'Abdu'l-Bahá in America by BahaiBookstore.com

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Bahá’í Publishing 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844 Copyright © 2012 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States All rights reserved. Published 2012 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ 15

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stockman, Robert H., 1953– ‘Abdu’l-Bah? in America / by Robert H. Stockman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-931847-97-1 1. ‘Abdu’l-Bah?, 1844–1921—Travel—North America. 2. Bahai Faith—North America. I. Title. BP393.S76 2012 297.9’3092—dc23 2012005096

Cover design by Andrew Johnson Book design by Patrick Falso Photograph of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reproduced with the permission of the Bahá’í International Community

C o n t e n t s Preface..................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgments................................................................................. 11 1. The First Day................................................................................. 13 2. “My Invitation to America will be the Unity of the Believers”........ 23 3. “His wisdom is surely not His own”................................................ 47 4. The Oneness of Humankind.......................................................... 87 5. “The Temple Is Already Built”.......................................................119 6. Enunciating the Bahá’í Principles................................................. 133 7. The Center of the Covenant......................................................... 175 8. A New England Summer...............................................................215 9. From Boston to San Francisco...................................................... 251 10. The Golden State.......................................................................... 275 11. From Sacramento to the Celtic......................................................317 12. “The call of God has been raised in all the cities of America”....... 349 Notes.................................................................................................. 369 Bibliography........................................................................................ 405 Bibliography of Archival Sources..........................................................415

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P r e f a c e One approaches the vast subject of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s eight-month sojourn in North America, even after a century of hindsight, with trepidation. This was not the visit of a sixty-seven-year-old foreign tourist bent on seeing new places or a religious teacher hoping to cement his fortune and reputation; rather, it was the effort of an almost indescribable man, whose impact on people was superhuman, and who used his newfound freedom from forty years of imprisonment and privation to share his Father’s message of the oneness of humanity and the principles of universal peace with as many North Americans as possible. His exhausting yet exhilarating 239-day trek from coast to coast took him to fifty cities and towns, where he delivered up to four talks a day—about four hundred total—to approximately ninety-three thousand people.* On some days, one hundred fifty persons sought private meetings with him. Their accounts are full of tears of joy, intimate conversation— sometimes with a minimum of words spoken—prophetic utterances, and even epiphanies and apparent miracles, such as release from grief and healing from physical illness. Prominent men and women flocked to

* “Table of Talks Given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in North America,” author’s personal papers. The table was assembled by combing various sources. Whenever possible, available attendance information was recorded; in other cases it was estimated.

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hear him, invited him into their homes, and asked him to speak at some of their most prestigious venues. His commitment to racial and ethnic equality during an era of legal discrimination and widespread prejudice was demonstrated in talks at an African American church, university, and conference; a Japanese-American church; and a Syrian relief society; and by his encouragement of the first interracial (Black/White) marriage in the American Bahá’í community. His championing of the full equality of women and the inevitability of their acquiring the right to vote was controversial and was often featured in headlines about him. His devotion to the poor brought him to visit four hundred homeless men at the Bowery Mission in New York City and speak at six other settlement houses. His desire to give solace to the sick prompted him to travel for hours to visit ill persons far from the crowd of admirers demanding his attention. Jaundiced newspapermen withheld their cynical barbs and praised his wisdom, genuineness, sincerity, and love. Clergymen turned their pulpits over to him after introducing him to their flocks with great warmth and high praise. Because of the continued expansion of the Bahá’í Faith, a thorough study of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s journey becomes important for those wishing to know more about this new religion. The Founder of the Faith, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-92), was born in Iran and spent most of His life in exile in the Ottoman Empire. He passed away outside the small city of Acre, in what is today Israel. His claim to be a Messenger of God was expressed in the form of a vast array of books, prayers, and letters—some eighteen thousand works—that described the nature of God and revelation, depicted the spiritual nature of human beings and the need for their continual spiritual and ethical refinement, proclaimed the oneness of humanity and its implications for racial and sexual equality, and outlined principles for the construction of a world civilization. Before His passing, He appointed His eldest son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921) as His successor, gave ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

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the authority to interpret His texts, and made him Head of the Faith. He established a Covenant with His followers that stated that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was a divinely guided figure and that the Bahá'ís should obey him. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá took up the reins of leadership immediately and was soon coordinating efforts to take the Bahá’í Faith to the United States and Europe. Americans had first heard about Bahá’u’lláh at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, but when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá arrived nineteen years later, knowledge about him was limited, and American Bahá’ís numbered only a thousand or two. Since then, the Bahá’í Faith has sunk its roots deep into American culture, has well over a hundred fifty thousand adherents, and is emerging from obscurity. Academic study of its development is becoming more widespread, and public interest is growing—hence the need for a book such as this one. After a century of researching ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’ís have not found all the literary sources relating to his trip, though the expanding resources of the World Wide Web present new opportunities for finding rare articles in rural newspapers and references in personal papers. The information already available is staggering: The Promulgation of Universal Peace, a collection of his discourses, has 140 talks; the diary of his companion, Ma¥múdi-Zarqání, describes almost every major event—though sometimes he’s off by a day or even two—and many private scenes and frank comments by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; Juliet Thompson’s diary intimately records his visit to New York and Washington; Agnes Parsons’s diary covers Washington and Dublin, New Hampshire; Howard Colby Ives offers a hundred perceptive pages scattered throughout his memoir; Allen Ward’s 239 Days provides a day-to-day summary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s trip; the Bahá’í periodical Star of the West has contemporary news and lightly edited transcriptions of his talks; over 350 newspaper and magazine articles are available; a score of books have chapters or sections about his visit, including Hasan Balyuzi’s important biography, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh; the

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Ella Cooper Papers in the National Bahá’í Archives in Wilmette, Illinois, have hundreds of pages of unpublished talks by and conversations with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; and hundreds of pages of other unpublished telegrams, letters, diaries, and memoirs reside in the National Bahá’í Archives. The total number of works published about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit may exceed three thousand pages. The crucial source that remains untapped is the archive of the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own correspondence is located but is not yet available to researchers. At some point, once this information becomes available, it may force many revisions of our understanding of his North American sojourn. Equally important to the problem of sources is the interpretation one brings to them. In his epochal history, God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi Rabbani (head of the Bahá’í Faith from 1921 to 1957, its authorized interpreter, and grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá) provides several short passages with incisive judgments about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s purpose, key efforts, and effectiveness. The Bahá’í World Center has offered additional overview in its insightful review of the twentieth century, Century of Light. But individual Bahá’ís have rarely ventured to analyze ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s journey. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s feet touched these shores, he had already composed a Will and Testament that outlined how the Bahá’í community would be organized after his death, but little has been written concerning how his plan for the organization of the Faith may have shaped what he did and said in 1912. His other fundamental contribution to the Faith’s future was a series of fourteen letters to the North American believers called Tablets of the Divine Plan, penned in 1916 and 1917. They summoned the American Bahá’ís to take the Bahá’í message to every part of their country and to the entire planet, providing both specific countries, territories, and cities where it had to be established and practical advice about how to disseminate it. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s 1912 journey constituted preparation for the monumental assignments in Tablets of the Divine Plan, preparation that one can see

T h e

F i r s t

D a y

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

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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

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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,

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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-Baha 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 AbdulBaha, 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

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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.

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