"Mr. Roosevelt," she earnestly pleaded, "this is my principle request. It is almost the last request I shall ever make of anybody. Before you leave the Presidential chair recommend to Congress to submit to the Legislatures a Constitutional Amendment which will enfranchise women, and thus take your place in history with Lincoln, the great emancipator. I beg of you not to close your term of office without doing this."[456]
To this he made no response, and trying once more to wring from him some slight indication of sympathy for her cause, she added, "Mr. President, your influence is so great that just one word from you in favor of woman suffrage would give our cause a tremendous impetus."
"The public knows my attitude," he tersely replied. "I recommended it when Governor of New York."
"True," she acknowledged, "but that was a long time ago. Our enemies say that was the opinion of your younger years and that since you have been President you have never uttered one word that could be construed as an endorsement."
"They have no cause to think I have changed my mind," he suavely replied as he bade her good-bye. In the months that followed he gave her no sign that her interview had made the slightest impression.
One of the most satisfying honors bestowed on Susan during these last years was the invitation to be present at Bryn Mawr College in 1902 for the unveiling of a bronze portrait medallion of herself. Bryn Mawr, under its brilliant young president, M. Carey Thomas, herself a pioneer in establishing the highest standards for women's education, showed no such timidity as Vassar where neither Susan nor Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been welcome as speakers. At Bryn Mawr, Susan talked freely and frankly with the students, and best of all, became better acquainted with M. Carey Thomas and her enterprising friend, Mary Garrett of Baltimore, who was using her great wealth for the advancement of women. She longed to channel their abilities to woman suffrage and a few years later arranged for a national convention in their home city, Baltimore, appealing to them to make it an outstanding success.[457]
Arriving in Baltimore in January 1906 for this convention, Susan was the honored guest in Mary Garrett's luxurious home. Frail and ill, she was unable to attend all the sessions, as in the past, but she was present at the highlight of this very successful convention, the College Evening arranged by M. Carey Thomas. With women's colleges still resisting the discussion of woman suffrage and the Association of Collegiate Alumnae refusing to support it, the College Evening marked the first public endorsement of this controversial subject by college women. Up to this time the only encouraging sign had been the formation in 1900 of the College Equal Suffrage League by two young Radcliffe alumnae, Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin. Now here, in conservative Baltimore, college presidents and college faculty gave woman suffrage their blessing, and Susan listened happily as distinguished women, one after another, allied themselves to the cause: Dr. Mary E. Woolley, who as president of Mt. Holyoke was developing Mary Lyons' pioneer seminary into a high ranking college; Lucy Salmon, Mary A. Jordan, and Mary W. Calkins of the faculties of Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley; Eva Perry Moore, a trustee of Vassar and president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, with whom she dared differ on this subject; Maud Wood Park, representing the younger generation in the College Equal Suffrage League; and last of all, the president of Bryn Mawr, M. Carey Thomas. After expressing her gratitude to the pioneers of this great movement, Miss Thomas turned to Susan and said, "To you, Miss Anthony, belongs by right, as to no other woman in the world's history, the love and gratitude of all women in every country of the civilized globe. We your daughters in spirit, rise up today and call you blessed.... Of such as you were the lines of the poet Yeats written:
'They shall be remembered forever,
They shall be alive forever,
They shall be speaking forever,
The people shall hear them forever.'"[458]
During the thundering applause, Susan came forward to respond, her face alight, and the audience rose. "If any proof were needed of the progress of the cause for which I have worked, it is here tonight," she said simply. "The presence on the stage of these college women, and in the audience of all those college girls who will someday be the nation's greatest strength, tell their story to the world. They give the highest joy and encouragement to me...."[459]
During her visit at the home of Mary Garrett, Susan spoke freely with her and with M. Carey Thomas of the needs of the National American Association, particularly of the Standing Fund of $100,000 of which she had dreamed and which she had started to raise. Now, like an answer to prayer, Mary Garrett and President Thomas, fresh from their successful money-raising campaigns for Johns Hopkins and Bryn Mawr, offered to undertake a similar project for woman suffrage, proposing to raise $60,000—$12,000 a year for the next five years.