ay the ax at the root."[420]

She also discovered that it was one thing to build up a large
organization and another to keep women so busy with pressing work for
the cause that they did not find time to expend their energies on the
mechanics of organization. Not only did she chafe at the red tape most
of them spun, but she often felt that they were too prone to linger in
academic by-ways, listening to speeches and holding pleasant
conventions. Since the California campaign of 1896, only one state,
Washington, had been roused to vote on a woman suffrage amendment,
which was defeated and only one more state Delaware had granted women
the right to vote for members of school boards.

Again and again she warned her "girls" that some kind of action on
woman suffrage by Congress every year was important. A hearing, a
committee report, a debate, or even an unfavorable vote would, she was
convinced, do more to stir up the whole nation than all the speakers
and organizers that could be sent through the country.

Such thoughts as these, relative to the work which was always on her
mind, she dashed off to one after another of her young colleagues.
"Your letters sound like a trumpet blast," wrote Anna Howard Shaw,
grateful for her counsel. "They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the
Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage."[421]

At seventy-eight, Susan realized that the time was approaching when
she must make up her mind to turn over to a younger woman the
presidency of the National American Association, and during the summer
of 1898 she announced to her executive committee that she would retire
on her eightieth birthday in 1900.

FOOTNOTES:

[400] Ms., Diary, Nov. 7, 1895

[401] Mary Gray Peck, _Carrie Chapman Catt_ (New York, 1944), p. 84.

[402] Ms., Diary, Nov. 27, 1895.

[403] To Mrs. Upton, Sept. 5, 1890, University of Rochester Library,
Rochester, New York.

[404] Feb. 10, 1894, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.

[405] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1113.

[406] Miss Anthony's first attempt to win Southern women to suffrage
was at the time of the New Orleans Exposition in 1885. Because of her
reputation as an abolitionist, she had much resistance to overcome in
the South.

[407] Dec. 18, 1895, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.

[408] _Woman's Tribune_, Feb. 1, 1896.

[409] _History of Woman Suffrage_, IV, p. 264.

[410] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 855. The action of the Na