At Colorado Springs, their reception was almost a pageant. Marching to music, a procession of women clad in purple, white, and gold surplices and carrying banners, accompanied the Suffrage car to the City Hall where they sang The March of the Women and The Song of the Free Women. The Mayor of Colorado Springs greeted them with a welcoming speech.
In the bogs of southern Kansas, the Suffrage car had an adventure. The Suffragist says:
Pulling into Hutchinson on Monday evening over muddy roads, the car plunged suddenly into a deep hole filled with water. The body of the Flier was almost submerged. The petitioners, fearing to step out of the car, sat and called “Help!” into the darkness of the night until their voices were hoarse. No response came from the apparently deserted country. But they knew there was a farmhouse about a mile back. So Sara Bard Field, little but brave, slipped away from her place on the back seat; before her companions knew it, was almost up to her waist in slimy mud. Hardly able to pull one foot out of the mud to plant it ahead of the other, she finally, after a two hours’ struggle, reached the ranch, where the farmer and his son were roused from their sleep (for it was now midnight) and told of the women’s plight. In a little while, horses were harnessed and a rescue party was on its way; but not until three o’clock did the women start toward Hutchinson tired and wet, and covered with mud.
In Kansas City, Missouri, the Suffragists, accompanied by a procession of automobiles, impressively long, called first on Mayor Jost and then on Senator Reed. The difference between Suffrage and non-Suffrage States became immediately evident from Mayor Jost’s attitude; for, while he bade the envoys welcome, he declined to state his own convictions on the purposes of their journey. There was no doubt about Senator Reed’s conviction. He had voted against the Suffrage measure in the last Session. The women made speeches. In answer, Senator Reed spoke several sentences in such a low and indistinct manner that no one in the crowd that overflowed his office could understand him, and a man in the delegation called out, “You need say only one word, Senator.” There were more speeches from the women, and, when Senator Reed saw that something must be said, he finally declared he “would take the matter into consideration.”
Mrs. Field writing of Missouri, said:
“In the enemy’s country,”—that is what the newspapers said of our arrival in Missouri, the first non-Suffrage State we reached. Such kind, genial, hospitable “enemies.” I wish all enemies were of their disposition. For a whole day and night, Kansas City, Missouri, was alive with Suffrage enthusiasm; great crowds attended our advent everywhere. We never spoke that whole day, from our noon meeting on the City Hall steps until the last late street meeting at night, but we had more people to talk to than our voices could reach. As our auto procession passed down the street, crowds gathered to see it; and the windows of every business house and office building were lined with kindly faces. Often, there was applause and cheers; when these were lacking, there was a peculiar sort of earnest curiosity. And, oh the Suffragists! I wish that every western voting woman who is making a sacrificial effort at all for National Suffrage could have seen those grateful women. “The greatest day for Suffrage Kansas has ever seen,” said some of the older Suffrage workers: “How good of the western women to come to our aid!” At the City Club meeting, which was packed, Mr. Frank P. Walsh predicted National Suffrage in 1916. There was good fellowship over a Suffrage dinner, and earnest street meetings afterwards; gravely interested crowds attended, and the newspapers gave large space. The whole city talked National Suffrage for at least two days.
At Topeka occurred another adventure. A great crowd awaited the Suffrage automobile for two hours. But sixty miles away, afflicted with tire trouble and engine difficulties, the car stood stationary for those two hours. And all the time, the valiant Mabel Vernon talked, hoping against hope that the arrival of the car would interrupt her speech. She says that in those two hours she talked everything she ever knew, guessed, hoped, or wished for Suffrage.
The Chicago reception was unusually picturesque. Enthusiasm was heightened by the fact that the women voters were holding a Convention there, and they added their welcome to that of the city.
At eleven o’clock in the morning, fifty automobiles, flying the Suffrage colors, and filled with Suffrage workers from all organizations, met Mrs. Field at her hotel. Then the long line of cars escorted by mounted officers, passed through the crowded streets to the Art Museum on the wide Michigan Boulevard. Here was a stage equal in impressiveness, although of quite a different kind, to that of the Court of Abundance, which saw the envoys depart down their nation-wide trail. Back of them was the great silver-gray Lake; in front of them, the long line of monolithic Chicago skyscrapers, grim and weather-blackened; and on both sides the wide expanses of the Boulevard. The Suffrage women, a mass of brilliant color, covered the steps of the Museum. At the top a chorus of a hundred women grouped about the band. From the bronze standard in the center of the steps hung the Amendment banner. And in their midst, like, as somebody has said—“a brown autumn leaf blown from the West”—Sara Bard Field in her simple traveling suit punctuated all that vividness.
Mayor Thompson said: