Convinced that the National Woman Suffrage Association must publicize its existence and its value, Susan began the year 1870 with a convention in Washington which even Senator Sumner praised as exceeding in interest anything he had ever witnessed there. Its striking demonstration of the vitality and intelligence of the National Association was the best answer she could possibly have given to the accusations and criticism aimed at her and her organization.
Jessie Benton Frémont, watching the delegates enter the dining room of the Arlington Hotel, called Susan over to her table and said with a twinkle in her eyes, "Now, tell me, Miss Anthony, have you hunted the country over and picked out and brought to Washington a score of the most beautiful women you could find?"[251]
They were a fine-looking and intelligent lot—Paulina Wright Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Josephine Griffin of the Freedman's Bureau, Charlotte Wilbour, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Martha C. Wright, and Olympia Brown; Phoebe Couzins and Virginia Minor from Missouri, Madam Annekè from Wisconsin, and best of all to Susan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their presence, their friendship and allegiance were a source of great pride and joy. Elizabeth Stanton had come from St. Louis, interrupting her successful lecture tour, when she much preferred to stay away from all conventions. She had written Susan, "Of course, I stand by you to the end. I would not see you crushed by rivals even if to prevent it required my being cut into inch bits.... No power in heaven, hell or earth can separate us, for our hearts are eternally wedded together."[252]
Also at this convention to show his support of Susan and her program, was her faithful friend of many years, the Rev. Samuel J. May of Syracuse. Clara Barton, ill and unable to attend, sent a letter to be read, an appeal to her soldier friends for woman suffrage.
Not only did the large and enthusiastic audiences show a growing interest in votes for women, but two great victories for women in 1869, one in Great Britain and the other in the United States, brought to the convention a feeling of confidence. Women taxpayers had been granted the right to vote in municipal elections in England, Scotland, and Wales, through the efforts of Jacob Bright. In the Territory of Wyoming, during the first session of its legislature, women had been granted the right to vote, to hold office, and serve on juries, and married women had been given the right to their separate property and their earnings. This progressive action by men of the West turned Susan's thoughts hopefully to the western territories, and early in 1870 when the Territory of Utah enfranchised its women, she had further cause for rejoicing.
To celebrate these victories for which her twenty years' work for women had blazed the trail, some of her friends held a reception for her in New York at the Women's Bureau on her fiftieth birthday. She was amazed at the friendly attention her birthday received in the press. "Susan's Half Century," read a headline in the Herald. The World called her the Moses of her sex. "A Brave Old Maid," commented the Sun. But it was to the Tribune that she turned with special interest, always hoping for a word of approval from Horace Greeley and finding at last this faint ray of praise: "Careful readers of the Tribune have probably succeeded in discovering that we have not always been able to applaud the course of Miss Susan B. Anthony. Indeed, we have often felt, and sometimes said that her methods were as unwise as we thought her aims undesirable. But through these years of disputation and struggling. Miss Anthony has thoroughly impressed friends and enemies alike with the sincerity and earnestness of her purpose...."[253]
To Anna E. Dickinson, far away lecturing, Susan confided, "Oh, Anna, I am so glad of it all because it will teach the young girls that to be true to principle—to live an idea, though an unpopular one—that to live single—without any man's name—may be honorable."[254]
A few of Susan's younger colleagues still insisted that a merger of the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations might be possible. Again Theodore Tilton undertook the task of mediation and Lucretia Mott, who had retired from active participation in the woman's rights movement, tried to help work out a reconciliation. Susan was skeptical but gave them her blessing. Representatives of the American Association, however, again made it plain that they were unwilling to work with Susan and Mrs. Stanton.[255]
By this time The Revolution had become an overwhelming financial burden. For some months Mrs. Stanton had been urging Susan to give it up and turn to the lecture field, as she had done, to spread the message of woman's rights. Susan hesitated, unwilling to give up The Revolution and not yet confident that she could hold the attention of an audience for a whole evening. However, she found herself a great success when pushed into several Lyceum lecture engagements in Pennsylvania by Mrs. Stanton's sudden illness. "Miss Anthony evidently lectures not for the purpose of receiving applause," commented the Pittsburgh Commercial, "but for the purpose of making people understand and be convinced. She takes her place on the stage in a plain and unassuming manner and speaks extemporaneously and fluently, too, reminding one of an old campaign speaker, who is accustomed to talk simply for the purpose of converting his audience to his political theories. She used plain English and plenty of it.... She clearly evinced a quality that many politicians lack—sincerity."[256]