1

THE FIRST DAY

On the morning of Thursday, April 11, 1912, the White Star Line’s passenger ship Cedric steamed toward the wharves of New York Harbor. Standing on the upper deck, wearing a long, black oriental cloak flapping in the breeze, with light tan robes underneath and a turban of pure white over his gray locks, was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbás, the sixty-seven-year-old head of the Bahá’í Faith. According to a journalist and Bahá’í, Wendell Phillips Dodge, who boarded the ship with other journalists when the customs agents went on board, he was a “strongly and solidly built” man of medium height, though he “seemed to be much taller,” weighing about 165 pounds (75 kilograms) and pacing the deck, “alert and active in every moment, his head thrown back and splendidly poised upon his broad, square shoulders”:

A profusion of iron grey hair bursting out at the sides of the turban and hanging long upon the neck; a large, massive head, full-domed and remarkable wide across the forehead rising like a great palisade above the eyes, which were very wide apart, their orbits large and deep, looking out from under massive overhanging brows; strong Roman nose, generous ears, decisive yet kindly mouth and chin; a creamy white complexion, beard same color as his hair, worn full over the face and carefully trimmed at almost full length—this completes an insufficient word picture of this “Wise Man Out of the East.”¹

As the ship passed the Statue of Liberty, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is reported to have “held his arms wide apart in salutation” and to have said, “There is the new world’s symbol of liberty and freedom. After being forty years a prisoner, I can tell you that freedom is not a matter of place. It is a condition. Unless one accept dire vicissitudes he will not attain. When one is released from the prison of self, that is indeed a release.”²

It is noteworthy that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not comment about the nature of America when gazing at the quintessential symbol of the American republic, but about the nature of true freedom. He commented on a more mundane symbol of America some minutes later, as the ship approached the wharf, but even then, the “rugged sky line” of lower Manhattan’s skyscrapers seemed to convey a spiritual message to him: “These are the minarets of Western World commerce and industry, and seem to stretch heavenward in an endeavor to bring about this Universal Peace for which we are all working, for the good of the nations and mankind in general.” As he exclaimed to the Bahá’ís later that day, “I am very much pleased with the City of New York. Its entrance, its wharves, the buildings and the broad avenues are all magnificent and beautiful. Truly I say it is a wonderful city. As New York has made wonderful progress in material civilization, I hope that spiritually it may also advance in the realm of God.”³

When the customs officials boarded the ship, they were accompanied by a group of journalists anxious to be the first to interview ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In the last three decades, Americans had become accustomed to visiting “oriental” teachers. Journalists often found opportunity to focus on the exoticism of foreigners or the strangeness of “heathen” religions. They may have known that he was the head of an independent religion with a substantial following in America, but they would not have known anything about the high station Bahá’u’lláh had given him, his role as authoritative interpreter of Bahá’u’lláh’s texts, or his position as the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant. Even many American Bahá’ís were unaware of these aspects of the Bahá’í teachings. One task ‘Abdu’l-Bahá set out to accomplish, over the next few months, was to deepen the Bahá’ís in them.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá accommodated the journalists in his stateroom; it was his first of many informal press conferences in America, and they became a standard feature of his arrival in any North American city. His Persian answers to their questions were translated into English by one of his attendants, Ameen Fareed. To the inevitable question of why he had traveled to America’s shores, he replied that he had come “to visit the peace societies of America because the fundamental principles of our Cause are universal peace and the promotion of the basic doctrine of the oneness and truth of all the divine religions.” He had already been invited to speak to the Lake Mohonk Peace Conference in mid-May, a prestigious annual gathering of peace leaders, as well as thirteen churches and at two Bahá’í conferences. His reply provides a summary of two of the major themes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke about again and again: world peace and the oneness of religion. When asked how world peace could ever be achieved, he stressed the impact of the terrible evils of war, giving as examples the destruction wrought by Italy in its ongoing military campaign to wrest Tripolitania from the Ottoman Turks.⁴

A third major theme was prompted by another question: “To be a Bahai simply means to love all the world, to love humanity and to try to serve it; to work for Universal Peace, and the [sic] Universal Brotherhood,” he explained to a reporter.⁵ But lest people think that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s approach to humanity was all love and no substance, his response to a question about women’s suffrage was unambiguous, bold, and controversial:

The modern suffragette is fighting for what must be…One might not approve of the ways of some of the more militant suffragettes, but in the end it will adjust itself. If women were given the same advantages as men, their capacity being the same, the result would be the same…. The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the scales are already shifting—force is losing its weight and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy.⁶

He spoke at length about the importance of educating women and girls. Over the next eight months, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s support of woman’s suffrage garnered many headlines. He also offered the reporters some humor, for which he was well known:

An enquirer, about to set off to Jerusalem, was one day discussing with Abdul-Bahá the subject of pilgrimage:

“The proper spirit,” said ‘Abdul-Baha in his quaint way to the enquirer, “in which to visit places hallowed by remembrances of Christ, is one of constant communion with God. Love for God will be the telegraph wire, one end of which is in the Kingdom of the Spirit, and the other in your heart.”

