The first year of Mr. Buchanan’s administration was marked by a severe and widespread financial stringency.  A decade of unparalleled prosperity, with its resultant speculation and expansion of business, was followed by heavy losses, failures and panic.  The whole year of 1857 was one continued struggle and vain effort to ward off the impending crisis.  To make the situation still more trying the winter was one of great severity, so it is not surprising, accustomed though she was to hardships and disappointments, that Miss Anthony should have found this series of meetings the most disheartening experience of her life.  She engaged Stephen and Abby Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Aaron M. Powell, Benjamin and Elizabeth Jones, Charles Remond and his sister Sarah, the last two educated and refined colored people; marked out routes, planned the meetings, kept three companies of speakers constantly employed, and spared herself no labor, no exposure, no annoyance.  She found that envy, jealousy and other disagreeable traits were not confined to one sex, but that it required quite as much tact and judgment to deal with men as with women.  She had the usual experience of a manager, speakers complaining of their routes, refusing to go where sent, falling ill at the most critical times, and continual fault-finding from the people who stayed at home and did nothing.

She had been working for the public long enough to expect all this, but was distressed beyond measure because she could not make the meetings pay for themselves.  For reasons already mentioned the audiences were small and collections still smaller.  At her woman’s rights lectures she had encountered indifference and ridicule; now she was met with open hostility.  In every town a few friends rallied around and extended hospitality and support, but the ordeal was of that kind which leaves ineffaceable marks on the soul.  For all this she was paid $10 a week and expenses; not through any desire to be unjust, but because the committee were having a hard struggle to secure the necessary funds to carry on their vast work.  Her last woman’s rights campaign had left her in debt and she could not provide herself with a new wardrobe for this tour, but records in her diary at the beginning of winter:  “A double-faced merino, which I bought at Canajoharie ten years ago, I have had colored dark green and a skirt made of it.  I bought some green cloth to match for a basque, and it makes a handsome suit.  With my Siberian squirrel cape I shall be very comfortable.”

Lucy Stone wrote:  “I know how you feel with all the burden of these conventions and it is not just that you should bear it.  There is not a man in the whole anti-slavery ranks who could do it.  I wish I could help you but I can not.  You are one of those who are sufficient unto themselves and I thank God every day for you.  Antoinette can not come because she is so busy with that baby!” From Mr. May came these comforting words:  “We