Alice Paul and Lucy Burns imported militant tactics from Britain''s Women''s Social and Political Union after participating in WSPU protests, where Paul endured forced feeding 55 times during imprisonment. The Congressional Union (renamed National Woman''s Party in 1917) broke from the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which preferred state-by-state campaigns and traditional lobbying. The NWP organized the first White House picket in January 1917, with Silent Sentinels standing at President Woodrow Wilson''s gates six days weekly regardless of weather, holding hand-crafted banners with incendiary phrases. Police arrested suffragists for obstructing traffic; the women refused to pay fines, asserting they faced punishment for political beliefs. Sent to workhouses, they launched hunger strikes to protest their sentences. Paul adopted the Pankhursts'' philosophy to ''hold the party in power responsible,'' withholding NWP support from political parties until women gained suffrage. The NWP''s militant tactics and steadfast lobbying, combined with public support for imprisoned suffragists, forced Wilson to endorse federal woman suffrage in 1918.