After just five days at home Miss Anthony left for Chicago to attend the Democratic National Convention, June 21, which was requested to adopt the following plank: "Whether we view the suffrage as a privilege or as a natural right, it belongs equally to every citizen of good character and legal age under government; hence women as well as men should enjoy the dignity and protection of the ballot in their own hands."
Miss Anthony and Isabella Beecher Hooker took rooms at the Palmer House and the latter made arrangements for the hearing before the resolution committee, which was assembled in one of the parlors, Henry Watterson, of Louisville, chairman. The ladies made their speeches, were courteously heard, politely bowed out, and the platform was as densely silent on the question of woman suffrage as it had been during its whole history. Mrs. Hooker remained alone in the convention until 2 o'clock in the morning, hoping to get a chance to address that body. She had not been fooled as many times as Miss Anthony, who returned to the hotel and went to bed.
The Union Signal, Frances E. Willard, editor, spoke thus of the occasion:
That heroic figure, Susan B. Anthony, sure to stand out in history as plainly as any of our presidents, has given added significance to the two great political conventions of the year. Neither party has recognized her plea, but both have innumerable adherents who openly declare themselves in favor of her principles. She states that this year she felt for the first time that she had a pivot on which to hang her quadrennial plea, and that pivot was Wyoming, the men of that equal-minded State in both conventions holding up her hands. Miss Anthony's pathetic eyes reveal that she has attained to loneliness—the guerdon of great spirits who struggle from any direction toward the mountain tops of human liberty. But on the heights such souls meet God, and one day all women shall call her blessed.
The National Prohibition Convention at Cincinnati, June 30, was not visited by Miss Anthony, as she felt that the women of this party needed no assistance in looking after the interests of suffrage. The third plank in the platform there adopted read: "No citizen should be denied the right to vote on account of sex."
From Chicago she went directly to Kansas to look after the fences in that State. Mrs. Johns and Anna Shaw joined her and they spoke before the Chautauqua Assembly at Ottawa, June 27, going thence to Topeka, as Miss Anthony expressed it, "to watch the State Republican Convention." They received a hearty greeting and she was invited to address the convention June 30. The Capital said: "There were loud calls for Susan B. Anthony and as she advanced to the platform she was greeted with the most cordial applause." In the evening a reception was given in the Senate chamber to the ladies in attendance at the convention. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Johns and Mrs. May Belleville Brown addressed the resolution committee. The platform was reported with a plank favoring the submission to the voters of a woman suffrage amendment, which was enthusiastically adopted—455 to 267—in the largest Republican convention ever held in Kansas.[74]
Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw then hastened to Omaha for the first national convention of the People's party July 4. They arrived about 9 p. m., July 2, to find they were booked for speeches at the Unitarian church that evening and the audience had been waiting since 7:30, so they rushed thither, hot, dusty and tired, and made their addresses. Sunday afternoon they went to a workingwomen's meeting in the exposition building and heard Master Workman Powderly for the first time. At his invitation Miss Anthony also spoke.
The People's party, from its inception, had recognized women as speakers and delegates and claimed to be the party of morality and reform, but after a day at the convention Miss Anthony writes in her diary: "They are quite as oblivious to the underlying principle of justice to women as either of the old parties and, as a convention, still more so." The resolution committee refused to grant the ladies even an opportunity to address them, which had been done willingly by the Republicans and Democrats. Their platform contained no reference to woman suffrage except that in the long preamble occurred the sentence: "We believe that the forces of reform this day organized will never cease to move forward until every wrong is righted, and equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of this country." This sentiment, however, was universally accepted by the delegates as including the right of suffrage.
Miss Anthony spoke at the Beatrice Chautauqua Assembly, and then returned to Rochester. She had some time before received a letter from Chancellor John H. Vincent saying: "The subject of woman suffrage will be presented at Chautauqua on Saturday, July 30, 1892. A prominent speaker will be secured to present the question as forcibly as possible. In behalf of the Chautauqua management, I take pleasure in extending to you a hearty invitation to be present and take a place upon the platform on that occasion. Trusting that you will be able to accept this invitation, I am, faithfully yours."