
the Arlington Hotel, called Susan over to her table and said with a
twinkle in her eyes, "Now, tell me, Miss Anthony, have you hunted the
country over and picked out and brought to Washington a score of the
most beautiful women you could find?"[251]

They were a fine-looking and intelligent lot--Paulina Wright Davis,
Isabella Beecher Hooker, Josephine Griffin of the Freedman's Bureau,
Charlotte Wilbour, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Martha C. Wright, and Olympia
Brown; Phoebe Couzins and Virginia Minor from Missouri, Madam Anneke
from Wisconsin, and best of all to Susan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Their presence, their friendship and allegiance were a source of great
pride and joy. Elizabeth Stanton had come from St. Louis, interrupting
her successful lecture tour, when she much preferred to stay away from
all conventions. She had written Susan, "Of course, I stand by you to
the end. I would not see you crushed by rivals even if to prevent it
required my being cut into inch bits.... No power in heaven, hell or
earth can separate us, for our hearts are eternally wedded
together."[252]

Also at this convention to show his support of Susan and her program,
was her faithful friend of many years, the Rev. Samuel J. May of
Syracuse. Clara Barton, ill and unable to attend, sent a letter to be
read, an appeal to her soldier friends for woman suffrage.

Not only did the large and enthusiastic audiences show a growing
interest in votes for women, but two great victories for women in
1869, one in Great Britain and the other in the United States, brought
to the convention a feeling o