MENNONITE

LIFEJ U N E 1 9 8 3 In this Issue

The article on Gordon Friesen tells a story writ in many and diverse ways in the Mennonite historical record in America: the sensitive youth alienated from his church and community who seeks his liberty and identity in American society. In his past are bonds which will not let him go. In his later years he finds his thoughts curving back to a heritage hearth where he discovers embers that still glow if ever so faintly. In his April 7 letter to the author is this intriguing acknowledgment by Gordon Friesen: “Running through every thing I’ve done is the thread of my upbringing as a Mennonite —namely compassion for the oppressed.” There are a score of significant sub-themes in Allan Teichroew’s article: the youth in the shadows who listens, observes, and ponders and then writes with an uncanny grasp of the whole; the grinding poverty of those years of the great depression; the restless move­ ment of Mennonites in search of land and a fresh start; the once Anabaptist church where the compassionate life has faded; the in- destructableness of the human spirit; and many more. Allan Teichroew, who has the gifts of an investigative Wash­ ington reporter, is on the staff of the Library of Congress in Wash­ ington, D. C. James Juhnke writes of the keepers of the boundaries in the generation between World War I and II. Juhnke, Professor of History at Bethel College, wrote an article on Gustav E. Enss, which appeared in the December 1981 issue of Mennonite Life, which might be con­ sidered a companion piece to the article in this issue on John Horsch, George R. Brunk, and Gustav Enss. Griselda Gehman Shelly, Regional Director of the Mennonite Central Committee, Central States, Newton, Kansas, has written a delightful historical footnote to the Mahatma Gandhi story in this year of the award-winning film. Prof. Huang Xinqu, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, was a visiting professor on the Bethel, Bluffton, and Goshen campuses during the 1982-83 academic year as a part of the China Educational Exchange. Professor Huang has helped lay the groundwork for an expanding educational exchange with China. MENNONITE

June 1983 Vol. 38 No. 2 LIFE

Editor Gordon Friesen Robert Kreider Writer, Radical and Ex-Mennonite 4 Associate Editor Allan Teichroew David A. Haury Front Cover Mennonite Church Theological and The dust jacket for the novel Flamethrow­ ers, by Gordon Friesen, published by Cas- ton Printers, Caldwell. Idaho, 1936. Social Boundaries, 1920-1930 Loyalists, Liberals and Laxitarians 18 Back Cover James C. Jnhnke Cover of Broadside, Vol. 9. edited by Agnes Cunningham and Gordon Friesen. Photo Credits A Letter from Mahatma Gandhi 25 Pp, 4,6,7, Gordon Friesen Pp. 5, Broadside. V. 131 Pp. 8. Broadside. V. 38 Griselda Gehma.n Shelly Pp. 9, Russell Lee, Farm Security Adminis­ tration: Pp. 19,22, Mennonite Historical Library, Goshen, Indiana: Pp. 25,27. Griselda Shelly: Reflections on America 28 Pp. 26, Religious News Service: Pp. 28.29, Information Service, Bethel Col­ lege. Huang Xinqu

MENNONITE LIFE is an illustrated quar­ Book Reviews 30 terly magazine published in March, June, September and December by Bethel Col­ Heinrich and Gerhard Woelk, A Wilderness Journey, lege, North Newton, Kansas. Second Class postage paid at Newton, Kansas 67114. Glimpses of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Russia, 1925-1980, reviewed by Peter J. Dyck SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One year, S8.00: Two years, $14.00 (U.S. Funds) Elaine Sommers Rich, Mennonite Women: A Story of ISSN 0025-9365 God’s Faithfulness, 1688-1983, reviewed by Anna Juhnke Gordon Friesen Writer, Radical and Ex-Mennoni le

by Allan Teichroew

“For some people wars begin and what has gone before), history be­ el about Mennonites, Friesen has end, and in the time between do not fore me. In my limited experience, not been home since World War II. exist. For others less fortunate, only Russian Mennonites of another After drought, poverty, and almost there is no ending. . . .” generation spoke that way, and may­ every conceivable deprivation, in­ Flamethrowers (p. 248) be only those who really knew that cluding the tyranny of a blacklist, I met a man recently who remem­ river, not firsthand necessarily, but he ekes out a living in a rundown bers so much that a book would hold from their parents and their par­ apartment building on New York’s it. Gaunt and ailing, his tired eyes ents knew where it had led— Upper West Side. There, with his set deep back in a gentle drawn face, through the Ukraine once, but then, folksinger wife, Agnes “Sis” Cun­ he spoke deliberately and painfully by a leap of the mind, to America, ningham, one of his two daughters, about a life gone past. He could to Kansas. The Promised Land. a grandchild, and brother Oliver, a have been a Mennonite, I thought, Yet this was no promised land, casualty of World War II, the Frie­ a patriarch with lean, unflinching and it was certainly not Kansas. sen family has since 1962 published opinions, a soft friendly moustache, Gordon E. Friesen, the second son a magazine of protest music called and uncared-for white hair. He had of Jacob and Marie Duerksen Frie­ Broadside. The topical song sheet the diffidence of age, and when he sen, was born in Weatherford, Okla­ is a hardboil mix of folk music and said just one word, “Molotschna. homa in 1909 to Mennonite Breth­ commentary, harking back to the not with the flat pronunciation most ren parents whose forebears had days when Friesen and Cunningham others give it, but “Moiaatschna.” emigrated to the Krimmer village arrived fresh in New York as Com­ with a somewhat lifted and open- of Gnadenau, Kansas in 1874. It munist organizers from western mouthed second syllable, I knew it has been a long trek for him. The Oklahoma. They take pride in hav­ was true. Here was ferlida ( the Low author of Flamethroivers, the first ing been the first to publish or pro­ German Mennonite word for past. American Mennonite to write a nov­ mote Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Janis Ian, and other folksinging greats of the 1960s, but Broadside as a strug­ gling alternative press may be in its last days. Gordon is ill and rarely leaves their apartment anymore, while Sis, though she was recently honored by colleague Pete Seeger in a Carnegie Hall concert, also feels the effect of deteriorating health, the pinch of bad economic times, and what Gordon, who has seen the depths as a newspaperman—mur­ ders, suicides, fires, riots, and the horrid effects of blacklisting—calls “worse than all of this put together . . . growing old in New York City.”1

Gordon Friesen and wife, Agnes “Sis" Cunningham.

