St. Louis Suffrage
Association urged George Francis Train to come to the aid of women in
Kansas, and always ready to champion a new and unpopular cause, he
telegraphed his willingness to win the Democratic vote and pay his own
expenses. Knowing little about him except that he was wealthy,
eccentric, and interested in developing the Union Pacific Railroad,
Susan turned tactfully to her Kansas friends for advice, although she
herself welcomed his help. They wired him, "The people want you, the
women want you";[199] and he came into the state in a burst of glory,
speaking first in Leavenworth and Lawrence to large curious audiences.
A tall handsome man with curly brown hair and keen gray eyes, flashily
dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, white vest, black trousers,
patent-leather boots, and lavender kid gloves, he was a sight worth
driving miles to see, and he gave his audiences the best entertainment
they had had in many a day, shouting jingles at them in the midst of
his speeches and mercilessly ridiculing the Republicans. Here was none
of the boredom of most political speeches, none of the long sonorous
sentences with classical allusions which the big-name orators of the
day poured out. His bold statements, his clipped rapid-fire sentences
held the people's attention whether they agreed with him or not. When
he spoke in Leavenworth, the hall was packed with Irishmen who were
building the railroad to the West. They hissed when he mentioned woman
suffrage, but before long he had won them over and they cheered when
he shook his finger at them and shouted, "Every man in Kansas who
throws a vote for the Negro and not for women has insulted his mother,
his daughter, his sister, and his wife."[200]

[Illustration: George Francis Train]

At once the Republican press began a campaign of vilification, calling
Train a Copperhead and ridiculing his eccentricities and conceits; and
eastern Republicans, fearing they had harmed the Negro amendment in
Kansas by their opposition to woman suffrage, tried to make
last-minute amends by sending an appeal to Kansas voters to support
both amendments. Even Horace Greeley lamely supported them in a
_Tribune_ editorial which Susan read with disgust: "It is plain that
the experiment of Female Suffrage is to be tried; and, while we regard
it with distrust, we are quite willing to see it pioneered by Kansas.
She is a young State, and has a memorable history, wherein her women
have borne a