shawl." Susan was still the dominating figure at the
annual woman suffrage conventions. Everyone looked eagerly for the
tall lithe gray-haired woman with a red shawl on her arm or around her
shoulders. Once when Susan appeared on the platform with a new white
crepe shawl, the reporters immediately registered their displeasure by
putting down their pencils. This did not escape her, and always on
good terms with the newsmen and informal with her audiences, she
called out, "Boys, what is the matter?"[405]

"Where is the red shawl?" one of them asked. "No red shawl, no
report."

Enjoying this little by-play, she sent her niece Lucy back to the
hotel for the red shawl, and when Lucy brought it up to the platform
and put it about her shoulders, the audience burst into applause, for
the red shawl, like Susan herself, had become the well-loved symbol of
woman suffrage.

Susan was convinced that the annual national convention should always
be held in Washington, where Congress could see and feel the growing
strength and influence of the movement. Her "girls," on the other
hand, wanted to take their conventions to different parts of the
country to widen their influence. Not as certain as Susan that work
for a federal amendment must come first, many of them contended that a
few more states won for woman suffrage would best help the cause at
this time. The southern women, now active, were firm believers in
states' rights and supported state work.[406] Susan's experience had
taught her the impracticability of direct appeal to the voters in the
states, now that foreign-born men in increasing numbers were arrayed
against votes for women. In spite of her arguments and her pleas, the
National American Association voted in 1894 to hold conventions in
different parts of the country in alternate years. Disappointed, but
trying her best graciously to follow the will of the majority, she
traveled to Atlanta and to Des Moines for the conventions of 1895 and
1897.

Nor did the younger women welcome the messages which Mrs. Stanton, at
Susan's insistence, sent to every convention. Susan herself often
wished her good friend would stick more closely to woman suffrage
instead of introducing extraneous subjects, such as "Educated
Suffrage," "The Matriarchate," or "Women and the Church," but
nevertheless she proudly read her papers to successive conventions.
Insisting that the conventions were too academic, Mrs. Stanton urged
Susan to inject mo