“I am afraid my telegraph wire is broken,” the enquirer replied.

“Then you will have to use wireless telegraphy…” said Abdul-Baha, laughing heartily.⁷

After the Cedric docked, about noontime, the journalists thanked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and left him to file their stories. Mountfort Mills and Howard MacNutt, who were the two-man reception committee in charge of planning his visit, boarded to confer with him. Several hundred Bahá’ís awaited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at the pier, some having traveled hundreds of miles to meet him. A public spectacle seemed inevitable, something ‘Abdu’l-Bahá personally disliked and that might lead to sensationalist publicity, so he sent word that the Bahá’ís should depart for the home of Edward and Carrie Kinney, where he would meet them at 4pm. Before disembarking, he distributed gifts to many of the crew who had served him throughout the eighteen-day voyage from Alexandria; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was always a master host, even when he was a guest.

When he disembarked from the Cedric, the crowd had dispersed, but a few lingered. Juliet Thompson (1873–1956) was a professional artist and devoted Bahá’í who had made a pilgrimage to Acre to meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1909 and had traveled to France in 1911 to see him there. Her love for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was unbounded. As she reports in her diary,

Everyone obeyed [the request to leave] at once except Marjorie, Rhoda, and myself! Marjorie, who loves the Teachings but has never wholly accepted them, said “I can’t leave till I’ve seen Him. I can’t. I WON’T!” So, though we followed the crowd to the street, we slipped away there and looked around for some place to hide. Quite a distance below the big entrance to the pier we saw a fairly deep embrasure into which a window was set, with the stone wall jutting out from it. Here we flattened ourselves against the window, Rhoda (who is conspicuously tall) clasping a long white box of lilies which she had brought for the Master. Just in front of the entrance stood Mr. Mills’ car, his chauffeur in it. Suddenly it rolled forward and, to our utter dismay, parked directly in front of us. Now we were caught: certain to be discovered. But there was no help for it, for Marjorie still refused to budge till she had seen the Master.

Then, He came—through the entrance with Mr. MacNutt and Mr. Mills, and turned and walked swiftly toward the car. In a panic we waited.

A few nights ago Marjorie and I had a double dream. In her dream, I was out in space with her. In mine, we were in a room together and the Master had just entered it. He walked straight up to Marjorie, put His two hands on her shoulders and pressed and pressed till she sank to her knees. And while she was sinking, she lifted her face to His and everything in her seemed to be dying except her soul, which looked out through her raised eyes in a sort of agony of recognition.

Today, after one glance at the Master, this was just the way she looked.

“Now,” she said, I know.“

As the Master was stepping into the car, He turned and—smiled at us.⁸

Mr. Mills drove ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and his three companions to the Hotel Ansonia, an elegant, modern seventeen-story apartment hotel at the corner of Broadway and 79^th Street, where they checked into a four-room suite on the seventh floor.ⁱ After a cup of tea and a rest, they were ready to go to the home of the Kinneys at 780 West End Avenue, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan between Broadway and Riverside Park. The Kinneys were comfortable, though not wealthy, and leased an elegant house. By all accounts, the several hundred visitors strained it to the bursting point.ⁱⁱ But it did not matter; “what a wonderful meeting it was!” reported Mahmúd-i-Zarqání (c. 1875–1924). “The friendsⁱⁱⁱ were so full of joy and happiness that it seemed the very walls were immersed in rapture and ecstasy.” Howard Colby Ives, a Unitarian minister at the Brotherhood Church in Jersey City, New Jersey, and a friend of the Bahá’í Faith,^iv left this account:

The press of eager friends [Bahá’ís] and curious ones was so great that it was difficult even to get inside the doors. I have only the memory of an impressive silence most unusual at such functions. In all that crowded mass of folk, so wedged together that tea drinking was almost an impossibility, though the attempt was made, there was little or no speech. A whispered word; a remark implying awe or love, was all. I strove to get where I could at least see Him. All but impossible. At last I managed to press forward where I could peep over a shoulder and so got my first glimpse of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He was seated. A cream colored fez upon His head from under which white hair flowed almost to His shoulders. His robe, what little I could see of it, was oriental, almost white. But these were incidentals to which I could pay little attention. The impressive thing, and what I have never forgotten, was an indefinable aspect of majesty combined with exquisite courtesy. He was just in the moment of accepting a cup of tea from the hostess. Such gentleness, such love emanated from Him as I have never seen. Remember that at that time I had no conviction, almost, I might say, little or no interest in what I came later to understand by the term His “station.” I was an onlooker at a scene concerning the significance of which I was totally ignorant.^{9 v}

