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The communications addressed by the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada—the champion builders of that Order—to the Palestine High Commissioner for the restitution of the keys of the Tomb of Bahá’u’lláh to its custodian; to the Sháh of Persia, on four occasions, pleading for justice on behalf of their persecuted brethren within his domains; to the Persian Prime Minister on that same subject; to Queen Marie of Rumania, expressing gratitude for her historic tributes to the Bahá’í Faith; to the Heads of Islám in Persia, appealing for harmony and peace among religions; to King Feisal of ‘Iráq for the purpose of insuring the security of the Most Great House in Baghdád; to the Soviet Authorities on behalf of the Bahá’í communities in Russia; to the German authorities regarding the disabilities suffered by their German brethren; to the Egyptian Government concerning the emancipation of their co-religionists from the yoke of Islamic orthodoxy; to the Persian Cabinet in connection with the closing of Persian Bahá’í educational institutions; to the State Department of the United States Government and the Turkish Ambassador in Washington and the Turkish Cabinet in Ankara, in defense of the interests of the Faith in Turkey; to that same State Department in order to facilitate the transfer of the remains of Lua Getsinger from the Protestant Cemetery in Cairo to the first Bahá’í burial-ground established in Egypt; to the Persian Minister in Washington regarding the mission of Keith Ransom-Kehler; to the King of Egypt with accompanying Bahá’í literature; to the Government of the United States and the Canadian Government, setting forth the Bahá’í teachings on Universal Peace; to the Rumanian Minister in Washington on behalf of the American Bahá’ís, on the occasion of the death of Queen Marie of Rumania; and to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, acquainting him with Bahá’u’lláh’s summons issued in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas to the Presidents of the American Republics and with certain prayers revealed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—such communications constitute in themselves a notable and illuminating chapter in the history of the unfoldment of the Bahá’í Administrative Order.
One thinks of Sarah Farmer, whose Green Acre school provided the infant Bahá’í community with a forum for the introduction of the Faith to influential thinkers; of Sara Lady Blomfield, whose social position lent added force to the ardour with which she championed the teachings; of Marion Jack, immortalized by Shoghi Effendi as a model for Bahá’í pioneers; of Laura Dreyfus-Barney, who gave the Faith the priceless collection of the Master’s table talks, Some Answered Questions; of Agnes Parsons, co-founder with Louis Gregory of the “Race Amity” initiatives inspired by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; of Corinne True, Keith Ransom-Kehler, Helen Goodall, Juliet Thompson, Grace Ober, Ethel Rosenberg, Clara Dunn, Alma Knobloch and a distinguished company of others, most of whom pioneered some new field of Bahá’í service.
To May Maxwell, laid to rest in the soil of Argentina; to Hyde Dunn, whose dust reposes in the Antipodes, in the city of Sydney; to Keith Ransom-Kehler, entombed in distant Iṣfáhán; to Susan Moody and Lillian Kappes and their valiant associates who lie buried in Ṭihrán; to Lua Getsinger, reposing forever in the capital of Egypt, and last but not least to Martha Root, interred in an island in the bosom of the Pacific, belong the matchless honor of having conferred, through their services and sacrifice, a lustre upon the American Bahá’í community for which its representatives, while celebrating at their historic, their first All-American Convention, their hard-won victories, may well feel eternally grateful.
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