I miss Mrs. Stanton, still I can not but enjoy the feeling that the people call on me, and the fact that I have an opportunity to sharpen my wits a little by answering questions and doing the chatting, instead of merely sitting a lay figure and listening to the brilliant scintillations as they emanate from her never-exhausted magazine. There is no alternative—whoever goes into a parlor or before an audience with that woman does it at the cost of a fearful overshadowing, a price which I have paid for the last ten years, and that cheerfully, because I felt that our cause was most profited by her being seen and heard, and my best work was making the way clear for her.
Miss Anthony could not entirely recover from the disappointment of her reception in San Francisco, but a letter written to Mrs. Stanton, just before her first lecture in Oregon, shows no regrets but a wish that she had put the case even more strongly:
I am awaiting my Wednesday night execution with fear and trembling such as I never before dreamed of, but to the rack I must go, though another San Francisco torture be in store for me.... The real fact is we ought to be ashamed of ourselves that we failed to say the whole truth and illustrate it too by the one terrible example in their jail. That would have caused not me alone but both of us to be hissed out of the hall and hooted out of that Godless city—Godless in its treading of womanhood under its heel. I assure you, as I rolled on the ocean last week feeling that the very next strain might swamp the ship, and thinking over all my sins of omission and commission, there was nothing undone which haunted me like that failure to speak the word at San Francisco over again and more fully. I would rather today have the satisfaction of having said the true and needful thing on Laura Fair and the social evil, with the hisses and hoots of San Francisco and the entire nation around me, than all that you or I could possibly experience from their united eulogies with that one word unsaid. To my mind the failure to put our heads together and work up that lecture grows every day a greater blunder, if nothing more. It was like going down into South Carolina and failing to illustrate human oppression by negro slavery. I hope you are not haunted with it as I am. God helping me, I will yet ease my spirit of the load.
After this lecture she wrote again:
The first fire is passed. I send you the Bulletin and Oregonian notices. I have not seen the Democratic paper—the Herald—but am told it says Miss Anthony failed to interest her audience. Not a person stirred save when I made them laugh. But tomorrow night's audience will tell the people's estimate. My speech then will be on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Last night I made the San Francisco speech, but was not nearly so free and easy in the brain-working; still I got my points clearly stated. The wet blanket is now somewhat off. I hope to present the fact of our right to vote under these amendments with a great deal more freedom. If I am able to do so, I shall talk to women alone Saturday afternoon on the social evil; then, if interest warrants, answer objections Monday evening, and close here. I have contracted for one-half the gross receipts of evening and the entire receipts of afternoon lectures.
I want to tell you that with my gray silk I wore a pink bow at my throat and a narrow pink ribbon in my hair! Mrs. Duniway is delighted, so you see my tide is turning a little from that terrible, killing experience. You never received such wholesale praise—I never such wholesale censure. But enough; it is a comfort to get a little outside assurance again.
Miss Anthony met with a friendly reception from the press of Oregon. She was extensively interviewed by the leading papers and reported in a complimentary manner. The Oregonian thus closed a column account: "The audience, which listened attentively and with evident deep interest to this address, was large and chiefly composed of the intelligent portion of our citizens. Miss Anthony talked clearly, more concisely than the average speaker, kept the thread of her logic well in hand and, it must be confessed, made a strong argument, though we can hardly admit that it was conclusive. She is a fluent speaker and well sustains the cause she advocates." The Herald said in a lengthy interview: "Her conversation is fluent and concise, each word expressing its full complement of meaning. Her system of argument is logical and, in contradistinction to the sex in general, she does not depend on mere assertions but gives proofs to carry conviction."2
The Bulletin thus began a fine report: "As a speaker she has the happy faculty of presenting her subject in a clear and convincing manner. Her style is forcible and argumentative. She contents herself with facts—presenting them in plain language, resting her case upon these, unaided by sophistry and the blinding influence of oratory." This paper, however, was very severe upon her doctrines, declaring editorially that they were "mischievous, revolutionary and impracticable, and would result in anarchy in homes and chaos in society." Mrs. Duniway's paper, the New Northwest, said: "Miss Anthony is a stirring and vigorous worker, a profound and logical speaker, has a truly wonderful influence over her audiences and produces conviction wherever she goes.... She has a peculiarly happy manner of using the right word in the right place, never hesitates in her language, and is evidently as brimful of argument at the close of her lectures as at their beginning. She has awakened the dormant feelings of duty and true womanhood in many a woman's heart in Portland, and scores of ladies in our community who never before gave the question a moment's consideration are now eager for the ballot."
From Portland Miss Anthony wrote to The Revolution:
There is something lovely in this Oregon climate beyond any I have yet known on either side the Rocky mountains. It is neither too hot nor too cold, but a delightful medium which I enjoy as I sit this second September Sunday in my room at the St. Charles Hotel, with its windows opening upon the broad and beautiful Willamette. I am surprised at the size of this city, and the evidences of business and solid wealth all about....
John Chinaman too is here, cooking, washing and ironing, quiet and meek-looking as in San Francisco. The Republicans of this coast, like the Democrats, talk and resolve against him for political effect, merely to cater to the ignorant voters of their party. They say he can not be naturalized on account of some stipulation in the old treaty with China, when they know or ought to know that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have as effectually blotted the word "white" out of all United States treaties and naturalization laws, as out of all the State and Territorial constitutions and statutes. Their pretence that the Chinaman may not become a citizen of the United States, precisely the same as an African, German or Irishman, is matched only by their denial of citizenship to the women of the entire nation. Under the old regime it was the negro with whom we had to make common cause in our demand for the practical recognition of our right to representation. In snatching the black man from our side, the Republicans, out of pure sympathy doubtless, lest we should be without any "male" compeer in our degradation, leave the innocent Chinaman to comfort and console us. Are we not most unreasonable in our dissatisfaction with the company our fathers and brothers constitutionally rank with us—idiots, lunatics, convicts, Chinamen?
While sailing up the Columbia, Mrs. Duniway wrote Mrs. Stan ton: "Miss Anthony has been holding large meetings in Portland, Salem and Oregon City, and has conquered the press and brought the whole fraternity to terms. She has also succeeded in holding important and successful meetings at The Dalles, and is now returning with me from a series of lectures in Walla Walla. We find the people everywhere enthusiastic and delighted. Her fund of logic, fact and fun seems inexhaustible. She speaks three and four consecutive evenings in one place, and each time increases the interest. We are all justly proud of her."
At Walla Walla the church doors were closed to her but she spoke in the schoolhouse. At Salem all the judges of the supreme court were in her audience and afterward