The women were held for trial, giving bail for their appearance. Alice Paul had engaged passage home, but she had to cancel it as the trial did not occur until after the date of her sailing. The case was appealed in the courts and was finally dropped by the government.
From this time on, the paths of the two girls kept crossing. Frequently, indeed, they worked together. The next time Alice Paul was arrested, however, Lucy Burns was not with her. This was at Norwich. Winston Churchill, a member of the cabinet, was holding a meeting. Outside, Alice Paul spoke at a meeting too—a protest against the government’s stand on Woman Suffrage. On this occasion, she was released without being tried. At the next Suffrage demonstration—at Limehouse in London—both girls assisted. On this occasion, Lloyd George was holding a meeting. Miss Paul and Miss Burns were arrested for trying to speak at a protest meeting outside, and were sentenced to two weeks in Holloway Jail. They went on a hunger-strike; but were released after five days and a half.
After they recovered from this experience, Miss Paul and Miss Burns motored to Scotland with Mrs. Pankhurst and other English Suffragists, in order to assist with the Scottish campaign. At Glasgow, the party organized a demonstration outside of a meeting held by Lord Crewe, a member of the cabinet. Arrested, they were released without trial. Proceeding northward, Miss Paul assisted in organizing the Suffrage campaign in East Fife, the district of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. At Dundee, Miss Paul and Miss Burns took part in a demonstration outside a meeting held by Winston Churchill. The two American girls and an English Suffragist were sentenced to ten days in Dundee Prison. After four days of hunger-strike, all were released. Each night during their imprisonment, great crowds of citizens marched round the prison singing Scotch songs as a means of showing their sympathy with the campaign. Upon their release, the Suffragists were welcomed at a mass-meeting over which the Lord Mayor presided. Thence they went to Edinburgh where they assisted in organizing a procession and pageant in Princess Street—one of the most beautiful and famous thoroughfares of the world. The pageant of the Scotch heroines who had made sacrifices for liberty is still remembered in Scotland for its beauty. The next job was less agreeable. The two American girls were sent to Berwick-on-Tweed to interrupt with a protest a meeting of Sir Edward Grey, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. Miss Paul made the interruption, was arrested, but was released on the following day without going to trial. Miss Burns was not arrested that time.
Next in Bermondsey, one of the slum districts of London, they waged a plain, old-fashioned electoral campaign to defeat a candidate. When this was over, Miss Paul, in company with a Miss Brown, was sent to make a Suffrage protest at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the Guildhall. They were arrested, of course, and were sentenced to thirty days in Holloway Jail. They hunger struck, and were forcibly fed. This experience left its mark on Miss Paul’s health for some time; it was several weeks after her release before she was strong enough to travel. But in January, 1910, she sailed for America—and arrived the pale, emaciated creature who so shocked Mabel Vernon.
Lucy Burns tells an amusing story of Alice Paul’s experiences in England. Lord Crewe was to speak at a meeting at Glasgow, and Alice Paul was delegated to represent the Suffragists at that meeting and to heckle the speaker. That meant that she must conceal herself in the building, where the meeting was to take place, the night before. The building was a big, high one—St. Andrew’s Hall, the girls remember the name—and it was surrounded by a high, formidable iron fence. The night before Lucy Burns walked with Alice Paul to the Hall and helped her to climb to the top of this fence. Then Alice Paul jumped down into the grounds and Lucy Burns left her there. There was some building going on at this hall and with great difficulty Alice Paul climbed the scaffolding to the high second story and settled herself on a roof to spend the night. It rained all night; and of course she had no protection against the wet. And after all this discomfort, when daylight broke, laborers coming to work on a neighboring building observed the strange phenomenon of a woman lying on a second-story roof. They reported her and she was ignominously led down and out.
In the summer of 1912, Lucy Burns returned to America. Alice Paul visited her in Long Island. For some time now, Alice Paul had been considering the Suffrage situation of the United States in its national aspect. Here, she broached to Lucy Burns her idea of working for a Constitutional Amendment in Washington—her belief that with six States enfranchised—with six States that could be used as a lever on Congress—the time had come when further work in State campaigns was sheer waste. More even than English conditions, American conditions favored the policy of holding the Party in power responsible in regard to Suffrage. In England, there was no body of women completely enfranchised. In America there were approximately two million women voters who, completely enfranchised, could command a hearing from the politicians. She felt that such a campaign in America would be more productive of result for still another reason. In pursuing that policy in England, the Suffragists were often placed in the embarrassing position of defeating Suffragists and putting in anti-Suffragists. But in America, no matter what Party was in power, only Suffrage senators and representatives could be elected from the Suffrage States. In other words, if, in defeating the Party in power they defeated Suffragists—as was inevitable in the Suffrage States—other Suffragists as inevitably took their places. Moreover, there was no immediate motive urging senators and representatives from the Suffrage States—although often they were individually helpful—to convert senators and representatives of their own Party from non-Suffrage States. Were their Party in jeopardy at home, however, that motive was instantly supplied. Also, Alice Paul thought that it was more dignified of women to ask the vote of other women than to beg it of men.
Alice Paul was the first to apply this policy to the Suffrage situation in the United States. As late as 1917, other Suffrage leaders, as well as members of Congress, were reiterating that there was no such thing as a Party in power in the United States, that that idea was brought from England by Alice Paul and was not adapted to our American institutions.
The two girls concocted a scheme for starting federal work in Washington. They went with it to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to Anna Howard Shaw, to Harriot Stanton Blatch, to Mary Ware Dennett. Lucy Burns pictures Alice Paul at that last interview—“a little Quakerish figure, crumpled up in her chair and for the first time I noticed how beautiful her eyes were.” Finally Alice Paul went to the Convention of the National American Association at Philadelphia. She talked with Jane Addams. Alice Paul suggested that she be allowed to come to Washington at her own expense to begin work on Congress for the passing of a Constitutional Amendment. She agreed to raise the necessary money. Jane Addams brought this suggestion before the Board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, urged its acceptance. It was approved. The Board appointed a Committee consisting of Alice Paul, Chairman; Lucy Burns, Vice-chairman; Crystal Eastman. Later in Washington, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Mary Beard joined that Committee. Alice Paul went first to Philadelphia and collected money for a few days. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, who, Miss Paul says, was one of the first to say, “I have always believed that the way to get Suffrage is by a federal amendment,” gave her name; gave money; collected money.
And so—all alone—Alice Paul came to Washington.