Juliet Thompson’s recollection was of crying, not of silence:

He was sitting in the center of the dining room near a table strewn with flowers. He wore a light pongee ‘abá. At his knees stood the Kinney children, Sanford and Howard, and His arms were around them. He was white and shining. No words could describe His ineffable peace. The people stood about in rows and circles—several hundred in the big rooms, which all open into each other. In the dining room many sat on the floor, Marjorie and I included. We made a dark background for His glory. Only our tears reflected Him, and almost everyone there was weeping just at the sight of Him. For at last we saw divinity incarnate. Divinely He turned His head from one child to the other, one group to another. I wish I could picture that turn of the head—an oh, so tender turn, with that indescribable heavenly grace caught by Leonardo da Vinci in his Christ of the Last Supper (in the study for the head)—but in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá irradiated by smiles and a lifting of those eyes filled with glory, which even Leonardo, for all his mystery, could not have painted. The very essence of compassion, the most poignant tenderness is in that turn of the head.¹⁰

The crush was difficult on everyone, and the house became quite warm, so ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke for only a few minutes:

How are you? Welcome! Welcome!

After arriving today, although weary with travel, I had the utmost longing and yearning to see you and could not resist this meeting. Now that I have met you, all my weariness has vanished, for your meeting is the cause of spiritual happiness.

I was in Egypt and was not feeling well, but I wished to come to you in America. My friends said, “This is a long journey; the sea is wide; you should remain here.” But the more they advised and insisted, the greater became my longing to take this trip, and now I have come to America to meet the friends of God. This long voyage will prove how great is my love for you. There were many troubles and vicissitudes, but, in the thought of meeting you, all these things vanished and were forgotten…. As New York has made such progress in material civilization, I hope that it may also advance spiritually in the Kingdom and Covenant of God so that the friends here may become the cause of the illumination of America, that this city may become the city of love and that the fragrances of God may be spread from this place to all parts of the world. I have come for this…I am very happy to meet you all here today. Praise be to God that your faces are shining with the love of Bahá’u’lláh. To behold them is the cause of great spiritual happiness. We have arranged to meet you every day at the homes of the friends….

I will see you again. Now I will greet each one of you personally. It is my hope that you will all be happy and that we may meet again and again.¹¹

With that, the formal meeting ended. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá greeted people—especially the children—for quite a while, then said good-bye and returned to his hotel. The New York Bahá’ís had had their first memorable encounter with the one they called “the Master.” Some non-Bahá’ís, like Ives, had perceived something extraordinary in the face and bearing of the head of the Bahá’í Faith. The adulation from the sober businessmen, pensive seekers, and starry-eyed artists must have presented a fascinating but puzzling sight. As Ives wrote, “What was it that these people around me had which gave to their eyes such illumination, to their hearts such gladness?…I did not know, but I wanted to know as I think I had never known the want of before.”¹²

ⁱ Mahmúd-i-Zarqání, Mahmúd’s Diary, 38, says he was on the seventh floor, but Kate Carew, in the New York Tribune, May 5, 1912, says he was on the fifth floor, room 111.

ⁱⁱ Juliet Thompson, in her diary, p. 234, says “several hundred” attended, but the New York Sun, April 12, 1912, reports that three hundred were in the Kinney home, and the New York World, April 12, 1912, says 150. The house had about 1,300 square feet on the first floor, consequently people would have been packed pretty tightly together.

ⁱⁱⁱ The use of “friends” to refer to Bahá’ís is a common one and is a translation of various Arabic and Persian terms rather than a borrowing of Quaker practice.

^iv Ives later became a Bahá’í.

^v A map of the Kinneys’ neighborhood made in 1898–99 can be found in the New York Public Library and is digitized (accessed January 23, 2011). It shows a house of about 1,300 square feet per floor located on a 19-foot-11 inch by 100-foot lot with a back yard about twenty-four feet long. Juliet Thompson says the first floor was “open the entire length of the house” (Diary of Juliet Thompson, 371), so the entire space would have been available that day. It is feasible that 250 or 300 people could fit into such a house and they would be packed so tightly that it was hard to drink tea without having one’s cup jostled, as Ives reports. I am grateful to Eric Kreitzer for finding the map for me.