Carrie Chapman Catt, the national organizer, wrote: "It is very plain that the chief fight is now. We must compel endorsement, and I believe we can do it. How any man in his sane senses could think non-endorsement would give votes and sympathy, I can not conceive; or how the women can have a hope of winning without it, after all the experience of our campaigns." Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal and an experienced politician, wrote Miss Anthony: At the request of Mrs. Johns I enclose a letter from Mr. Wagener, of Topeka. He gives the worst possible advice, and Mrs. Johns' letter seems to show that she is surrounded by bad advisers and in doubt as to her course. If there is anything which twenty-seven years' work has taught us, it is that a woman suffrage amendment can not be carried without at least one political party squarely behind it. In Colorado, for the first time, we have had a majority; and Mrs. Catt, and Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Stansbury of Denver, all say that the amendment could not have been carried if the Republican, Populist and many of the Democratic district conventions had not first endorsed it in their platforms. It thus became a live issue and the masses of voters became interested and enlightened. On the other hand, our South Dakota experience is conclusive.... All three parties ignored it, and the press of the State joined in a conspiracy of silence. The campaign speakers were instructed not to name it. We had to rely for the discussions upon the efforts of suffragists as outsiders. Consequently ... we were beaten two to one. The same will surely be true in Kansas in 1894.... If we do not capture the Republican and Populist State conventions we shall be beaten in advance. All hinges on that! I have just talked with Mrs. Lease, who fully agrees with me. The Republican convention will be the first to meet. If Mrs. Johns will go before the resolution committee and urge her plank, securing at least its presentation as a minority report offered in open session, it will stampede the convention and be carried. Then the Populists will put one in so as not to be behind the Republicans, and _then_ we shall probably win. Do write Mrs. Johns to stand by her guns. No one but her can do this work, because she is personally dear to the Republicans. The fate of the amendment will be then and there decided. [Illustration: Carrie Chapman Catt (Signed: "Yours Faithfully Carrie Chapman Catt")] Rev. Anna Shaw, vice-president-at-large, wrote Mrs. Johns in this vigorous language: