ments in this tragic involvement of three of her good friends.
She was especially concerned about Elizabeth and Theodore Tilton, in
whose home she had so often visited and toward whom she felt a warm
motherly affection. Her sympathy went out to Elizabeth Tilton, whose
help and loyalty during the difficult days of _The Revolution_ she
never forgot. Although she had often differed with Theodore, whose
quick changes of policy and temperament she could not understand, he
had won her gratitude many times by befriending the cause. The same
was true of Henry Ward Beecher, who had found time in his busy life to
say a good word for woman's rights.

Susan was close to the facts, for in desperation a few years before,
Elizabeth Tilton had confided in her. Unfortunately both Elizabeth and
Theodore had made confidants of others less wise than Susan. Mrs.
Stanton had passed the story along to Victoria Woodhull, who late in
1872 had revived her _Weekly_ for a crusade on what she called "the
social question" and had published her expose, "The Beecher-Tilton
Scandal Case." As a result the lives of all involved were being ruined
by merciless publicity.

The Beecher-Tilton story as it unfolded revealed three admirable
people caught in a tangled web of human relationships. Henry Ward
Beecher, for years a close friend and benefactor of his young
parishioners, Theodore and Elizabeth Tilton, had been accused by
Theodore of immoral relations with Elizabeth. Accusations and denials
continued while intrigue and negotiations deepened the confusion. The
whole matter burst into flame in 1874 in the trial of Henry Ward
Beecher before a committee of Plymouth Church, which exonerated him.
Reading Beecher's statement in her newspaper, Susan impulsively wrote
Isabella Beecher Hooker, "Wouldn't you think if God ever did strike
anyone dead for telling a lie, he would have struck then?"[318]

When early in 1875 the Beecher-Tilton case reached the courts in a
suit brought by Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher for the
alienation of his wife's affections, it became headline news
throughout the country. The press, greedy for sensation, published
anything and everything even remotely connected with the case.
Reporters hounded Susan, who by this time was again lecturing in the
West, and she seldom entered a train, bus, or hotel without finding
them at her heels, as if by their very persistence they meant to force
her to express her opinion regarding t