frage was
delivered by Rev. John Wayman of the M. E. Church of St. Joseph.
Mr. James L. Allen acted as chairman of the meeting, and a
society was then organized, to bear the name of the Holt County
Woman Suffrage Society. At the National Woman Suffrage Convention
held at St. Louis later in the same year, Jas. L. Allen acted as
delegate from this association and reported our progress. The
best organized woman's society in the State is probably the
Women's Christian Temperance Union. In its different departments,
although hampered by too much theological red tape, it is
reaching thousands of ignorant, prejudiced, good sectarian women
who would expect the "heavens to fall" if they accidentally got
into a meeting where "woman's rights" was mentioned even in a
whisper. Mrs. Clara Hoffman, of Kansas City, is State president,
and a woman of great force. She, as well as other leading lights
in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, is strongly advocating
woman suffrage as a _sine qua non_ in the temperance work. The
women of this part of the State have been given quite a prominent
place among organizations mentioned in a late "History of
Missouri, by Counties." The Woman's Union has taken the place of
honor.[392] From the very outset we have had the most bitter and
persistent opposition from the churches, more particularly the
Presbyterian, although some of our most capable members were of
that faith. Exceptions should be made in favor of the Christian,
or Campbellite, and as a general thing, the M. E. churches. The
greatest shock we have had to resist, however, came a few months
since in the shape of a division among our own members, and has
really discouraged the more independent among us more than
anything else. The W. C. T. U. sent their Mascatine organizer
here, to wake up the women in the interests of the State society.
Although ignorant and prejudiced, he created a fanatical
stampede, and in the goodness of their hearts and the weakness of
their heads, our church women in the Woman's Union proposed to
give to the three temperance clubs, numbering perhaps 150, the
free use of our rooms and property, and suspend our own club,
claiming that our mission was ended, and that a field of greater
usefulness was opened in the W. C. T. U. line of work. Th