tiring trips through the West
to carry the message of woman suffrage to the frontier. In
comparison, this was a triumphal journey, showing her, as nothing else
could, what her work had accomplished. Greeted at railroad stations
along the way by enthusiastic crowds, showered with flowers and gifts,
she stood on the back platform of the train with her "girls," shaking
hands, waving her handkerchief, and making an occasional speech.

Presiding over the opening session of the Portland convention,
standing in a veritable garden of flowers which had been presented to
her, she remarked with a droll smile, "This is rather different from
the receptions I used to get fifty years ago.... I am thankful for
this change of spirit which has come over the American people."[453]

On Woman's Day, she was chosen to speak at the unveiling of the statue
of Sacajawea, the Indian woman who had led Lewis and Clark through the
dangerous mountain passes to the Pacific, winning their gratitude and
their praise. In the story of Sacajawea who had been overlooked by the
government when every man in the Lewis and Clark expedition had been
rewarded with a large tract of land, Susan saw the perfect example of
man's thoughtless oversight of the valuable services of women. Looking
up at the bronze statue of the Indian woman, her papoose on her back
and her arm outstretched to the Pacific, Susan said simply, "This is
the first statue erected to a woman because of deeds of daring....
This recognition of the assistance rendered by a woman in the
discovery of this great section of the country is but the beginning of
what is due." Then, with the sunlight playing on her hair and lighting
up her face, she appealed to the men of Oregon for the vote. "Next
year," she reminded them, "the men of this proud state, made possible
by a woman, will decide whether women shall at last have the rights in
it which have been denied them so many years. Let men remember the
part women have played in its settlement and progress and vote to give
them these rights which belong to every citizen."[454]

* * * * *

Reporters were at Susan's door, when she returned to Rochester, for
comments on ex-President Cleveland's tirade against clubwomen and
woman suffrage in the popular _Ladies' Home Journal_. "Pure
fol-de-rol," she told them, adding testily, "I would think that Grover
Cleveland was about the last person to talk about the sanctity of the
hom