There were, of course, some misrepresentations, both intentional and unintentional, of Miss Anthony's attitude. The fact of her speaking on the platforms of all political parties was something which many people could not comprehend, and the party organs could not refrain from twisting her remarks a little bit in the direction of their doctrines; then would come a storm of protests from the other side, and she would have to explain what she actually said. Thus, with the reporters constantly at her elbow, the public watching every utterance and the politicians on the alert to discover what party she and her fellow-workers really did favor, she lived indeed for many months in "the fierce light that beats upon a throne."
"O, that I had you by my side; what a team we would make!" she often wrote to Mrs. Stanton, who answered: "I read all the papers you send and watch closely the progress of the campaign. I feel at times as if I should fly to your help. We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?"
In June the National Republican Convention was held at St. Louis. Miss Anthony could not make the long journey but she sent the following resolution and asked its adoption: "The Republican Party in national convention assembled hereby recommends that Congress shall submit an amendment to the Federal Constitution providing that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of sex."
The platform committee labored and this is what it brought forth: "The Republican party is mindful of the rights and interests of women. Protection of American industries includes equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and protection to the home. We favor the admission of women to wider spheres of usefulness, and welcome their co-operation in rescuing the country from Democratic mismanagement and Populist misrule."
Miss Anthony's indignation, anger and contempt when she read this resolution can not be put into words. It required the combined efforts of those who were nearest her to prevent the expression of her opinion in reply to the many reporters and letters wanting to know how she regarded this plank. "You must not offend the Republicans and injure our amendment," they argued, and she would acquiesce and subside. Then, after thinking it over, she would again burst forth and declare the women of the country should not be compelled to submit to this insult without a protest from her. "Women want the suffrage as a sword to smite down Democratic and Populist misrule. Infamous!" she exclaimed again and again. "That climaxes all the outrages ever offered to women in the history of political platforms." To Mrs. Stanton she wrote: "O, that you were young and strong and free, and could fire off of the planet such ineffable slush as is being slobbered over our cause!" But she held her peace, and all the brainy women who were conducting this great campaign kept silent, although there was not one of them who did not feel exactly like Miss Anthony in regard to this plank. Nor was there a woman in the country, who was able to comprehend the resolution, that did not regard it as an insult and feel that she would prefer never again to have women mentioned in a national platform if the men who should make it had no higher conception of justice than this.
On October 11, Miss Anthony started on a southern tour, speaking first at San Luis Obispo to an audience which crowded the hall. From here to Santa Barbara, through the courtesy of Superintendent Johnson, of the narrow gauge railroad, the train was stopped at every station for a ten-minute address. At some places a stage had been extemporized, at others she spoke from the rear platform of the car. Her coming had been announced and, even in those rather thinly settled regions, there would be as many as a thousand people gathered at the station. When she concluded, quantities of flowers would be thrown in her pathway and the platform literally banked with them.[122] After a stage ride of forty miles she received an enthusiastic welcome at Santa Barbara, where she was the guest of Dr. Ida Stambach. The ovation was continued at all the towns visited in the southern part of the State.
A little flurry had been caused early in the campaign by the announcement that the National W. C. T. U. Convention would be held in San Francisco during the autumn of 1896. Miss Anthony had written Miss Willard that she thought this would be very injudicious. She then had agreed to postpone it until after the election, and Miss Anthony again had objected, saying:
I am glad you think it will be possible to postpone your convention to November; but, you see, even to do that all California will be full of your advertisements, and the papers all telling how the W. C. T. U. is going to bring its convention to San Francisco immediately after the women have the right to vote, so as to educate them to destroy the wine-growing and brandy-distilling business; in other words, that it is going to start in the first thing to ruin what today is the one means of livelihood for immense numbers of ranchmen throughout the State. So, I hope—nay, I beseech that you will withdraw the convention altogether from California for this year. I have had letters from the amendment campaign committee, and every one of them deplores the coming of the convention....
Now, my dear, hold your convention any place but in a State where we are trying to persuade every license man, every wine-grower, every drinker and every one who does not believe in prohibition, as well as every one who does, to vote "yes" on the woman suffrage question. If you only will do this, I am sure you will do the most effective work in the power of any mortal to secure the end we all so much desire.
Miss Willard replied in a cordial letter that she had not the slightest wish to antagonize her or the suffrage movement and would use her influence to have the place of the convention changed. To Mrs. B. Sturtevant Peet, president of the California W. C. T. U., who was somewhat in doubt as to the necessity for such change, Miss Anthony wrote:
What you say of the good influence of your national convention in San Francisco is true so far as concerns the actual Prohibition men; but we must consider those who are making their daily bread out of the manufacture as well as the sale of liquors. There are many excellent men in California who are not total abstainers, but who believe in wine as the people of Italy and France believe in it; and I think that, in waging our campaign, we should be careful not to run against the prejudices or the pecuniary interests of that class. As I have said before, if it were a Prohibition amendment which was pending I should think it exceedingly unwise to run that campaign under the banner of woman suffrage. The average human mind is incapable of taking in more than one idea at a time. The one we want to get into the heads of the voters this year is woman's enfranchisement, and we must pull every string with every possible individual man and class of men to secure their votes for this amendment. We should be extremely careful to base all our arguments upon the right of every individual to have his or her opinion counted at the ballot-box, whether it is in accordance with ours or not. Therefore, the amendment must not be urged as a measure for temperance, social purity, or any other reform, but simply as a measure to give to women the right to vote yea or nay on each and all of them. I want every woman in California to work for the amendment, but I want her to work in the name of suffrage, not of prohibition.