4 MENNONITE LIFE But still they fight on, although the Oklahoma Writers Project (for ways. New Yorkers neither came now mostly in recollecting their which Friesen also wrote) and au­ that tall nor invariably that quiet. past. I talked with them for almost thor of The Greencom Rebellion, a The second meeting between the six hours after having tried to do proletarian novel of anti-draft ac­ two took place under more stringent my homework on an amazing life tivity by blacks, Indians, and social­ circumstances. It was the summer story. I went, it should be noted, to ists in western Oklahoma during of 1941, a lull before the storm for find out about Flamethrowers, and World War I. As if prodding were many Americans, but in an Okla­ in the process learned a great deal needed to stir her into action, the homa wracked by labor tensions and more. Some of the story has been Depression provided it, and in the reeling from the after-shock of the hinted at in a recent biography of mid-thirties Cunningham joined an Dust Bowl migration, a time of tur­ the folksinger Woody Guthrie by agitprop theater group named the moil. Anti-red forces propelled by a Joe Klein. More is available in a Red Dust Players. By 1939 Sis wa3 tough local prosecutor and federal Cunningham profile done in Ms. headlong engaged in the representa­ security agents were scouring the magazine in 1974, plus additional tion battles of both the Southern state for political dissidents. Ar­ material in recent issues of Broad­ Tenant Farmers Union and the DX rests occurred, then jail sentences, side and other publications to which Oil Workers. She had met and some beatings; and finally book the pair has contributed.2 fought for the Scottsboro Boys, burnings, mounds of them, including Cunningham and Friesen are un­ been music director at the Southern Marxist literature and thirty-one swerving radicals of pre-World War Labor School for Women in Ashe­ copies of the Constitution, grabbed II origin. They met two years be­ ville, North Carolina, and marched by vigilantes and put to the match fore Pearl Harbor. She was a union for the unemployed in Washington, in an Oklahoma City football stadi­ organizer from the small town of D.C. She recalls with amusement the um. "Oklahoma Witch Hunt,” Frie­ Watonga, he a newspaper reporter time she spied Gordon. He and a sen called the episode in a propo- from Weatherford outraged by the cousin Menno, both strapping Okla­ ganda piece by the title. As head rightwing conservatism of Okla­ homans, arrived at the Cunningham of the Oklahoma Committee to De­ homa politics and the Spanish Civil farm home with the advance billing fend Political Prisoners, an ad hoc War. Radicalism came naturally to of being socialist itinerants from branch of International Labor De­ Sis. Her father had been a Eugene New York City. They couldn't be fense, the legal arm of the Commu- V. Debs socialist since 1912 when from there, she realized at once, Oklahoma “voted red.” Her brother having visited the city and seen the Maria and Jacob Friesen, parents of William was both state director of two gangly Sooners’ countrified Gordon Friesen, a photo from the ,70s.

JUNE, 1983 5 Gordon Friesen c. 19S6. Right cover farm for a site near Dodge City, hamburger. “This is an example of of a pamphlet written and illustrated Kansas, the family harvested a lone the poor helping the poor,” Friesen by Gordon Friesen, 191,1. paltry crop out of seven years’ concluded. A committed Marxist by growth. Returning to Oklahoma, as then, one who saw in his own fami­ he wrote, “just in time to enter the ly’s difficulties a microcosm of the nist Party, he chronicled the events depression and be engulfed in the class struggle, he depicted these while Sis hid out in the western bad­ Dustbowl trauma,” they suffered events in an unpublished novel called lands. The couple was already in more lean years.4 Conditions got so “Unrest.” "Steinbeck with the guts love and would be married within bad that his mother, sisters, and hanging out,” is how a critic friend three months. “What kind of insani­ one brother had to make the Okie described the manuscript at the ty is this,” Gordon quoted the Tulsa trek down Highway 66 to California, time. And indeed, Friesen's version Tribune as saying about the trial of while back at home he was the sole of the Okie migration was darker booksellers such as Ina Wood, soon means of support for a downtrodden by far than the Grapes of Wrath to be immortalized as the “Union father. “I wish I had talked more portrayal. The incomplete, unvarn­ Maid” of Woody Guthrie’s folksong. with him, he was a harrassed man ished novel, said another critic, not In a masterful polemic, twenty-three . . . ,” Friesen says, voice fading. knowing it would never be printed, pages long and with a cover illus­ Throughout much of the thirties is "one of the most powerful indict­ tration which unfortunately mis­ it had been Gordon’s work as a ments of the folly, greed, and stu­ spelled his name, Friesen linked the stringer for various area newspapers pidity of modern life in America series of injustices to a pattern of and national press services that kept under the great depression that has violence with deep social roots. food on the table. More than his yet been written.”5 “Now Oklahoma is a state of many own travail, however, the image that But the war intervened, and in fine men and women,” it began. stands out is of an unemployed and addition to the fact that Friesen “But against their desire to be de­ penniless brother-in-law in Cali­ felt “Unrest” “did not hang to­ cent and human are set a number fornia, waiting expectantly at a gether,” he needed a job. He was of forces. The economic system is Bakersfield hospital for the birth also suffering from a heart condi­ painfully out of order.”3 of a child after five days without tion, so a short time after their Friesen’s own experience with food. Another Okie, a stranger marriage in late 1941 Sis borrowed economic and social dislocation was equally impoverished but with twen­ §35 from her mother to head to New long and arduous. Once, after his ty-five cents to offer, emptied his York. Medical attention was pre­ father had traded their Weatherford pockets to give him money for a sumably obtained, while in the

