1957, the head of the Baháʼí Faith, Shoghi Effendi, appointed her a Hand of the Cause of God, the highest rank one may hold as an individual Baháʼí), was also there. Out of this the community of Baháʼís began to form in Boston. Farmer and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá began an active exchange of letters some twenty-plus of his which were gathered and printed initially in 1909 and then the third edition in 1919. Continued development That America went through a Civil War and achieved progress toward an emancipation of its black people is pointed at by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1912 as a basis of encouraging respect for America in its support for humanitarian and altruistic ideals. An appeal to the US for humanitarian interest goes as far back as 1867 when Baháʼís wrote a petition to the US Congress because it held no attachment to the present oppressive conditions in Persia. Baháʼu'lláh did himself address the "Rulers of America and the Presidents of the Republics" (Ulysses S. Grant was USA President at the time) saying in part "Bind ye the broken with the hands of justice, and crush the oppressor who flourisheth with the rod of the commandments of your Lord…." Baháʼís also used diplomatic means to seek redress or relief. In 1901 when the American Baha'i community numbered only roughly 2000 members, they approached the US Ambassador to Persia Herbert W. Bowen in Paris concerning the situation of Baháʼís. As an example of the persecution Baha'is faced (then and now) in Iran, even an American diplomat was murdered in 1924 by a mob on suspicion of being a Baháʼí intervening in a local matter. In 1906 a government census reported through a scholar that there were 1280 Baháʼís in 24 places among 14 states. Early Baháʼís in this period included reformers and artists like Stanwood Cobb, Louis G. Gregory, and Juliet Thompson. Laura Clifford Barney interviewed ʻAbdu'l-Bahá on several teachings of the religion resulting in the early publication Some Answered Questions. The Baháʼí Temple Unity was incorporated in Chicago at a national convention in 1909 to facilitate the establishment of the first Baháʼí House of Worship in the West; 39 delegates from 36 cities attended. Star of the West was the first large periodical production in the country beginning in March, 1910. Thornton Chase scholar Robert Stockman underscores Chase' importance as an early North American Baháʼí thinker, publicist, administrator, and organizer who