convictions, but I do most earnestly beg
you to look at this question from the standpoint of the
woman--alone, without father, brother, husband, son--battling for
bread. It is to help the millions of these unfortunate ones that I
plead for the ballot in the hands of all women.

With great respect for your frank and candid talk with one of the
disfranchised, I am, very sincerely yours.

On the strength of Hancock's perfectly non-committal interview and
Garfield's frank letter, several of the prominent Democratic women
rushed into a campaign for that party, whereupon Miss Anthony called
them down in vigorous language. After expressing her indignation at the
many false newspaper reports of her correspondence and interview with
General Garfield, she said:

He has always stood ready to aid us in getting our demand before
Congress, and was one of the three who reported in favor of a
special woman suffrage committee in the House the last session. He
has actually done a thousand things a thousand times more friendly
to woman suffrage than Hancock now _talks_ of doing. Then, again,
Hancock has given us no public statement that, if elected, he will
recommend a Sixteenth Amendment in his inaugural; and in his
letter of acceptance he said nothing more that can be twisted into
suffrage for women than Garfield did in his, and there is no more
in the Democratic platform that can be thus construed than there is
in the Republican.

I never intended that the National Association should accept any
sort of "under the ink or between the lines" as favorable pledges;
and before _I_ shall consent to put my name to any document
favoring either candidate, I must see in black and white, in the
candidate's own pen tracks, something to warrant such favoring.
Mere gallantry will not do.

During the campaign which followed, neither she nor the other leading
women of the country did any public work, and both parties lost the
splendid services which would have been gladly rendered had they
recognized the simple principle of justice. When the success of Garfield
was practically assured, Miss Anthony wrote to a friend on the evening
of election day: "I am fairly holding my breath tonight, waiting for the
morning reports, as I feel it will be an overwhelming triumph for the
Republican party. If their majority should be immense, perhaps i