Speaking for the City of Chicago, which I have the honor to represent, I can say that we wish you God-speed and much success in your mission.
He further told Mrs. Field:
We have watched the growth of the Suffrage movement with great interest, and as you know, we have partial Suffrage in Illinois. I hope it will not be long before women have full Suffrage here and throughout the nation.
Mrs. Field replied:
I like Mayor Thompson’s way of putting it. At Kansas City the other day, the Mayor quite flustered me with his speech. He said so many things about women—for instance, that woman was a Muse that soared; that she was the poetry of our existence; and something about the sun, moon, and stars. Then he added that he did not think women should be allowed to vote. I think Mayor Thompson’s method is much better.
“My recollections yesterday,” Mrs. Field wrote to the Suffragist, “are a confused mass of impressions—music and cheers—throngs of men, women, and children—colors flying in the sunshine, and great crowds surging and pressing about.”
In Indianapolis, there gathered to meet the envoys the largest street meeting ever held in Indiana in behalf of Suffrage. The Indianapolis News of November 8 says:
Mrs. Sara Bard Field, brown-eyed and slender, saw men gather at the curbing in the shadows of the Morton Monument, on the State House steps, shortly after noon today—watched them smile as she began her talk for Woman Suffrage, then saw their faces grow serious as they stepped nearer. Then she smiled herself, and her argument poured forth while “old hands” in the State House coterie and machine politicians stood with open mouths and drank in her pleadings.
There is only space for glimpses of this picturesque single pilgrimage from now on to its reception at Washington. At Detroit, they were welcomed by a glowing evening reception. A long procession of automobiles, decorated with yellow flags, yellow pennants, yellow balloons, and illuminated yellow lanterns, met them on the outskirts of the city, and escorted them to the steps of the County Building. Here four stone urns foamed with red fire. “The scene was,” one of the papers said, “like pictures of Rome in the time of the Cæsars....” In Cleveland, they held an open-air meeting in the public square in the midst of a whirling snowstorm. A drum, a trombone, and a cornet escorted them—with an effect markedly comic—through the echoing corridors of the City Hall to the Mayor’s office; escorted them, after the official call, onto the street again. In New York came their first real accident. On the way to Geneva, the axle broke. The Rochester motor companies declared it was impossible to do anything for a day at least; but Mrs. Field telephoned to the head office at Toledo, and a new axle appeared in Rochester at seven o’clock in the evening. However, the envoys had to drive through cold and a light fall of snow until half-past one in the morning, in order to make the meeting at Syracuse the next day.... In Albany, preceded by a musical car which played The Battle Hymn of the Republic, they proceeded to the enormous Capitol Building, where Governor Whitman, surrounded by his staff, met them. The Governor was amazed that a woman had driven the car all the way from San Francisco, and even more amazed at the size of the envoy. “I thought you would be six feet tall,” he said.... At Providence, after a rousing welcome in Boston—where Governor Walsh met the envoys, and the enormous crowd which accompanied them, in the beautiful rotunda of the State House—the little car, which now registered nearly five thousand miles of hard travel, was put on the boat, and its occupants brought to New York City. The weather-beaten automobile, bearing the slogan on the front, ON TO CONGRESS!, and on the back, the great Demand banner, WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ENFRANCHISING WOMEN, followed one hundred other cars, beautifully decorated with purple ribbons, with gold and white chrysanthemums and with floating golden balloons, blazed—among the jet-black motors and the glossy green busses of Fifth Avenue—a path of purple and gold. A huge meeting was held in the ball-room at Sherry’s at which Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Frances Joliffe, and Florence Kelley spoke for the Suffragists. Sara Bard Field closed the meeting. The Tribune said: “A tired little woman in a travel-worn brown suit, she stood in the glitter of Sherry’s ball-room, and held out a tired little brown hand.”
“We want to help you, the voting women of the West,” she pleaded; “will you let us?” “The audience,” the Suffragist says, “was moved to tears and action: six thousand dollars was contributed to the Congressional Union.”