and convinced that unity and trust could
be restored only by frank discussion of the problem by those involved,
she asked for a meeting of the business committee at her home. "What
can we do to get back into trust in each other?" she wrote Laura Clay.
"That is the thing we must do--somehow--and it cannot be done by
letter. We must hold a meeting--and we must have you--and every single
one of our members at it."[432]

Impatient at what to her seemed unnecessary delay, she kept prodding
Mrs. Catt to call this meeting. Fortunately both Susan and Mrs. Catt
were genuinely fond of each other and placed the welfare of the cause
above personal differences. Both were tolerant and steady and
understood the pressures put on the leader of a great organization.
Anxious and troubled as she waited for this meeting, Susan appreciated
Anna Shaw's visits as never before, marking them as red-letter days on
her calender.

Late in August 1900, all the officers finally gathered at 17 Madison
Street, and Susan listened to their discussions with deep concern. She
was confident she could rely completely on Harriet Upton, Rachel, and
Anna and could count on Laura Clay's "level head and good common
sense."[433] She never felt sure of Alice Stone Blackwell and knew
there was great sympathy and often a working alliance between her, her
father, and Mrs. Catt. Of the latest member of the official family,
Catharine Waugh McCulloch, she had little first-hand knowledge. Mrs.
Catt, whom she longed to fathom and trust, was still an enigma. During
those hot humid August days, misunderstandings were healed, unity was
restored, and Susan was reassured that not a single one of her "girls"
desired "other than was good for the work."[434]

* * * * *

Susan had always been a champion of coeducation, speaking for it as
early as the 1850s at state teachers' meetings and proposing it for
Columbia University in her _Revolution_. In 1891, she and Mrs. Stanton
had agitated for the admission of women to the University of
Rochester. Seven years later the trustees consented to admit women
provided $100,000 could be raised in a year, and Susan served on the
fund-raising committee with her friend, Helen Barrett Montgomery.
Because the alumni of the University of Rochester opposed coeducation
and the city's wealthiest men were indifferent, progress was slow, but
the trustees were persuaded to extend the time and to reduce by one
half the