n her
dearest friend.

Moving on to Oregon to lecture at the request of the pioneer
suffragist, Abigail Scott Duniway, she wrote Mrs. Stanton, who had
left for the East, "As I rolled on the ocean last week feeling that
the very next strain might swamp the ship, and thinking over all my
sins of omission and commission, there was nothing undone which
haunted me like the failure to speak the word at San Francisco again
and more fully. I would rather today have the satisfaction of having
said the true and needful thing on Laura Fair and the social evil,
with the hisses and hoots of San Francisco and the entire nation
around me, than all that you or I could possibly experience from their
united eulogies with that one word unsaid."[272]

* * * * *

So far Susan's western trip had netted her only $350. This was
disappointing in so far as she had counted upon it to reduce
substantially her _Revolution_ debt. She now hoped to build her
earnings up to $1,000 in Oregon and Washington. Everywhere in these
two states people took her to their hearts and the press with a few
exceptions was complimentary. The beauty of the rugged mountainous
country compensated her somewhat for the long tiring stage rides over
rough roads and for the cold uncomfortable lonely nights in poor
hotels. Only occasionally did she enjoy the luxury of a good cup of
coffee or a clean bed in a warm friendly home.

At first in Oregon she was apprehensive about facing an audience
because of her San Francisco experience, and she wrote Mrs. Stanton,
"But to the rack I must go, though another San Francisco torture be in
store for me."[273] She spoke on "The Power of the Ballot," on women's
right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment, on the need of women to
be self-supporting, and clearly and logically she marshaled her facts
and her arguments. Occasionally she obliged with a temperance speech,
or gathered women together to talk to them about the social evil,
relieved when they responded to this delicate subject with earnestness
and gratitude. Practice soon made her an easy, extemporaneous speaker.
Yet she was only now and then satisfied with her efforts, recording in
her diary, "Was happy in a real Patrick Henry speech."[274]

The proceeds from her lectures were disappointing, as money was scarce
in the West that winter, and she had just decided to return to the
East to spend Christmas with her mother and sisters when she was ur