6 MENNONITE LIFE meantime Sis and Gordon found temporary shelter with the noted documentary photographer Sid Grossman. Novices to city life, the couple sought other radical connec­ tions, especially in the music field, and after a short stay with Gross- man found suitable quarters in a communal apartment at 130 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. The move was auspicious not only in their lives but also for folk music. Joined in a loose and rambunctious arrangement were the indisputable greats of the modern folk boom— Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, Burl Ives, Bess Lomax, Mil­ lard Lampell, Lee Hays, Peter Hawes, and Sis herself, not as well characterization—“He is surely a Almanac Singers. From left to known ultimately as some of the libel on the good Mennonites and right: Woody Guthrie; Millard Lam­ pell (later speech-writer, for Henry others, but in the estimable praise the good Pennsylvania Dutch”—but Wallace); Bess Lomax Hawes (sis­ of another regular, blues singer Friesen may in any case not have ter of folklorist Alan Lomax); Pete Huddie Ledbetter, “the Queen of noticed.8 He was hard at work on Seeger; Arthur Stern; and Sis Cun­ the accordian players.” various freelance projects, and if a ningham. The Almanac Singers, the core later allegation by the FBI was cor­ group called itself, and for a year rect, doing such things as helping or two their rousing combination of to arrange a “Kansas Barn Dance National Maritime Union. Other labor songs, basic folk tunes, and for Earl Browder” at his and Sis's labor organizations requested the anti-fascist lyrics won popular rec­ Greenwich Village address.9 black-and-white anti-Nazi drawings ognition. U.S.-Soviet relations were There were other memorable (satirically titled “The New Order,” uncommonly warm because of the events in their early New York so­ according to a contemporary biogra­ wartime alliance, while for its part journ. On February 14, 1942, all phy in Who’s Who Among the Men­ the Communist Party under the four radio networks featured the nonites),11 but for unexplained rea­ leadership of former Kansan Earl Almanacs on a morale boosting show sons he stopped producing more. Browder was continuing the unity called “This Is War.” Just the break Life with the Almanacs may have campaign begun in the thirties un­ they had been hoping for, with been as much as could be handled. der the “Communism is 20th-Cen­ prospects dangled of long-term con­ Sis sang when she could, Gordon tury Americanism” banner. Union tracts and a national tour, the dream wrote when he could, and in the locals beckoned the group, as did fizzled when the press caught hold quarters near them, in spacious civic groups, business organizations, of their Communist politics.10 Gor­ Almanac House, Woody Guthrie as and for a time even, before conserv­ don had his own fling of excitement writer worked feverishly on the ative pressure was applied, Decca with a still-born photojournal named manuscript, Bound for Glory. Records and CBS Radio.6 As a Graphic Newsmagazine. As reporter The stuff of legends, this book cultural branch of the communist on a story involving congressional and author were, and Friesen was Party U.S.A. (CPSUA), the Al­ investigations into fraudulent war one of the few eyewitnesses to re­ manacs operated on a wide front. contracts which were hampering the cord their Almanac House phase. Friesen was not a singer, but in the production of U.S. weaponry, he The singers’ arrangement really was role of “head accordian carrier”7 in interviewed Missouri Senator Harry communal, with a shared kitty, free- Guthrie’s twitting phrase, he ac­ S. Truman. Friesen raised questions floating guests, and joint meals at companied Sis on many of her per­ about the scandal and its meaning; a central table. Interspersed with formances and wrote occasional Truman talked on about World War spirited, some said dogmatic, dis­ articles for the Daily Worker. One I and Battery D and steadily push­ cussions about the intricacies of of his pieces, strangely enough, ap­ ed bourbon. The magazine soon died, Communism were musical jam ses­ peared square above a critic's re­ at any rate, and Friesen was left sions the group called hootenannies. view of a 1942 play entitled “Papa tending an undeveloped sideline in Invariably at the center of these Is All,” about a dictatorial Pennsyl­ the art of caricature. A sketch artist affairs was the unflappable Guthrie. vania Dutch Mennonite father “so who drew blood-curdling images of Sis was present at his famous put- demoniac that he literally jails his fascists and their allies, he sharp­ down of Manhattan business execu­ two active and post-adolescent chil­ ened his focus to the point that in tives at the Waldorf-Astoria (“She’ll dren in a rural replica of a museum the summer of 1942 he exhibited his be wearin’ a union button when she room.” The reviewer panned the cartoons in a one-man show at the comes,” Guthrie roared at the un-

