of herself to the task.

When letters came from Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker showing plainly
that they were falling in with Victoria's plans to form a new
political party, Susan at once dashed off these lines of warning: "We
have no element out of which to make a political party, because there
is not a man who would vote a woman suffrage ticket if thereby he
endangered his Republican, Democratic, Workingmen's, or Temperance
party, and all our time and words in that direction are simply thrown
away. My name must not be used to call any such meeting."[281]

Then she added, "Mrs. Woodhull has the advantage of us because she has
the newspaper, and she persistently means to run our craft into her
port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I
might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is
wholly owned and dominated by _men_ spirits and I spurn the whole lot
of them...."

A few weeks later, as she looked over the latest copy of _Woodhull &
Claflin's Weekly_, she was horrified to find her name signed to a call
to a political convention sponsored by the National Woman Suffrage
Association. Immediately she telegraphed Mrs. Stanton to remove her
name and wrote stern indignant letters begging her and Mrs. Hooker not
to involve the National Association in Victoria Woodhull's
presidential campaign. Although she herself had often called for a new
political party while she was publishing _The Revolution_, she was
practical enough to recognize that a party formed under Victoria
Woodhull's banner was doomed to failure.

Returning to New York, she found both Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker
still completely absorbed in Victoria's plans. Bringing herself up to
date once more on the latest developments in the colorful life of
Victoria Woodhull, she found that she had been lecturing on "The
Impending Revolution" to large enthusiastic audiences and that she had
again been called into court by her family. Goaded to defiance by an
increasingly virulent press, Victoria had also begun to blackmail
suffragists who she thought were her enemies, among them Mrs. Bullard,
Mrs. Blake, and Mrs. Phelps. This made Susan take steps at once to
free the National Association of her influence.

When Victoria Woodhull, followed by a crowd of supporters, sailed into
the first business session of the National Woman Suffrage Association
in New York, announcing that the People's convention would hold a
joint meeting with