I declare it
seemed as if I did not know how to go on without you, and our women felt
just as I did. We have had you with us so often that we depended on your
presence more than we knew." In another long letter she said:

I hope the national association will not leave Kansas to work out
her own salvation. Surely you, to whom we owe municipal suffrage,
are not going to fail to come to us at this awful juncture! Dear
Aunt Susan, you won't get any wounds here. I will take charge of
the office and make the routes, which I am able to do well; I will
speak; I will organize; I will do anything you think best, and
there will be nobody inquiring what you do with funds, and there
will be no disgraceful charges and counter-charges, unless I am
greatly mistaken in Kansas women and in myself. We all love you
here and we want the cause to succeed more than we want personal
aggrandizement.

Mrs. Johns persuaded Mrs. Avery to join in her plea and finally Miss
Anthony could hold out no longer, but December 11 wrote to the latter:
"I have been fully resolved all along not to go to Kansas during this
first campaign, because I felt that my threescore and ten and two years
added ought to excuse me from the fearful exposure; still, since you and
dear Laura are left so deserted and will be so heartbroken if I stick to
my resolve, I will say yes, tuck on my coat and mittens and start. But
alas! how soon must that be? I am thoroughly in the dark as to when and
where I shall be wanted to begin, but I will do my level best."

[Illustration: Autograph: "Very truly yours, Frances E Warren"]

The closing days of 1891 were devoted to the voluminous correspondence
which preceded every national convention. The large number of letters on
file from prominent senators and representatives show that Miss Anthony
was keeping an eye on the committees and pulling the wires to have known
friends placed on those which would report on woman suffrage. "I am in
full sympathy with you upon the question of woman's enfranchisement,"
wrote Senator Dolph, of Oregon, "and also with your effort to secure a
chairman of the committee who favors the movement and is able to present
it with intelligence and ability." Speaker Reed closed his letter by
saying, "When the eleventh hour comes, we all shall flock in, clamorous
for pennies." Words of encouragement were received from many others, and
Senator and ex-Governor Fra