which I would read, but of course your presence is most desirable, and I incline to have you on hand for this last, great effort; for it does seem to me that we need not have another convention in Washington, but only a select committee to work privately every winter, and send for speakers, etc., when the committees are ready to grant hearings.

It is the part of wisdom to suppress Mrs. Stanton’s reply to this, but she sent it to Martha Wright, who answered her: 

You can imagine what success Mrs. Hooker will have with those wily politicians.  She thinks they will come serenely from their seats to the lobby, when she tries “all the means known to an honest woman.”  I fear the means known to the other sort would meet a readier response.  I forget which of the senators it was, last winter, who said rudely to Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Griffing, “You just call us out because you like to."...  Mrs. Hooker will find it no easy matter to hook them on to her platform, but she will be wiser after trying.  She is mistaken in considering the cause so nearly won, but it would be as impossible for her to realize the situation as it was for Rev. Thomas Beecher to be convinced that Mr. Smith saw more clearly than he.  “Do you mean,” said this potentate, “to bring down the whole Beecher family on your head?” “No,” was the reply, “do you mean to bring the whole Smith family on to yours?”

The following circular letter was sent to Curtis, Phillips and other prominent men: 

A convention has been announced at Washington, for January 11 and 12, to push the Sixteenth Amendment.  The management is solely in my hands, and I alone assume the financial responsibility.  I go to Washington January 1 to spend some days enlisting members of Congress in this purely political question, and securing short speeches from them on our platform.  I have neither State nor national society behind me, but am attempting to carry on a convention with this single aim—­to awaken Congress and, through it, the country, to the fact that a Sixteenth Amendment is needed, in order to carry out the principles of the Declaration of Independence; and that we women are tired of petitioning, and would fain begin to vote without delay.  Will you speak for me in the day or the evening, and much oblige your sincere friend, ISABELLA B. HOOKER.

Evidently they would not speak, even “for me,” and Mrs. Hooker sends around this note of explanation to the “old guard:”  “I know of no gentlemen outside of members of Congress, that can help us at all, who can come.  Beecher, Collyer, Curtis and Phillips are all unable.  If you think of any one else it would be worth while to invite, please write me at once.  I have such a strong determination that members shall understand how much we are in earnest at this time, and how we won’t wait any longer, that it does seem to me they will take up a burden of speech themselves, and work also.  Mr. Sewall, of Boston, writes me that he will urge Mr. Sumner, as I requested, and other members, but thinks they can not need it.”