The lecture, occupying an entire evening, was given before a large audience in Rand's Hall, Troy, and cordially received. At its close Mr. L. Hazeltine of New York, president of the association, took Miss Anthony by the hand, saying: "Madam, that was a splendid production and well delivered. I could not have asked for a single thing different either in matter or manner; but I would rather have followed my wife or daughter to Greenwood cemetery than to have had her stand here before this promiscuous audience and deliver that address." Superintendent Randall, of the city schools of New York, over-hearing the conversation, said: "Father Hazeltine, I fully agree with the first part of your remark but dissent entirely from the latter. I should be proud if I had a wife or daughter capable of either writing or reading that paper as Miss Anthony has done." She was invited by the Massachusetts teachers who were present to come to their State convention at Springfield and give the address, which she did. It was afterwards delivered at a number of teachers' institutes. Mary L. Booth had written her:
I am glad that you will represent us at the Troy gathering. You will bear with you the gratitude of very many teachers whose hearts are swelling with repressed indignation at the injustice which you expose, but who have not grown strong enough yet to give open utterance to words which would jeopardize the positions on which they depend for support. There is not a female principal in Brooklyn or New York whose salary exceeds the half of that of the male principals. Each female principal and assistant is required to attend the normal school under penalty of loss of position, while male teachers are excused from such attendance. There are plenty of indignation meetings among us.
In August Miss Anthony planned a meeting at Saratoga and, as on a previous occasion, every speaker failed her, nor could she find among the visitors one who could help her out. As she was not in the habit of giving up what she undertook, she went through the meeting alone, making the speeches herself. Her faithful friend Judge Hay1 came to her rescue with a donation of $20 and she was just able to pay expenses.
The public was not in a mood for woman's conventions. The presidential campaign was at its height, with three tickets in the field, and the troubles in Kansas were approaching a crisis. In September came the news of the raid at Osawatomie and that thirty out of the fifty settlers had been killed by the "border ruffians." This brought especial gloom to the Anthony homestead, as the dispatches also stated that the night before the encounter, John Brown had slept in the cabin of the young son Merritt, and for weeks they were unable to learn whether he were among the thirty who died or the twenty who lived. At last the welcome letters came which related how the coffee was just ready to be put on the table in the cabin when the sound of firing was heard, and how without waiting to drink it, John Brown and his little band rushed to the conflict. The old hero gave strict orders to Merritt not to leave the house, as he had been very ill, but as soon as they were out of sight he seized his gun, staggered down to the bank of the Marais du Cygne and was soon in the thick of the fight. When it was over he crawled on his hands and knees back to his cabin, where he lay ill for weeks, entirely alone and uncared for. A letter from Miss Anthony to this brother shows the tender, domestic side of her nature, which the public is seldom permitted to see:
How much rather would I have you at my side tonight than to think of your daring and enduring greater hardships even than our Revolutionary heroes. Words can not tell how often we think of you or how sadly we feel that the terrible crime of this nation against humanity is being avenged on the heads of our sons and brothers.... Wednesday night, Mr. Mowry, who was in the battle, arrived in town. Like wild fire the news flew. D.R. was in pursuit of him when father reached his office. He thought you were not hurt. Mother said that night, "I can go to sleep now there is a hope that Merritt still lives;" but father said: "I suppose I shall sleep when nature is tired out, but the hope that my son has survived brings little solace to my soul while the cause of all this terrible wrong remains untouched."...
Your fish pole never caught so luscious a basketful as it has this afternoon. I made a march through the peach orchard with pole in hand to fish down the soft Early Crawfords that had escaped even the keen eyes of father and mother when they made their last detour. As the pole reached to the top-most bough and down dropped the big, fat, golden, red-cheeked Crawfords, thought went away to the owner of the rod, how he in days gone by planted these little trees, pruned them and nursed them and now we were enjoying the fruits of his labor, while he, the dear boy, was away in the prairie wilds of Kansas. I thought of many things as I walked between the rows to spy out every ambushed, not enemy but friend of the palate. With the haul made I filled the china fruit dish and then hallooed for Mary L. and Ann Eliza to see what I had found, and down they came for a feast. I shall send Aaron and Guelma the nicest ones and how I wish my dearest brother could have some to cool his fevered throat.
Evening.—Father brings the Democrat giving a list of killed, wounded and missing, and the name of our Merritt is not therein, but oh! the slain are sons, brothers and husbands of others as dearly loved and sadly mourned.
Later.—Your letter is in to-day's Democrat, and the Evening Advertiser says there is "another letter from our dear brother in this morning's Shrieker for Freedom." The tirade is headed "Bleeding Kansas." The Advertiser, Union and American all ridicule the reports from Kansas, and even say your letters are gotten up in the Democrat office for political effect. I tell you, Merritt, we have "border ruffians" here at home—a little more refined in their way of outraging and torturing the lovers of freedom, but no less fiendish.
Miss Anthony was busy through September and October securing speakers for the national convention. She still believed that her chief strength lay in her executive ability. Having written Lucy Stone that she could not and would not speak, the latter answered: "Why do you say the people won't listen to you, when you know you never made a speech that was not attentively heard? All you need is to cultivate your power of expression. Subjects are so clear to you that you can soon make them as clear to others." In response to an invitation to the Hutchinson family to sing at the convention, Asa wrote: "The time is coming, I hope, when we can do something for the glorious cause which you are so nobly advocating." John added: "It would rejoice my heart to be at the convention and help along, with the one talent God has given me, the greatest reform ever attempted by lovers of the human race." Miss Anthony asked Mary L. Booth, at that time just beginning to attract attention by her fine translations, to speak at the coming convention and received this touching response:
The hope of yet aiding the cause is the polar star which guides all my efforts. If it were possible I would do this directly, but the fashion of the times has made me a dependant and home aid would scarcely be extended to me in this. I am trying to make myself independent. Fortune now promises favorable things. If I succeed, count on me. All that I can do, I will, to rescue my sex from the fetters which have chafed me so bitterly, from the evils of the giant system which makes woman everywhere a satellite. I have drank of the cup which is offered as the wine of woman's life, and have found the draught frothy and unsatisfactory. Now am I willing, if successful, to give all to purchase her a purer aliment. I have faith enough in the cause to move mountains, but if I speak at present I forfeit all claims on my home forever.
Lucy Stone when appealed to with the intimation that she was losing interest in the work, replied: "Now that I occupy a legal position in which I can not even draw in my own name the money I have earned or give a valid receipt for it when it is drawn or make any contract, but am rated with fools, minors and madmen, and can not sign a legal document without being examined separately to see if it is by my own free will, and even the right to my own name questioned, do you think that, in the grip of such pincers, I am likely to grow remiss?... I am not at all sanguine of the success of the convention. However much I hope, or try to hope, the old doubt comes back. My only trust is in your great, indomitable perseverance and your power of work."
That the answers were not always favorable and that the women constantly found themselves between two fires, the following letters will show. Horace Greeley, who heretofore had been so friendly, wrote:
The only reason why I can not publish your notices in our news columns is that my political antagonists take advantage