JUNE, 1983 7 attentive audience, to which the jaded cry rang out "Bring on the "THE NATIONAL girls! Bring ’em on!’’),12 and all TOPICAL SONG MAGAZINE" JANUARY 2 0 , 196k were there when because of anti- Price — 35^5 Communist publicity the money dried up and the heat dissipated. With only an oven to warm their * dwellings, windows frosted, stalac­ 38 tites grew in the sinks, and “Woody, always ready to record in song what In Tms issue-, went on around him, wrote a blues, one verse of which went: I went into the bathroom and I of -the pulled upon the chain Polar bears on icebergs came float­ ing down the drain Hey, Pretty Mama, I got those Arctic Circle blues.13 TIGE-it The Almanacs were also present BY the day of their eviction when, "like ants moving from an old colony to a new one,” they organized a mid­ LEwCHAfya/.tK night foot migration of an entire household. As one stream proceeded “more or less steadily forward,” 9 - lS o S o i l 'd b y •• loaded to the brim with second-hand paraphernalia, “it was passed by a -Phil O chs silent file of empty-handed ants re­ turning to Almanac House for fresh Pknie ftMRs loads.” Only Guthrie avoided the sidewalk expedition, typing oblivi­ 'Tom PaxtCW ously away. “That’s one way to get a NE.YV ^ ORK T IM E S . ■»,.),-inm j.ave the vicious effects of , poverty on the riche« city In tho world been book written,” Friesen realized.14 • \ ' 4 better illuminated. A quarter of the families in As admiring as anyone of this liv­ _ the rily live in srindinj*. abject, hopeless rir- , cunsauun-ea. They provide moat of tho ciist for ing folk hero, Gordon could do what y-> ’ (lie juvenile courts, the faintly courts, tho jails. Voopy G utwRIE They swell the relief rail*. They provide sn almost no one else dared—tweak the element of social dynamite in the existing order. mystic figure who posed as a roust­ about when in Gordon's words “You never did a day’s work in your life.” “You’re an intellectual, a poet,” the and ah ^fide by bob DyLAtf real former farmhand and cotton picker told Guthrie. With a shrug and a smile he accepted the jest, for the information that Sis became Cover of Broadside, No. 38, edited and during the last months of the literature director of District 7 of by Gordon Friesen and Sis Cunning­ ham. book after Gordon and Sis found the Detroit branch of the Commu­ their own apartment, the friendship nist Party. Other government docu­ was deepened when Guthrie joined ments indicate that Gordon and Sis published twenty years later in the the couple in their tiny Hudson attended meetings and picnics set leftwing literary magazine Main­ Street domicile.13 up to hear luminaries such as party stream,17 The Detroit race riot, But for the Almanacs as a group leader William Z. Foster.16 They started by hostile whites who at­ the end was near. Seeger joined the did some factory work, although tacked black beachgoers at a public Army, Guthrie went to sea, and in Gordon's contribution was as news recreation area, exploded into vio­ 1943, perhaps as much out of a de­ reporter for the Hearst-owned De­ lence such as few cities had seen. sire to unionize war-tooled auto­ troit Times. He covered the city On duty when it began, Friesen was workers as the search for employ­ beat, a wide one locally, garnering at hand on virtually every front. ment, Gordon, Sis, and what re­ a banner headline on occasion, inter­ He saw the battered bodies of Negro mained of the singers moved whole­ viewing military brass, but the factory workers whose injuries “had sale to Detroit. Richard F. O’Hair, event that stood out was as a police the fantastic appearance as if they, undercover informant for the FBI reporter on the night of June 21, too, had been produced by an assem­ before the House Un-American Ac­ 1943. "Day of Infamy,” he termed bly line process;” he visited pre­ tivities Committee, is moot source the experience in a retrospective cinct stations; recorded anti-black

8 MENNONITE LIFE Why wasn’t the government investi­ gating “real subversives,” those who peddled hate and greed to the- detriment of America, “while thick dossiers are compiled on progressive groups and individuals . . . at the taxpayer's expense?”19 Friesen had his own answer to- this question by the time of the- article, for of all the issues that molded his and Sis' life, this was premier. Twice they had tasted cen­ sorship or suppression, first in Okla­ homa City, then with the Almanacs, but the third and last chapter closed their careers. The rest would be addenda. In an irony true to the Cold War, the most critical phase began in 1944 when Gordon got a job with the Office of War Infor­ mation in New York. The move was a fatal one, prompting an eventual government security investigation which as a Communist he dared not challenge. He was able to find em­ ployment as a news writer for CBS radio, but with a corporate revamp- ment in the direction of television in 1948 lost his position. He did not get another for ten years. The Cold War brush off also hurt Cun­ ningham. Burdened with two chil­ dren between 1945 and 1948, she nearly stopped performing except for benefit appearances during the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace. Those engagements she de­ sired were either unavailing or un- remunerative. Gordon got a tem­ porary job running a sound truck Agnes “Sis” Cunningham playing subthemes important to the party for Pete Seeger during the 1948 for the United Canning, Agricultur­ as an organization and to Friesen mayoral campaign of American La­ al, Packing and Allied Workers of personally. The first of these was bor Party candidate Yito Marcan- America meeting at Bristow, Okla., Feb. 1940. an almost super-patriotic identi­ tonio, and then, nothing . . . nothing fication with the U.S. war effort, in the writing and singing fields strange for a dissident who had op­ for either of them, only menial sniper fire; observed a few acts of posed American involvement during work on occasion, some periods on sacrificial heroism; and before it the Hitler-Stalin Pact, but in keep­ welfare, and an unremitting battle was over, rode with a convoy of ing with the party’s prowar switch to find food, shelter, and a forum federal troops called in to calm the after the German invasion of Rus­ to be heard. disturbance. sia.18 If it flowed logically from There is a folksong, Sis has writ­ The thesis of Friesen’s article the premise that the riots in Detroit ten, which has the culminating line was that Detroit "fascists,” a term undermined the war cause, and "Not enough to live on but a little he uses freely as a synonym, it therefore patriotism, it was also the too much to die.” The phrase, she sometimes appears, for nearly all case that Friesen and other Com­ says, epitomizes their blacklisting. non-Communists, had unleashed munists saw behind the events still “We came to the conclusion that their hatred with the blessing of a deeper betrayal. Where were the there was little or no difference be­ authorities. The hardhitting essay FBI, House Unamerican Activities tween killing people and not allow­ dealt hammer blows to the callous­ Committee and other federal intelli­ ing them to live. We were not being ness of local officials. Riveted into gence-gathering agencies during the- allowed to live. We were a man, a the text as well, however, were two Detroit episode, Friesen asked? woman, and two children—a family

