Alice Paul came to leadership still in her twenties, but with a
broad cultural equipment. Degrees from Swarthmore, the University
of Pennsylvania, and special study abroad in English universities
had given her a scholarly background in history, politics, and
sociology. In these studies she had specialized, writing her
doctor's thesis on the status of women. She also did factory work
in English industries and there acquired first hand knowledge of
the industrial position of women. In the midst of this work the
English militant movement caught her imagination and she
abandoned her studies temporarily to join that movement and go to
prison with the English suffragists.

Convinced that the English women were fighting the battle for the
women of the world, she returned to America fresh from their
struggle, to arouse American women to action. She came bringing
her gifts and concentration to this one struggle. She came with
that inestimable asset, youth, and, born of youth, indomitable
courage to carry her point in spite of scorn and
misrepresentation.

Among the thousands of telegrams sent Miss Paul the day the
amendment finally passed Congress was this interesting message
from Walter Clark, Chief Justice of the Supreme

{18}

Court of North Carolina, Southern Democrat, Confederate Veteran
and distinguished jurist: