She also discovered that it was one thing to build up a large organization and another to keep women so busy with pressing work for the cause that they did not find time to expend their energies on the mechanics of organization. Not only did she chafe at the red tape most of them spun, but she often felt that they were too prone to linger in academic by-ways, listening to speeches and holding pleasant conventions. Since the California campaign of 1896, only one state, Washington, had been roused to vote on a woman suffrage amendment, which was defeated and only one more state Delaware had granted women the right to vote for members of school boards. Again and again she warned her "girls" that some kind of action on woman suffrage by Congress every year was important. A hearing, a committee report, a debate, or even an unfavorable vote would, she was convinced, do more to stir up the whole nation than all the speakers and organizers that could be sent through the country. Such thoughts as these, relative to the work which was always on her mind, she dashed off to one after another of her young colleagues. "Your letters sound like a trumpet blast," wrote Anna Howard Shaw, grateful for her counsel. "They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage."[421] At seventy-eight, Susan realized that the time was approaching when she must make up her mind to turn over to a younger woman the presidency of the National American Association, and during the summer of 1898 she announced to her executive committee that she would retire on her eightieth birthday in 1900. FOOTNOTES: [400] Ms., Diary, Nov. 7, 1895 [401] Mary Gray Peck, _Carrie Chapman Catt_ (New York, 1944), p. 84. [402] Ms., Diary, Nov. 27, 1895. [403] To Mrs. Upton, Sept. 5, 1890, University of Rochester Library, Rochester, New York. [404] Feb. 10, 1894, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library. [405] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1113. [406] Miss Anthony's first attempt to win Southern women to suffrage was at the time of the New Orleans Exposition in 1885. Because of her reputation as an abolitionist, she had much resistance to overcome in the South. [407] Dec. 18, 1895, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library. [408] _Woman's Tribune_, Feb. 1, 1896. [409] _History of Woman Suffrage_, IV, p. 264. [410] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 855. The action of the National American Woman Suffrage Association on the Woman's Bible was never reversed. [411] _Ibid._, p. 856. [412] Susan thought seriously of Clara Colby as a collaborator but concluded she was too involved with the _Woman's Tribune_. Susan agreed to share royalties with Mrs. Harper on the biography and any other work on which they might collaborate. On her 75th birthday Susan's girls had presented her with an annuity of $800 a year. This made it possible for her to give up lecturing and concentrate on her book.