JUNE, 1983 9 in the good old American sense— to finish, the story of Friesen and countless millions of human beings condemned not to live."20 his origins suggests a reverse typ­ (including nonviolent Mennonites),” Throughout the ordeal, their com­ ology. He himself is in the process could only be opposed by a better, mitment to Marxist principles re­ of recollecting and describing a re­ more militant power, be it down­ mained strong and confirmed. They markable progression that had two trodden minorities asserting their were no longer active in any or­ distinct segments. Near the end of rights or angry citizens fighting ganized sense, but did march on his productive life, he is able to capitalist imperialism.22 behalf of the Rosenbergs, and in analyze both partitions from the Friesen shows other signs of am­ 1958, when the opportunity arose, after-perspective of his latest ex­ bivalent feeling about his Mennonite Gordon took a minor position with periences. How, he seems to be ask­ past. He acknowledges that the the Polish News Service. Finally in ing among other things (for he and taught precepts he learned as a child 1962 Pete Seeger helped them found Sis are working on a joint auto­ still have their pull. He finds them Broadside. Very much in the Guth­ biography), did an Oklahoma Men­ ultimately misguided, of that there rie tradition, the topical song nonite Brethren farm boy get is no doubt, but more to the point magazine offered both a reprieve- wrenched from the countryside and batters his tradition with example from enforced silence and a sound­ converted to radicalism? What was on example of its practical short­ ing board for pent-up views. They the connection, and of almost equal comings. Many are personal illustra­ think of the sheet with its spinoff interest, how does he view his Men­ tions, detailing, say, the morose recording albums as their greatest nonite upbringing through the filter cruelty of a minister or the collapse contribution, and indeed, in its early of his subsequent departure? of his family due to drought and years certainly, the mimeographed A clue to the latter question can depression with no help from Men­ and now photocopied magazine was be found in a 1967 commentary nonites. In the historical vein, he a wellspring for young rebel artists published in Broadside. In an edi­ interprets Anabaptism from the seeking a voice. Bob Dylan was lit­ torial attack by Cunningham on the Marxist perspective—that it was tle more than an underground cult anti-black power opinions expressed radical originally as a peasants’ figure striking self-conscious poses by Baez, the singer was quoted from land revolt. He is at once critical in the Guthrie mold when his first press notices as saying that non­ and proud of the economic wonders published song, "Singing John Birch violence as a movement was “only achieved by Russian Mennonites. Society Blues,” appeared in Broad­ 60 years old." The statement was Their excellence in wheat set the side’s opening issue. Other major false, Cunningham retorted, for her world’s standards, yet here and in artists such as Phil Ochs, Tom Pax­ own husband’s people had been Russia they exploited others while ton, Buffy St. Marie, and Arlo steadfast pacifists for over four talking of peace. Through oral tra­ Guthrie were also among the legion hundred years. They had suffered dition he tells stories of Russia: of singers befriended or printed by dearly on account of this principle, how an addled step grandfather, Broadside. More have joined since, "as their thick 'Book of Martyrs’ from the old country believing him­ although commercial stardom and will attest,” and when Gordon was self still in the Ukraine, was ready political variances have depleted the a boy he sometimes sang the "haunt­ with a whip "to lash Russians circle as well as the quality. Dylan, ing refrain (roughly translated into with” ; and how a once young aunt, for instance, has been attacked re­ English)” : when she took pity on South Rus­ cently by Friesen and Cunningham. The way is red with martyrs’ blood; sian laborers and gave them dinner They criticize him not only because Did you think you’d walk on roses? for a meal instead of sour clabber of his apolitical money-making, but milk, was reproved by her parents also for breaking the ranks with The stanza, said Cunningham, re­ for "spoiling” the workers. Menno­ a putative conversion to Christian minded her that if scholars today nites are “the world’s worst hypo­ fundamentalism. Additional targets studied these people, they would crites,” he has written in Broad­ include political writers who see find "a crushing refutation to those side, “always renouncing war, they McCarthyism as a short-term abber- —anthropologists, sociologists, plain were doubly quick in taking ad­ ration, plus nonviolent liberals such every-politician, etc.—who claim vantage of others’ wars. In Russia as Joan Baez, who is accused among that man is inherently a warring they grew rich off land seized from other things of pandering to anti- animal and ‘you can't change hu­ the Turks by force of arms. In Kan­ Communist sentiment through her man nature.” Did the comment sas they prospered from soil still support of Russian dissidents.21 mean that she and Friesen identi­ soaked with the blood of Indians. Oddly enough, it is the mention fied with Mennonite pacifism? Or If honest, they would return this of Baez which brings us full circle that they identified the refrain as land to the Indians on this very to the theme foreshadowed at the a fitting description of their own day.”23 beginning of this article. Thus far, thorny pilgrimage? Actually, not. An unusual statement for a Friesen’s Mennonite past has bare­ Baez had stated that "Black Power Marxist, asking landowners to ly been intimated, to the consterna­ is just as silly as any other kind of transcend their class by forfeiting tion of the reader perhaps, but for ‘power’.” To Cunningham and their interest—does the remark hint a reason which seems fitting. If the Friesen, however, “that other kind slightly of a Mennonite conscience, normal approach to a life or event of power,” which through the cen­ his and theirs? When approached is to treat it linearly, from start turies "has crushed, murdered with a question that tries to relate

