Kelly, Mrs. Alice Mckay

Letter, March 5, 1926⁸²

[Mrs. Kelly of New York City, a broadcaster and lecturer, and auditor of the League of American Pen Women, Washington, DC, met Gandhiji on a tour of Asia and wrote to him from Singapore on February 11, 1926, that "the all too brief visit to you is the one unforgettable memory I am carrying away with me, and I must thank you from my heart for giving me a veritable inspiration." She requested a message from him for her colleagues in the League and for her broadcasts, and added: "How I wish that you might feel it possible for you to come to our country, but of course you know best."⁸³]

Ashram, Sabarmati.
March 5, 1926

Dear friend,
I have your good letter. Please tell the members of the League the best way of helping India is to engage in an accurate study of the Indian problem not from newspapers nor after the newspaper style but as diligent students from original sources with patient and prayerful effort.
Regarding your wish that I should visit America, I assure you I am equally eager but I must wait for the definite guidance of the inner voice.
In your previous letter you have asked me for a signed photograph. Did you know that I don't possess a single print of myself? I had not given a sitting for the last ten years and even when I used to give sittings I never got my own portraits. I am sorry therefore that I have to disappoint you.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Alice McKay Kelly
1200, Madison Avenue
New York City

[Mrs. Kelly wrote to Gandhiji again on January 20, 1928, about the response to the "unspeakable" book by Katherine Mayo, Mother India, and her own lectures on India before women's clubs.⁸⁴]