Hearing that Susan and Mrs. Stanton were in the West en route to California, Leland Stanford, Governor of California and president of the recently completed Central Pacific Railway, sent them passes for their journey. They reached San Francisco with high hopes that they could win the support of western men for their demand for woman suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment. Their welcome was warm and the press friendly. An audience of over 1,200 listened with real interest to Mrs. Stanton. Then the two crusaders made a misstep. Eager to learn the woman's side of the case in the recent widely publicized murder of the wealthy attorney, Alexander P. Crittenden, by Laura Fair, they visited Laura Fair in prison. Immediately the newspapers reported this move in a most critical vein, with the result that an uneasy audience crowded into the hall where Susan was to speak on "The Power of the Ballot." As she proceeded to prove that women needed the ballot to protect themselves and their work and could not count on the support and protection of men, she cited case after case of men's betrayal of women. Then bringing home her point, she declared with vigor, "If all men had protected all women as they would have their own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in your jail tonight."[270] Boos and hisses from every part of the hall greeted this statement; but Susan, trained on the antislavery platform to hold her ground whatever the tumult, waited patiently until this protest subsided, standing before the defiant audience, poised and unafraid. Then, in a clear steady voice, she repeated her challenging words. This time, above the hisses, she heard a few cheers, and for the third time she repeated, "If all men had protected all women as they would have their own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in your jail tonight." Now the audience, admiring her courage, roared its applause. "I declare to you," she concluded, "that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and here I take my stand." Reading the newspapers the next morning, she found herself accused not only of defending Laura Fair, but of condoning the murder of Crittenden. This story was republished throughout the state and eagerly picked up by New York newspapers. As it was now impossible for her or for Mrs. Stanton to draw a friendly audience anywhere in California, they took refuge in the Yosemite Valley for the next few weeks. Susan was inconsolable. These slanders on top of the loss of _The Revolution_ and the split in the suffrage ranks seemed more than she could bear. "Never in all my hard experience have I been under such fire," she confided to her diary. "The clouds are so heavy over me.... I never before was so cut down."[271]