10 MENNONITE LIFE his current beliefs with his Menno- He was always looking for just the Marines. Another son, Oliver, who nite Brethren upbringing, he an­ right land but could not hit the aids Gordon and Sis in the produc­ swers unexpectedly that since the mark. He bought in 1912 a small tion of Broadside, also joined the age of nine he has been destined orchard in Reedley, California, held military. Oliver fought with General for radicalism. During World War I it for a year or two, then sold it; George C. Patton's tank forces dur­ he was expelled from the class­ he set up a Weatherford real estate ing World War II. Both sons came room and threatened with arrest business, where the demands of the home to America psychologically or for making an unpatriotic remark. trade outpaced his ethics; and final­ physically disabled. "You goddamn American,” he had ly, after losing a bid to become Memories of death, disease, and shouted back at a bully who called owner of a Ford Motor Company injustice cloud all Gordon Friesen’s him "a goddamn Dutchman.” Peg­ distributorship, he made the fatal thoughts about Oklahoma and Men- ged with the German Mennonite mistake of exchanging his farm nonites. It is the dark side of the label, Friesen learned then about near Weatherford for an abandoned frontier epic that he presents, a minority status. Earlier and plot near the ghost town of Wilburn, personalized version of Michael throughout his youth he experienced Kansas. Here, in the netherworld Lesy’s photogaphic essay Wisconsin ostracism from his own family’s of Mennonitism, which Jacob Frie­ Death Trip.25 He has lamented in group for wanting to read English. sen may partially have longed for, print the calloused attitude that he Again as a Mennonite, Gordon having been of two minds about his inherited toward Indians. The for­ learned the fear of being made an religious attachment, the family mer prejudice enrages him now, outsider. He cites few specific inci­ starved — emotionally, physically, though he says warmly in private dents to explain this condition, stat­ and intellectually. When asked about that when his father homesteaded ing mainly that when he and his their plight, Gordon Friesen, a in Custer County, Oklahoma, he brothers were visited by neighbors writer, shields his face from loss of grew several rows of corn specially and relatives they had to stash their American contraband. A story about his father explains their reaction. As a young man Jacob Friesen had Running through every thing I’ve done is the thread of my upbring­ found a non-Mennonite newspaper ing as a Mennonite—namely compassion for the oppressed. and was caught reading it. “We Gordon Friesen in a letter to the author, April 7,1983 knew then that he was lost,” an elderly aunt told Gordon, tears streaming down her face. words. He remembers emphatically for the picking of nearby tribes. The day of such bulwarks seems that when they appealed for help, Another anecdote, absolutely unfor­ itself lost now, but in talking to they were told by church members gettable if true, concerns a neigh­ Friesen the era of his youth comes to bear their difficulties as the will bor’s son in Kansas, wasting away back like his accent. The history of of God. "That's taking theology too from terminal disease, whose father his family is an Oklahoma saga of far,” Friesen remarks, noting that put him on a party telephone line a young Mennonite couple leaving an uncle came to save them and to broadcast his death throes. “Life their Kansas village around 1900, bring them back to Weatherford. is hard,” is Friesen’s laconic con­ locating on a homestead near the The family never recovered as an clusion to this pathetic story. His town of Weatherford, with all the economic or social unit. Marie Frie­ other tales are as sad or worse: attendant frontier deprivations, and sen as a child had been "orphaned minorities being humiliated, bar­ failing economically. They were part out” to the family of Krimmer barities committed in the name of of a small enclave of Mlennonite Mennonite Brethren founder and healing, madness due to isolation Brethren and Krimmer Mennonite elder Jacob A. Wiebe. She remem­ and loneliness. The gothic version Brethren, huddled in a spiritual wil­ bered the experience bitterly, but of life that he mounts is symbolized derness, clinging stubbornly, defen­ despite unforgiving anger at what graphically by a relative of Friesen sively, to a faith and a culture. she thought was menial treatment, who had left the Mennonite fold to "Boundary maintenance" is the so­ Gordon’s mother became desperately fight in the Spanish-American War. ciological jargon, and the limits attached to her religious faith. She He returned from the Philippines to were strict: backward or forward would pray anxiously, woefully for marry an “ootlander,” a non-Men­ immersion (depending on which her family’s deliverance, and in a nonite woman, says Friesen, who group one belonged to), no musical corresponding manner ask berating had a scarlet reputation as bar girl instruments, severe separation of questions about her husband’s abili­ or prostitute. The relative left her the sexes, an insistence on German, ty to earn their bread. Economic eventually, and in recompense per­ low or high, and no intermarriage worries tore the family apart. In the haps turned to ecstatic religion. Em­ with Yankee neighbors.24 midst of the Depression, Marie and barrassed by his actions, the Frie­ Gordon’s father, whom he says most of the family went west tem­ sen children would watch in horror was the second child born in Gnad- porarily to Southern California to as he danced to the spirit in local enau, was a restless man plagued look for employment in the fields churches. He did this, no less, in a by misjudgment. He had a frontiers­ and war plants. One son, the eldest, rundown church in the black part man’s desire for the main chance. had already enlisted in the U.S. of town, but what scandalized them

