I can not tell you how more and more it is borne in upon me that our one chance lies in securing the Republican pledge to carry us to victory, for that will mean a Populist pledge, and both planks will mean a clean-cut battle between the different elements of the grand old party combined as one on this question—and the Democracy of the State. Even with so solid an alliance of the two branches, we shall have a hard enough fight of it. Every woman who listens to the siren tongues of political wire-pullers and office-seekers not to demand a plank, will thereby help to sell Kansas back into the hands of the whiskey power. Behind every anti-plank man's word, written or spoken, is his willingness to let Kansas return to saloon rule. Sugar coat it as they may, that is the unsavory pill in the motive of every one of them.
Sincerely and hopefully yours, trusting in good and keeping our powder dry.
Enough has been quoted to show the situation. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt and Miss Shaw went to Kansas to open the spring canvass, May 4, to influence the State conventions. Miss Anthony had been advertised for forty-three speeches. The women of New York, where a great campaign was in progress, were highly indignant that she should leave her own State, but she had put her heart into this Kansas campaign as never into any other, and she fully believed that, if properly managed, the result could not fail to be victory for the amendment. The three ladies held the first meeting in Kansas City, May 4. Miss Anthony made a speech which fairly raised the hair of her audience, demanding in unqualified terms the endorsement of the amendment by the Republican and People's parties. She closed by offering the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:
Whereas, From the standpoint of justice, political expediency and grateful appreciation of their wise and practical use of school suffrage from the organization of the State, and of municipal suffrage for the past eight years, we, of the Republican and People's parties, descendants of that grand old party of splendid majorities which extended these rights to the women of Kansas, in mass meeting assembled do hereby
Resolve, That we urgently request our delegates in their approaching State conventions to endorse the woman suffrage amendment in their respective platforms.
That night she wrote in her journal: "Never did I speak under such a fearful pressure of opposition. Mrs. Johns, presiding, never smiled, and other women on the platform whispered angrily and said audibly, 'She is losing us thousands of votes by this speech.'" Miss Anthony repeated it in the county mass conventions at Leavenworth and Topeka, to the dismay of the Republican women and the wrath of the men.[102] While at the latter place she received an urgent summons to return immediately to New York, as fresh dangers threatened; and so she hastened eastward, leaving the others to fill her engagements. On her way, she stopped by invitation at Kansas City, Mo., and with Miss Shaw held a Sunday afternoon meeting at which $133 were raised for the Kansas campaign.
In three weeks Miss Anthony returned to Kansas, arriving June 5. She found the Republican Woman's State Convention in session, Mrs. Johns presiding. The committee reported a weak resolution declaring that they would not make the adoption of a suffrage plank by the Republican State Convention "a test of party fealty," etc. Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw condemned this in the strongest English they could command. Mrs. Johns also severely criticised the committee, but Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, who had come for both conventions, said: "I care more for the dominant principles of the Republican party than I do for woman suffrage." The committee finally were compelled to report a stronger resolution asking for recognition.
The Republican convention met June 6. C. V. Eskridge, of Emporia, the oldest and bitterest opponent of woman suffrage in the State of Kansas, was made chairman of the committee on resolutions. The proposal to hear the women speak, during an interim in the proceedings, was met by a storm of noes. Finally Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Johns were permitted to present the claims of women, but neither Miss Anthony nor Miss Shaw was given an opportunity to address the convention. They did, however, plead the women's cause most eloquently before the resolution committee of thirty-five members, but the platform was entirely silent on the subject, not even containing the usual complimentary allusions, recognition of their services, etc.[103] Not the slightest attempt was made to deny the fact that agents of the party had been at work for weeks among the various county conventions to see that delegates were appointed who were opposed to a suffrage plank, and that the resolution committee had been carefully "packed" to prevent any danger of one. In conversations which Miss Anthony held with several of the leading candidates who in times past had advocated woman suffrage, they did not hesitate to admit that the party had formed an alliance with the whiskey ring to defeat the Populists. "We must redeem the State," was their only cry. "Redeem it from what?" she asked. "From financial heresies," was the answer. "Yes," she retorted, "even if you sink it to the depths of hell on moral issues."
It is not probable that any earthly power could have secured Republican endorsement at this time, although heretofore the party always had posed as the champion of this cause. There never was a more pitiable exhibition of abject subserviency to party domination. Men who had stood boldly for woman suffrage in the legislature, men who had spoken for it on the platform in every county in the State, sat dumb as slaves in this convention, sacrificing without scruple a lifelong principle for the sake of a paltry political reward. While many of the papers had spoken earnestly in favor of the amendment, the Leavenworth Times, owned and edited by D. R. Anthony, was the only one of size and influence which demanded party endorsement.[104] The Republican managers had but one idea—to overthrow Populist rule and get back the reins of government—and they were ready to take on or pitch overboard whatever would contribute to this end.
A suffrage mass meeting was held in Topeka the Saturday following the convention and, in spite of a heavy thunderstorm, there was an audience of over one thousand. Annie L. Diggs presided and Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw spoke, the former on "Reasons why the dominant parties do not put a plank in their platforms;" the latter on, "Woman first, Republican or Populist afterwards."
The great question now was whether it were wise to ask for a suffrage plank in the Populist platform, and here again was great diversity of opinion. Some thought that endorsement by this party would make it appear like a Populist measure, and the Republicans would vote against it rather than allow them to have the credit of carrying it. Others held that the Populists carried the State at the last election and were likely to do so again, and with their party vote, the Prohibition and such Republican votes as certainly could be counted on, the amendment would go through without fail. Miss Anthony belonged to the latter class and directed every energy towards securing an endorsement in their State convention, June 12. Although woman suffrage had been one of the tenets of this party from its beginning, there was by no means a unanimous sentiment in favor of a plank of endorsement. This was especially true in regard to the leaders. Governor Lewelling, who was a candidate for re-election, was openly opposed, and P. P. Elder, chairman of the resolution committee, made a determined fight against it.