e on the next step to be
taken. Lydia, delighted that they had had the spirit to leave the
meeting, suggested they engage the lecture room of the Hudson Street
Presbyterian Church and hold a meeting of their own that very night.
She went with them to the office of her friend Thurlow Weed, the
editor of the _Evening Journal_, who published the whole story in his
paper.

[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony at the age of thirty-four]

Well in advance of the meeting, Susan was at the church, feeling very
responsible, and when she saw Samuel J. May enter, she was greatly
relieved. He had read the notice in the _Evening Journal_ and
persuaded a friend to come with him. To see his genial face in the
audience gave her confidence, for he would speak easily and well if
others should fail her. Only a few people drifted into the meeting,
for the night was snowy and cold. The room was poorly lighted, the
stove smoked, and in the middle of the speeches, the stovepipe fell
down. Yet in spite of all this, a spirit of independence and
accomplishment was born in that gathering and plans were made to call
a woman's state temperance convention in Rochester with Susan in
charge.

All this Susan reported to her new friend, Elizabeth Stanton, who
promised to help all she could, urging that the new organization lead
the way and not follow the advice of cautious, conservative women.
Susan agreed, and as a first step in carrying out this policy, she
asked Mrs. Stanton to make the keynote speech of the convention. Soon
the Woman's State Temperance Society was a going concern with Mrs.
Stanton as president and Susan as secretary. There was no doubt about
its leading the way far ahead of the rank and file of the temperance
movement when Mrs. Stanton, with Susan's full approval, recommended
divorce on the grounds of drunkenness, declaring, "Let us petition our
State government so to modify the laws affecting marriage and the
custody of children that the drunkard shall have no claims on wife and
child."[34]

Such independence on the part of women could not be tolerated, and
both the press and the clergy ruthlessly denounced the Woman's State
Temperance Society. Susan, however, did not take this too seriously,
familiar as she was with the persecution antislavery workers endured
when they frankly expressed their convictions.

* * * * *

Now recognized as the leader of women's temperance groups in New York,
Susan trav