nging words, "Now Register!... If you were not permitted to vote
you would fight for the right, undergo all privations for it, face
death for it...."[290]

This was all the reminder she needed. She would fight for this right.
She put on her bonnet and coat, telling her three sisters what she
intended to do, asked them to join her, and with them walked briskly
to the barber shop where the voters of her ward were registering.
Boldly entering this stronghold of men, she asked to be registered.
The inspector in charge, Beverly W. Jones, tried to convince her that
this was impossible under the laws of New York. She told him she
claimed her right to vote not under the New York constitution but
under the Fourteenth Amendment, and she read him its pertinent lines.
Other election inspectors now joined in the argument, but she
persisted until two of them, Beverly W. Jones and Edwin F. Marsh, both
Republicans, finally consented to register the four women.

This mission accomplished, Susan rounded up twelve more women willing
to register. The evening papers spread the sensational news, and by
the end of the registration period, fifty Rochester women had joined
the ranks of the militants.

On election day, November 5, 1872, Susan gleefully wrote Elizabeth
Stanton, "Well, I have gone and done it!!--positively voted the
Republican ticket--Strait--this A.M. at 7 o'clock--& swore my vote in
at that.... All my three sisters voted--Rhoda deGarmo too--Amy Post
was rejected & she will immediately bring action against the
registrars.... Not a jeer not a word--not a look--disrespectful has
met a single woman.... I hope the mornings telegrams will tell of many
women all over the country trying to vote.... I hope you voted
too."[291]

* * * * *

Election day did not bring the general uprising of women for which
Susan had hoped. In Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Connecticut, as in
Rochester, a few women tried to vote. In New York City, Lillie
Devereux Blake and in Fayetteville, New York, Matilda Joslyn Gage had
courageously gone to the polls only to be turned away. Elizabeth
Stanton did not vote on November 5, 1872, and her lack of enthusiasm
about a test case in the courts was very disappointing to Susan.

However, the fact that Susan B. Anthony had voted won immediate
response from the press in all parts of the country. Newspapers in
general were friendly, the New York _Times_ boldly declaring, "The act
of