The next day when the carriage came to the Starretts, for Miss Anthony, Mr. Train was in it and, with her heart in her throat, she took her seat beside him. The situation was entirely unforeseen and decidedly embarrassing, but she never turned back, never allowed any earthly obstacle to stand in her way. There was a crowded house at Olathe and when the meeting closed two young men announced that they had been sent to take Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Train to Paola, and they would have to leave at 4 A. M. Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. J. C. Beach. Next morning they started on time in a pouring rain, stopping at a little wayside inn for breakfast at six. The meeting was at eleven, in the Methodist church.
After it was over the county superintendent of schools, Mr. Bannister, took them to Ottawa in a lumber wagon. The steady rain had put the roads in a fearful condition and by the time they reached the river bottoms it was very dark and pouring in torrents. The driver lost his way and brought them up against a brush fence. Mr. Train jumped out of the vehicle, took off his coat so that his white shirtsleeves would show and thus guided the team back to the road; then he and the county superintendent took turns walking in front of the horses. The river finally was crossed and they reached Ottawa at 9 o'clock. Mr. Train was very fastidious and, no matter how late the hour, never would appear in public before he had changed his gray travelling suit for full dress costume with white vest and lavender kid gloves, declaring that he would not insult any audience by shabby clothes. This evening he made no exception and so, while he went to the hotel, Miss Anthony, wet, hungry and exhausted, made her way straight to the hall to see what had become of their audience.
She found that it had been taken in charge by General Blunt, one of the Republican campaign orators, and as she entered, he was making a violent attack on woman suffrage. Her arrival was not noticed and she concluded to sit quietly down in a corner and let matters take their course. A stairway led from some lower region up to the platform and, just as the speaker was declaring, "This man Train is an infernal traitor and a vile copperhead," Mr. Train appeared at the top of the stairs. The audience broke into a roar, and in a few moments he had the general under a scathing fire.
From Ottawa they travelled, still in a lumber wagon, to Mound City and then to Fort Scott, where they had an immense audience. After the meeting Train went to the newspaper office and wrote out his speech, which filled two pages of the Monitor, and Miss Anthony and the friends spent all of Sunday in wrapping and mailing these papers. From here they drove to Humboldt in a mail wagon, stopping for dinner at a little "half-way house," a cabin with no floor. Miss Anthony retains a lively recollection of this place, for the hostess brought a platter of fried pork, swimming in grease, and in her haste emptied the contents the whole length of her light gray travelling dress. They found many people ill, and Mr. Train always prescribed not a drop of green tea, not a mouthful of pork, though that was the only meat they could get, plenty of fruit, though there was none to be had in Kansas, and a thorough bath every morning, although there was not enough water to wash the dishes. During this trip he stopped at hotels, but Miss Anthony usually was invited to stay with families who were either her personal friends or warm advocates of the cause she represented.
So on they went, to Leroy, Burlington, Emporia, Junction City. It was 9 o'clock when they reached the last and, as usual, Miss Anthony had to make her speech without change of dress, and a half hour later Mr. Train stepped on the platform, refreshed and resplendent. His first words were: "When Miss Anthony gets back to New York she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is to be The Revolution; its motto, 'Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2 per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!" Miss Anthony was dumbfounded. During the long journey that day, he had asked her why the equal rights people did not have a paper and she had replied that it was not for lack of brains but want of money. "Will not Greeley and Beecher and Phillips and Tilton advance the money?" "No, they say this is the negro's hour and no time to advocate woman suffrage." "Well," said he, "I will give you the money." She had not taken him seriously and was amazed when he made this public statement, announcing name, price, editors, motto and everything complete.
They spoke at Topeka and Wyandotte and reached Leavenworth the Sunday previous to election. Mr. Train spent the evening at Colonel Anthony's, entertaining them in his inimitable manner till midnight, and after he left the colonel declared that "he knew more about more things than any man living." Governor Robinson and Mrs. Stanton were to close the campaign in this city the day before election, and the meeting had been thoroughly advertised, but at the last moment they telegraphed that they would be unable to arrive till evening, so it was decided that Mr. Train should remain at Leavenworth to speak in the afternoon, and Miss Anthony should keep the engagement at Atchison, announcing Mr. Train for the evening. This she did, but at night, when a great crowd had assembled, a telegram brought word that the cars were off the track and he could not reach that city. There was nothing for her to do but make a short speech and adjourn the meeting.
Mr. Train had promised Miss Anthony that he really would advance the money to start a paper and, in addition, had proposed to defray all the expenses of Mrs. Stanton and herself if they would join him in a lecture tour of the principal cities on the way eastward. It was essential, therefore, for her to have a talk with him before she could make a definite statement to Mrs. Stanton, and her only chance for this was to cross the Missouri river and wait for the belated train from Leavenworth. She found the ferryboats had stopped running for the night, but George Martin, chairman of the suffrage committee of Atchison, offered to take her across in a skiff. Undaunted, she seated herself therein and in the dense darkness was safely landed on the opposite shore. Here she boarded the cars and went to St. Joseph where she met Mr. Train, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Leavenworth by the first train.
On election day the Hutchinsons, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, in open carriages, visited all the polling-places in Leavenworth, where the two ladies spoke and the Hutchinsons sang. Both amendments were overwhelmingly defeated, that for negro suffrage receiving 10,843 votes, and that for woman suffrage 9,070, out of a total of about 30,000. These 9,000 votes were the first ever cast in the United States for the enfranchisement of women. How many of them were Republican and how many Democratic, and how much influence Mr. Train may have had one way or another, never can be known; but it is a significant fact that Douglas county, the most radical Republican district, gave the largest vote against woman suffrage, and Leavenworth, the strongest Democratic county, gave the largest majority in its favor.
The Commercial, the Democratic paper of this city, said:
When we consider the many obstacles thrown in the way of the advocates of this measure, the indifference with which the masses look upon anything new in government and their indisposition to change, the degree of success of these advocates is not only remarkable, but one of which they have a just right to feel proud. To these two ladies, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to their indomitable will and courage, to their eloquence and energy, is due much of the merit of the work performed in the State.... While in the recent election these ladies were not successful to the full extent of their wishes, they have the consciousness of knowing that their work has been commensurate with the combined efforts of party organization, congressmen, senators, press and ministers to enfranchise the negro, and that the people of Kansas are not more averse to giving the franchise to woman than to the black man.
During the campaign the usual order was for Miss Anthony to speak the first half hour, making a clear, concise, strong argument for suffrage as the right of an American citizen, pleading for the negro as well as for the women, and urging men to vote for both amendments.