While Victoria Woodhull's fortunes were speedily dropping from the sublime heights of a presidential nomination to the humiliation of financial ruin, the loss of her home, and the suspended publication of her _Weekly_, Susan was knocking at the doors of the Republican and Democratic national conventions. She had previously appealed to the liberal Republicans, among whose delegates were her old friends George W. Julian, B. Gratz Brown, and Theodore Tilton, but they had ignored woman suffrage and had nominated for President, Horace Greeley, now a persistent opponent of votes for women. The Democrats did no better. Faced with Grant as the strong Republican nominee, they too nominated Horace Greeley with B. Gratz Brown as his running mate, hoping by this coalition to achieve victory. The Republicans, still unwilling to go the whole way for woman suffrage by giving it the recognition of a plank in their platform, did, however, offer women a splinter at which Susan grasped eagerly because it was the first time an important, powerful political party had ever mentioned women in their platform. "The Republican party," read the splinter, "is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is received with satisfaction; and the honest demands of any class of citizens for equal rights should be treated with respectful consideration."[283] Thankful to have escaped involvement with Victoria Woodhull and her Equal Rights party just at this time when the Republicans were ready to smile upon women, Susan basked in an aura of respectability thrown around her by her new political allies. She was even hopeful that the two woman-suffrage factions could now forget their differences and work together for "the living, vital issue of today--freedom to women." She at once began speaking for the Republican party, looking forward to carrying the discussion of woman suffrage into every school district and every ward meeting. In the beginning the Republicans were generous with funds, giving her $1,000 for women's meetings in New York, Philadelphia, Rochester, and other large cities. For speakers she sought both Lucy Stone and Anna E. Dickinson, but Lucy made it plain in letters to Mrs. Stanton that she would take no part in Republican rallies conducted by Susan, and Anna responded with a torrent of false accusations.[284] Only Mary Livermore of the American Association consented to speak at Susan's Republican rallies; but with Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Olympia Brown to call upon, Susan did not lack for effective orators.