ent audience for
her. According to her journal she "was too oozed-out even to be looked
at, much less to try to speak in the House of Representatives packed
with the flower of southern chivalry;" so she went on to Birmingham.
Here she found inadequate arrangements had been made and a northern
blizzard interfered with her meetings. The News, however, gave an
excellent two-column account beginning:

Only a moderate audience greeted Susan B. Anthony, the chief
suffrage leader in the United States, but that audience was
cultured and able to appreciate the very energetic, clear-minded
and vigorous woman, whose name is as well-known as that of any man
in the Union, and who has done more than any other woman to prove,
by her strong and unique personality, the mental equality of woman
with man and her fitness for the things sought to be entrusted to
her care, share and share alike with the sterner sex. After a
graceful introduction by Colonel J. W. Bush, the lecturer plunged
at once with ease and distinction into her subject and line of
argument.... She is a very able and incisive speaker, talks
fluently and distinctly, and makes easy and graceful gestures. In a
word, she is as good a lecturer as a good man-lecturer.

They spoke in the opera house at New Decatur, and were the guests of
Mrs. E. S. Hildreth. At Huntsville they were entertained by Mrs. Milton
Hume, and introduced to the audience by Mrs. Clay-Klopton. The Evening
Tribune headed its report, "Grand and Enthusiastic Meeting; Eloquent
Addresses Presented by Noble and Gifted Women;" and said:

Much to the surprise of a great many, the city hall was filled last
night with a very large and intelligent audience of ladies and
gentlemen.... Miss Anthony spoke for an hour in a plain, unassuming
manner, but ably and learnedly. She has been an active worker for
more than forty years in this cause and now, at life's closing
hours, sees the right accorded woman in the States of Wyoming and
Colorado, and the cause gaining momentum as intelligence spreads
and the blessings become known which follow in the pathway of
woman's ballot. No one can look upon the face of that venerated,
noble woman, who has grown gray in her life-work, and not be
impressed that there has been something more than sentiment, more
than a cranky idea, impelling her in all these long,