1875-1876.

At the close of 1874, December 28, the cause of woman suffrage lost a strong supporter by the death of Gerrit Smith.  Miss Anthony felt the loss deeply, as he had been her warm personal friend for twenty-five years and always ready with financial aid for her projects; but she suffered a keener shock one week later when the news came of the sudden death of Martha C. Wright, January 4, 1875.  She says in her diary:  “It struck me dumb, I could not believe it; clear-sighted, true and steadfast almost beyond all other women!  Her home was my home, always so restful and refreshing, her friendship never failed; the darker the hour, the brighter were her words of encouragement, the stronger and closer her support.  I can not be reconciled.”

But for this earnest advocate there could be no cessation of work and the 14th of January found her again in Washington at the National Convention.  These annual meetings, with their advertising, hall rent, expenses of speakers, etc., were costly affairs.  Before every one Miss Anthony always received scores of letters from the other workers begging that it might be given up for that year, insisting that for various reasons it would be a failure, and declaring that they could not and would not attend.  Mrs. Stanton usually headed the list of the objectors, for she hated everything connected with a convention.  On the back of one of these vehement protests, carefully filed away, is written in Miss Anthony’s penmanship, “Mrs. Stanton’s chronic letter before each annual meeting.”  She never paid the slightest heed to any of these appeals, but went straight ahead, wheeled all of them into line, engaged the speakers, raised the money and carried the convention to a finish.  When the funds were lacking she advanced them from her own, usually ending one or two hundred dollars out of pocket.  Then she went about among the friends and secured enough to replace the loan or, failing in this, worked so much the harder to make it up out of her earnings.

On her way home from Washington, Miss Anthony stopped for a visit with her loved cousin Anson Lapham and on leaving he handed her a check for $1,000, saying, “Susan, this is not for suffrage but for thee personally.”  Nevertheless she at once applied it on the debt still hanging over her from The Revolution.  Francis & Loutrel, of New York, who had furnished her with paper, letter-heads, etc., also presented her at this time with their receipted bill for $200.

In the winter of 1875, Miss Anthony prepared her speech on “Social Purity” and gave it first at the Grand Opera House, Chicago, March 14, in the Sunday afternoon Dime lecture course.[82] When she reached the opera house the crowd was so dense she could not get inside and was obliged to go through the engine room and up the back way to the stage.  The gentleman who was to introduce her could not make his way through the throng and so this service was gracefully performed