JUNE, 1983 11 most were his talks with God. He did.”27 ering the riches which would at last scaled their house during a rain­ Somewhere between the books and and permanently restore the econo­ storm once, climbed to the roof, and the libraries, between sharecropping my. Friesen named his cousin Men­ stood spread-eagle at the apex, arms stints and time in the fields, as cot­ no Duerksen president of the broth­ outstretched and mouth open heav­ ton picker and wheat shocker, and erhood, and while Menno disappear­ enward, wailing for help, for divine between high school and the Depres­ ed, conveniently, so he could not be intercession.26 sion, Gordon Friesen himself be­ interviewed, the announcement Friesen recoiled from such scenes, came a writer. Starting profession­ caught on. From everywhere they resolved never to repeat them. He ally as ghost author for college stu­ came, mountebanks, rogues, pseudo­ looked to books for answers, never dents at the local Southwestern scientists, and plain ordinary farm­ was baptized, and learned as a boy State Teachers College, he gradu­ ers, armed to the hilt with dip that he loved writing. Uneducated ated from there to area newspapers. needles, gold buzzers, shovels of formally beyond high school, he got The Clinton News picked up his every description, anything with outside encouragement from a drug­ copy, then the Weatherford paper, which to find gold. gist who offered him large stacks of and next two Oklahoma City dailies, Friesen can relate numerous such unsold magazines free of charge. the Daily Oklahoman and the Times. escapades, reportorial comeuppances Completing high school as he did National press services used his which show the lighter side of his was rare in Oklahoma then (a dis­ stories occasionally, and he also sold work, and yet the experiences which crepant fact not fully explained in articles to papers in Tulsa, Denver, dominated had a gloomier aspect. light of the family's marginal cir­ and Kansas City. Most stories were Politicized finally by the real stories cumstances), but even rarer no conventional. He did ambulance of the Depression—the Dust Bowl, doubt was the quality and extent of chasing, some sports work, a memor­ starvation, mortgage foreclosures, his reading list. Friesen devoured able fire at Southwestern State, and and the Okie trek—he focused in the pulp magazines at first, then varied a lot of animal features. middle of this on a torturous diver­ his taste with richer fare. He read By the mid-1930's, the money sion. Speaking in retrospect, he says Harpers, the Atlantic Monthly, a Friesen made as a self-taught free that by the late 1920s the life >he shortlived progressive journal called lancer was vital to the family’s sur­ had known in the Mennonite value Plain Talk, and like so many in the vival. He was and is, as Joe Klein system, however he despised it, was twenties, was permanently influ­ reports, “very witty in a countrified lost or shattered by economic fail­ enced by the iconoclasm of Henry L. way,”28 a trait that came in handy ure. What power this influence must Mencken’s American Mercury. He when stretching his copy to get have held then, how strong its grip, does not mention the expectable— more column inches and thus in­ to inspire a novel which fictionalized Marx, Freud, and popular psycholo­ crease his income. A few stories he his boyhood. gy—but says that Mencken and Sin­ wrote were pure fabrication. He About twenty-two when he start­ clair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry “finished claims invention rights, for instance, ed it, in verse form at first, the off whatever religious sentiments to a social event in Weatherford book titled Flamethrowers was is­ still left from Mennonite childhood.” since called “Panther Days.” The sued on January 2, 1936, under the His serious novel reading, which be­ hoax was perpetrated when in re­ imprint of Caxton Printers, Inc., gan as a boy when he finished every action to stories he contrived about Caldwell, Idaho. "Sophomoric” is book in the state correspondence li­ a crazed panther advancing on the how he describes the work now, brary, broadened still more during town, an alarmed citizenry organ­ noting in an aside that it did not a three-year period when because of ized a posse to hunt down the beast. sell well. Flamethrowers was among a heart ailment he was totally bed­ It turned into a liquor fest in dry the first group of novels priced at ridden. Through borrowing privi­ Oklahoma and was repeated for ,$3.50. One dollar more than the leges at the state library, he read years. Another tale in Friesen’s preexisting rate, the book lagged at all that could be gotten. He finished repertoire of pseudo-events involved sales counters in part because while H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennet, Willa southwestern gold seekers. To con­ beautifully printed, its remote Idaho Cather, Edith Wharton, Theodore found the editor of the Weatherford publisher was small competition to Dreiser (who was also, he found, daily, a good news man who boosted the dominant publishing houses of part Mennonite in background) ; the positive and ignored the nega­ New York and Boston. The press plus standards such as Lincoln Stef­ tive, he reported the fake announce­ lacked popular recognition, but in fins, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy, ment that the plains city had been compensation did have the highest Dostoevski, and Anatole France. designated as first annual host of reputation for superior book craft. Later on a cousin brought second­ the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Friesen chose Caxton Printers be­ hand books from Oklahoma City and Chemical, Mechanical, Physical, cause it had previously been acclaim­ Friesen focused totally on American Spiritual Gold Restorers of Ameri­ ed for discovering ex-Mormon contemporaries. Sinclair Lewis es­ ca, Inc. Legends of lost buried gold, writer Vardis Fisher, author of an pecially affected him, while Heming­ like those of behemoth panthers, unusual series of fictional autobi­ way he disliked (“seemed super­ were stock themes in Oklahoma lore. ographies. It was also a risk-taking ficial”) and Faulkner, he thought, This event was special, however, concern, willing to gamble, and “rambled on and on about a South since the intended aim of the group though Friesen may not have known that no longer existed, if it ever was the laudable purpose of uncov­ it, famous for its owner. Eclectic

