n wrote a friend in 1894, during the
campaign to wrest woman suffrage from the New York constitutional
convention. She was now seventy-four years old. Political machines and
financial interests were deeply intrenched in New York, and although
two governors had recommended that women be represented in the
constitutional convention and a bill had been passed making women
eligible as delegates, neither Republicans nor Democrats had the
slightest intention of allowing women to slip into men's stronghold.
It was obvious to Susan that without representation at the convention
and without power to enforce their demands, women's only hope was an
intensive educational campaign which she now directed with vigor.
Whenever she could, she conferred with Mrs. Stanton, whose judgment
she valued, and there was zest in working together as they had during
the previous constitutional convention in 1867.

The women of New York were aroused as never before. Young able
speakers went through the state, piling up signatures on their
petitions, but they had few influential friends among the delegates.
Anti-suffragists were active, encouraged by Bishop Doane of the
Protestant Episcopal church and Mrs. Lyman Abbott, whose name carried
the prestige and influence of her husband's popular magazine, _The
Outlook_.

With the election of Joseph Choate of New York as president of the
convention, Susan knew that woman suffrage was doomed, for Choate had
political aspirations and was not likely to let his sympathies for an
unpopular cause jeopardize his chances of becoming governor. While he
gave women every opportunity to be heard, at the same time he arranged
for the defeat of woman suffrage by appointing men to consider the
subject who were definitely opposed, and they submitted an adverse
report. Here was a situation similar to that in 1867, when her
one-time friend, Horace Greeley, had deserted women for political
expediency.

"I am used to defeat every time and know how to pick up and push on
for another attack," she wrote as she now turned her attention to
Kansas.[388]

* * * * *

The Republicans in Kansas had sponsored school and municipal suffrage
for women and had passed a woman suffrage amendment to be referred to
the people in 1894. Yet they proved to be as great a disappointment to
Susan as they were in 1867, when as a last resort she had been obliged
to campaign with the Democrats and George Francis Train