and were received at the White
House by President and Mrs. Cleveland.

Through it all, a dynamic, gray-haired woman in a black silk dress
with a red shawl about her shoulders was without question the heroine
of the occasion. "This lady," observed the Baltimore _Sun_, "daily
grows upon all present; the woman suffragists love her for her good
works, the audience for her brightness and wit, and the multitude of
press representatives for her frank, plain, open, business-like way of
doing everything connected with the council.... Her word is the
parliamentary law of the meeting. Whatever she says is done without
murmur or dissent."[363]

A permanent International Council of Women to meet once every five
years was organized with Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England as
president, and a National Council to meet every three years was formed
as an affiliate with Frances Willard as president and Susan as
vice-president at large. Emphasizing education and social and moral
reform, the International Council did not rank suffrage first as
Susan had hoped. Nevertheless, she was happy that an international
movement of enterprising women was well on its way. They would learn
by experience.

Of all the favorable results of the International Council of Women,
two were of special importance to Susan, meeting Anna Howard Shaw and
overtures from Lucy Stone for a union of the National and American
Woman Suffrage Associations.

Prejudiced against Anna Howard Shaw, who had aligned herself with Mary
Livermore and Lucy Stone, and who she assumed, was a narrow Methodist
minister, Susan was unprepared to find that the pleasing young woman
in the pulpit on the first day of the conference, holding her audience
spellbound with her oratory, was Anna Howard Shaw. Here was a warm
personality, a crusader eager to right human wrongs, and above all a
matchless public speaker. Anna too had heard much criticism of Susan
and had formed a distorted opinion of her which was quickly dispelled
as she watched her preside. They liked each other the moment they met.

Anna Howard Shaw had grown up on the Michigan frontier, her
indomitable spirit and her eagerness for learning conquering the
hardships and the limitations of her surroundings. Encouraged by Mary
Livermore, who by chance lectured in her little town, she worked her
way through Albion College and Boston University Theological School,
from which she graduated in 1878. She then served as the pastor of tw