money, for I need it if ever anybody did.  If I have to get it, however, at the cost of losing our golden opportunity there, it will be too dear a price to pay.

Miss Anthony was correct in her forecast, the suffrage amendment was defeated in Michigan by more than three to one, but there is no doubt her able canvass contributed largely to secure “a respectable minority.”

In the summer of 1874 the so-called Beecher-Tilton scandal, which had been smouldering a long time, burst into full blaze.  Miss Anthony had been for many years on intimate terms with all the parties in this unfortunate affair, and there was a persistent rumor that she had at one time received a confession from Mrs. Tilton which, if given by her to the public, would settle the vexed question beyond a doubt.  It is scarcely possible to describe the pressure brought to bear to force her to disclose what she knew.  During her lecture tours of that summer and fall, while the trial was in progress before the church committee, she never entered a railroad car, an omnibus or a hotel but there was somebody ready to question her.  In every town and city she was called upon for an interview before she had time to brush off the dust of travel.  One of the New York papers detailed a reporter to follow her from point to point, catch every word she uttered, ferret out all she said to her friends and in some way extort what was wanted.  She often remarked that “in this case men proved themselves the champion gossips of the world.”

Papers which had befriended her and her cause reminded her of this fact and urged her to return the favor by telling them what she knew.  Telegrams and letters poured in upon her from strangers and friends, some commending and begging her to continue silent; others censuring and urging her to tell the whole story.  Lawyers connected with the case wrote her the shrewdest of pleas, telling her how the other side were trying to defame her character and urging her to speak in self-defense; but it is a significant fact that she received no official summons either during the church committee investigation or the trial in court.

The Chicago Tribune, having failed to secure an interview, said:  “Miss Anthony keeps her own counsel in this matter with a resolution which would do credit to General Grant.”  Several papers manufactured interviews with her out of whole cloth.  Everybody else, man or woman, who had the slightest knowledge of the affair, rushed into print, but under all the pressure she remained as immovable and silent as the granite mountains amid which she was born.  The universal desire to have her speak was because of the value placed upon her integrity and veracity.  John Hooker, the eminent lawyer of Hartford, Conn., brother-in-law of Mr. Beecher, voiced the opinion of her friends when he wrote under date of November 9, 1874:  “A more truthful person does not live.  The whole world could not get her to go into a conspiracy against one whom she believed to be innocent.  I have perfect confidence in her truthfulness and always stoutly assert it.”