f this small band, called with Mrs.
Elizabeth P. Ensley, delivered her message, and their names were added
to the list of members. The organization was completed and became an
auxiliary.

About this time Mrs. Leonora Barry Lake followed her lecture,
delivered under the auspices of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
by an appeal to the women of the audience to join the suffrage
association; and among those who responded were two whose ears had
longed for such a gospel sound, Mrs. Emily R. Meredith and her
daughter Ellis. Temperance women who repeatedly had found their work
defeated by the lack of "the right preservative of rights," such women
as Mrs. Anna Steele, Mrs. Ella L. Benton, Mrs. Eliza J. Patrick and
others, thought truly that a society whose sole aim should be the
ballot was a necessity. At this time the meetings were held in Mrs.
Tyler's parlor. Miss Watson was much occupied with school duties, and
in the fall of 1890 Mrs. Tyler was chosen president in her stead.

In 1891 a petition for the right of suffrage by constitutional
amendment was presented to the Legislature, but the bill not being
introduced within the specific time it went by default. Ashamed of
their lack of political acumen, the women then persuaded
Representative F. F. O'Mahoney, who had a bill prohibiting foreigners
from voting on their first naturalization papers, to strike the word
"male" from his measure, thus making it an equal suffrage enactment,
but bill and rider were defeated. The ladies who worked for suffrage
were treated with such scant courtesy by some of the legislators, and
the general sentiment was so adverse, that ultimate success looked
very distant to the most sanguine friends.

Some of the club even questioned the advisability of giving an
afternoon a week, as they had been doing, to the study of a government
in which they had no part and might never hope to have. Mrs. Sharman,
a small, delicate woman, who already had passed four-score years, was
its inspiration. She advised the members to remain united, ready for
active effort when opportunity offered, and in the meantime to
continue as seed-sowers and students of citizenship in the preparatory
department.

The membership slowly increased. Mrs. Tyler served as president until
1892, when Mrs. Olive Hogle was elected. Mrs. Benton (Adams) had given
the use of her rooms in the central part of Denver, and the society
remained with her until, having outgrown its quarters,