btedly has been as widely
written up as any lecturer, and she seldom received less than a column
in each paper of every town visited. Large numbers of these notices
have been carefully preserved in those wonderful scrap-books which
cover a period of fifty years.

At first her demands seemed so radical and the idea of a woman on the
platform was so contrary to the precedent of all the ages, that the
tone of the press, almost without exception, was contemptuous or
denunciatory. As the justice of her claims began to dawn upon the minds
of enlightened people, as many other prominent women joined in
advocating the same reforms, and as these were adopted, one after
another, without serious consequences, the public mind awakened to the
remarkable change which was being wrought, and in a large measure gave
its approval. When the masses of people throughout the country came to
see and hear and know Miss Anthony, they resented the way in which she
had been misrepresented. There was in her manner and words so much of
dignity, earnestness and sincerity that "those who came to scoff
remained to pray," and this change of sentiment was nowhere so marked
as in the newspapers. Even those who differed radically from her views
paid tribute to the persistence with which she had urged them and the
sacrifices she had made for them during the past thirty years. Not only
had there been developed a recognition of her high purposes and noble
life, but also of her great intellectual ability and clear
comprehension of all the issues of the day. An extract from the Terre
Haute Express, February 12, 1879, illustrates this:

Miss Anthony's lecture was full of fine passages and strong
appeals, and replete with well-stated facts in support of her
arguments. She has wonderful command of language, and her speech at
times flows with such rapidity that no reporter could do her
justice or catch a tithe of the brilliance of her sayings.
Moreover, there are not half of our public men who are nearly so
well posted in the political affairs of our country as she, or who,
knowing them, could frame them so solidly in argument. If the women
of the nation were half so high-minded or even half so earnest,
their title to the franchise might soon be granted.[96]

Another Indiana paper thus voiced the changing sentiment: "The fact is,
that like the advance agent of any great reform--especially if a
woman--Susan B. Anthony has b