The negotiations revived old arguments in the minds of zealous partisans, and in the Woman's Journal, the Woman's Tribune, and elsewhere, attempts were made to fasten the blame for the twenty-year-old rift upon this one and that one; but so strong ran the tide for union among the younger women that this excursion into the past aroused little interest.
The election of the president of the merged organizations was the most difficult hurdle. Lucy Stone suggested that neither she, Mrs. Stanton, nor Susan allow their names to be proposed, since they had been blamed for the division, but this was easier said than done. The clamor for Susan and Mrs. Stanton was so strong and continuous among the younger members that it soon became apparent that unless one or the other were chosen, there would be no hope of union. The odds were in Susan's favor. Her popularity in the National Association was tremendous. Although Mrs. Stanton was revered as the mother of woman suffrage and admired for her brilliant mind and her poise as presiding officer, she now spent so much time in Europe with her daughter Harriot that many who might otherwise have voted for her felt that the office should go to Susan, who was always on the job.
Harriot Stanton Blatch
Most of the American Association regarded Susan as safer and less radical than Mrs. Stanton, less likely to stray from the straight path of woman suffrage, and Henry Blackwell recommended her election.
Susan did not want the presidency. She wanted it for Mrs. Stanton, who had headed the National Association so ably for so many years. She pleaded earnestly with the delegates of the National Association: "I will say to every woman who is a National and who has any love for the old Association, or for Susan B. Anthony, that I hope you will not vote for her for president.... Don't you vote for any human being but Mrs. Stanton.... When the division was made 22 years ago it was because our platform was too broad, because Mrs. Stanton was too radical.... And now ... if Mrs. Stanton shall be deposed ... you virtually degrade her.... I want our platform to be kept broad enough for the infidel, the atheist, the Mohammedan, or the Christian.... These are the broad principles I want you to stand upon."[364]
When the two organizations met in February 1890 to effect formal union as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was elected president by a majority of 41 votes, while Susan was the almost unanimous choice for vice-president at large. With Lucy Stone chosen chairman of the executive committee, Jane Spofford treasurer, and Rachel Foster and Alice Stone Blackwell secretaries,[365] the new organization was well equipped with able leaders for the work ahead. It was dedicated to work for both state and federal woman suffrage amendments and its official organ would be the Woman's Journal.
Susan now faced the future with gratitude that a strong unified organization could be handed down to the younger women who would gradually take over the work she had started, and her confidence in these young women grew day by day. Working closely with Rachel Foster and May Wright Sewall, she knew their caliber. Anna Howard Shaw and Alice Stone Blackwell showed great promise, and Harriot Stanton Blatch was living up to her expectations. In England where Harriot had made her home since her marriage in 1882, she was active in the cause, and on her visits to her mother in New York, she kept in touch with the suffrage movement in the United States. She took part in the union meeting, and in her diary, Susan recorded these words of commendation, "Harriot said but a few words, yet showed herself worthy of her mother and her mother's lifelong friend and co-worker. It was a proud moment for me."[366]
To such she could entrust her beloved cause.