orney-general; Mr. Childers,
late first lord of the admiralty.

The formation of this club calls out a few words from Mrs.
Stanton, who sarcastically says:

Is not this the first organized resistance in the history of
the race, against the encroachment of women; the first manly
confession by those high in authority--by lords,
attorney-generals, sirs, and gentlemen--of fear at the
progressive steps of the daughters of men? These
conservative gentlemen had no doubt found Lady Amberly,
Lydia Becker, and Mrs. Fawcett too much for them in debate;
they had probably winced under the satire of Frances Power
Cobbe, and trembled before the annually swelling lists of
suffrage petitions. Single-handed they saw they were
helpless against this incoming tide of feminine
persuasiveness, and so it seems they called a meeting of
faint-hearted men, and bound themselves together by a
constitution and by-laws to protect the franchise from the
encroachment of women.

In the legislature of 1880, the proposition to submit an
amendment for woman suffrage to a vote of the people, passed both
Houses. In 1881 it passed one branch and was lost in the other.
Senator Simpson introduced another bill in 1882[426] which was
lost. These successive defeats discouraged the women and they
instructed their friends in the legislature to make no further
attempts for a constitutional amendment, because they had not the
slightest hope of its passage.

The growing interest in the temperance question at this time
produced some divisions in the suffrage ranks. Some thought it
had been one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the
suffrage cause, rousing the opposition of a very large and
influential class. Millions of dollars are invested in this State
in breweries and distilleries, and members are elected to the
legislature to watch these interests. Knowing the terrible
sufferings of women and children through intemperance, they
naturally infer that the ballot in the hands of women would be
inimical to their interests, hence the opposition of this wealthy
and powerful class to the suffrage movement. Others thought the
agitation was an advantage, especially in bringing the women in
the te