(By Wendell Phillips Dodge a reporter for the New York City News Association, who boarded the Cedric at quarantine and interviewed ‘Abdu’l-Baha coming up the bay. It was given to all of the New York newspapers, and, through the Associated Press, was sent, though boiled clown considerably, to newspapers throughout the world.)
‘Abdu’l-Baha, the eminent Persian philosopher and leader of the Baha’i movement for the unification of religions and the establishment of universal peace, arrived April 11th on the steamship Cedric from Alexandria, Egypt. It is his first visit to America, and except for a brief visit to Paris and London last summer and fall, it is the first time in forty years that he has gone beyond the fortification of the 'prison city" of Acre, Syria, to which place he and his father, Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i movement, were banished by the Turkish government a half century ago.
He comes on a mission of international peace, to attend and address the Peace Conference at Lake Mohonk the latter part of the month, and to address various peace meetings, educational societies, religious organizations etc.
While the ship news reporters boarded the Cedric down the bay, ‘Abdu'l-Baha was found on the upper deck, standing where he could see the pilot, his long, flowing oriental robe flapping in the breeze. He was clothed in a long, black robe open at the front and disclosing another robe of light tan. Upon his head was a pure white turban, such as eastern patriarchs wear.
His face was light itself as he scanned the harbor and greeted the reporters, who had been kept waiting at quarantine for three and a half hours before they could board the ship with the customs officers, owing to a case of smallpox and several cases of typhoid fever in the steerage, which had to be removed to Hoffman Island for isolation, and the ship then fumigated. He is a man of medium height, though at first sight he seemed to be much taller. He is strongly and solidly built, and weighs probably one hundred and sixty five pounds. As he paced the deck, talking with the reporters, he appeared alert and active in every movement, his head thrown back and splendidly poised upon his broad, square shoulders, most of the time. 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 remarkably wide across the forehead and temples, 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."
His first words were about the press, saying:
