change. She received an invitation from
the board of directors to address the Kansas State Fair in September,
and also one from Col. John P. St. John, Republican candidate for
governor, to speak at a Grand National Temperance Camp Meeting near
Lawrence, but was obliged to decline both.

During the summer of 1878 reports were so constantly circulated
declaring woman suffrage a failure in Wyoming that Miss Anthony wrote
to J.H. Hayford, postmaster and editor of the Sentinel at Laramie City,
in regard to one of these in the New York World, which paper declared
it would vouch for the integrity of the writer. She received the
following answer:

The enclosed slander upon Wyoming women I had seen before, but did
not deem it worthy reply. Some of my Cheyenne friends took pains to
ascertain the writer and they assure me (and the Cheyenne papers
have published the fact) that he is a worthless, drunken dead-beat,
who worked out a ten days' sentence on the streets of that city
with a ball and chain to his leg.

I have not time to go into a detailed history of the practical
working of woman suffrage in Wyoming, but I can add my testimony to
the fact that its effect has been most salutary and beneficial. Not
one of the imaginary evils which its opponents predicted has ever
been realized here. On this frontier, where the roughest element is
supposed to exist, and where women are so largely in the
minority--even here, under these adverse circumstances, _woman's
influence has redeemed our politics_. Our elections are conducted
as quietly and civilly as any other public gatherings. Republicans
are not always elected, the most desirable men are not always
elected, perhaps; but the influence of our women is almost
universally given for the best men and the best laws, and we would
as soon be without woman's assistance in the government of the
family as in that of the Territory.

After having tried the experiment for nine years, it is safe to say
there is not one citizen of the Territory--man or woman--who
desires good order, good laws and good government, who would be
willing to see it abolished. Woman's influence in the government of
our Territory is a terror only to evil-doers, and they, and they
only, are the ones who desire its repeal. Such base slanders as the
specimen you sent me excite in the minds of Wyoming citizens only