12 MENNONITE LIFE and individualist, J. H. Gipson was novel to Joyce and O’Neill. “There ing in levity. In an article that ex­ a reactionary westerner who hated is complete and utter surrender on pressed conservative resentment nothing so much as the Franklin the part of the author to the emo­ against bohemian writers who laun­ Roosevelt New Deal. Had he known tions he portrays,” concluded the dered their private identity crises Friesen’s politics, or what they writer, “and the end result is an in public view, Frank ridiculed the would become, he would not have amazing, complete, and very power­ novel for being “overheavy with published him.29 ful book.” Life—Life discussed at intermin­ For his part, Friesen had a hard In the country as a whole, the able length in long, involved Green- time just finding the paper to com­ most generous praise came from wich-villagy harangues, in moon- plete the manuscript. The first west of the Mississippi. “A few drunk sophomoric soliloquies.” draft, he says, was written on the more books like Flamethro wers. . . Whatever the critics’ final judg­ backs of farm auction bills. A con­ wrote the Dallas Times Herald, “and ment, the book was, as seemed ob­ temporary source, the Literary Di­ the whole world will know of him.” vious, largely autobiographical. In gest, confirmed his adversity with Phrases such as “admirable and im­ 490 pages, 106 chapters, and 4 sec­ a minor embellishment. As a strug­ pressive” and “marks a new high tions, Gordon Friesen’s protagonist, gling author, said the June 27, 1936, tide for western literature” dotted a German-Russian lad named Peter issue, he “was so hard up he wrote book columns from Colorado Franzman, struggles to find identity the first draft on the backs of un­ Springs, Colorado to Portland, Ore­ in the horrible circumstances that paid bills [sic]. A newspaper editor gon. “Without question . . . the his family has inherited. Members lent him paper on which to type off finest modern novel we have read,” of a small subsect of a pacifist re­ a presentable manuscript, but the raved Frank McNaughton, United ligious group whose origins go back rewrite lay in a dresser drawer for Press reviewer from the novelist’s to Holland and Prussia, the family months because Friesen couldn’t home state of Oklahoma. “Nine- of Jacob and Theresa Franzman spare the postage to mail it to a tenths of modern writing rings pain­ leaves Russia for America in about publisher. For final corrections, a fully hollow when contrasted to this 1910. Tragedy strikes during a per­ friend ‘swiped’ a dictionary.”30 book.” Don Hollenbeck of the Oma­ ilous river crossing. Peter's younger Nearly forgotten today, and dis­ ha Bee Herald, later famous as a brother Joseph drowns in the water missed by Friesen as unworthy of CBS radio commentator, echoed a when the Russian guide Jacob has consideration, Flamethrowers when similar reaction. Calling Flame­ hired abandons the child for fear of it appeared drew strong critical re­ throwers “one of the most remark­ his own life. Soldiers are after sponses. Newspapers, press services, able novels ever written in Ameri­ them, but the three who survive special interest magazines, and radio ca,” he urged readers to purchase reach Germany and America and stations across the country featured the volume whether or not it was finally Kansas. The village they the volume as a major publication. accompanied “by the incense of New head for has relatives and aequain- “This is a strange, dark, moody York literary teas.” Perhaps the tences whom they hope will aid tale to come out of the West,” cap­ most significant exposure Friesen them. It is Blumenhof, a fictive tioned the eminent reviewer Fred received, in size of audience at least, rendition of the actual Gnadenau. T. Marsh in a representative com­ was from radio announcer Upton Located near Gall wan, a mixed town mentary in the Sunday New York Close of the Mutual Broadcasting of Russian Germans like themselves Times book section. “At its best it System. On an evening edition of and some Americans, the village touches profundity, but it is often World Parade, Close touted the vol­ was founded in the 1870s by the distorted, sometimes foolish, always ume as a fine example of the new subgroup’s spiritual head, Isaac youthful.” A stimulating book, a- writing in the American heartland, Liese. Americanization has since greed Joseph M. Smith of the cross­ where artists and publishers were broken down the original settlement town Herald Tribune, one that was conceiving unique kinds of literature plan, and when the Franzman’s ar­ immature and shaky in places but “undreamed of east of the Hudson.” rive they face the loser’s choice of full of promise. Elsewhere, the Sat- Not all reviews displayed the same coming late to a community where urday Review of London saw even kind of interest or equal admira­ the land has been occupied and ma­ greater attributes—exceedingly im­ tion. Some criticized the book for terialism prevails. Liese is troubled pressive,” it stated as did regional being rambling and disjointed, while by this change, obsessed by it in publications in the United States others took offense at its coarse fact, yet in young Peter’s view he and Canada.31 “A first novel which subject matter. The sour note in­ is a petty old fool, sex hungry for is well worth reading,” said Civil jected by the Los Angeles Times one thing, often casting glances at War historian Bruce Cotton, then critic was that Friesen was either Theresa, Peter’s naive mother, and writing newspaper copy for NEA an “emotional imbecile” or pulling in the meantime engaged in wild Service. “Mr. Friesen contrives a the reader's leg with “clever, fan­ fantasies about God, war, and evil moving and poetic protest against tastic nonsense.” The Times seemed which when filtered through his those blind human forces which keep bemused rather than angered by slow-minded churchgoers serve life from being the vibrant thing it some of Flamethrowers unconven­ largely as a cover for greed and might be.” So pleased was the re­ tional themes, but to Gerald Frank ignorance. viewer for the Harvard Crimson of the Cleveland News, the book was Peter recoils from what he ob­ that he compared portions of the as devoid of virtue as it was miss­ serves, for innocent that he is, the

JUNE, 1983 13 death of brother Joseph at the divid­ balanced state sees only purity in like a horror movie with accompany­ ing line to freedom has permanent­ Liese’s lost aspiration. Or Mrs. ing scenes of Joseph's drowning, ly wounded him. He sees as a child Rachting, the village gossip, who Peter cannot shed the image as the and mainly sees hate—hate, stupidi­ anticipates community irregularities hideous motif of his everyday exist­ ty, greed, and cruelty. His mother almost before they occur, and then ence. Blumenhof—“the grotesque detests him. She opposed the move enhances them. Or Solomon Mull, a unreality!”—is mangling his be­ to America, is convinced it was sin­ repulsive, deformed bachelor whose ing.33 If escape routes exist, they do ful, and blames the death of her misshapen body attracts cruelty, and not seem evident because within the child on her ambitious husband shows in the process what Blumen­ world that he knows there are no Jacob. Joseph had been her baby, hof will do to persecute the weak. choices available. It is a closed life while Peter was the seed of a sly, In perhaps the vilest scene in the that he leads, an isolated one, cheer­ grasping spouse. Eager to get rich book, Peter is forced by the mother less and pathetic, in which the and finally gain the social status of Susie Gunstan to look at the weight of history seems ominously which his coreligionists have always young woman’s thigh wound, as if present. Taken against his will to a denied him, Jacob represents a crude- in seeing the alleged wages of a revival gathering, Peter coldly de­ blend of the devoutly pious and the long ago sin Peter will finally be scribes the people who afflict him: money-hungry peasant. He has one frightened onto the paths of right­ An air of dismal hopelessness great urge: if he cannot himself eousness. hung over them all; it was as become successful, then Peter will. Peter’s sensitive and oppressed though they had completed their For this he is prepared to sacrifice spirit resists these brutalizing ex­ lives long ago and were merely everything, including ultimately the periences but cannot find escape. hanging on, waiting for death. It little that he has to finance Peter’s The shackles of his birthright— was a strange thing that here in this religious gathering, among schooling. family, village, sect—have him trap­ these men and women who pro­ And Peter does get educated, over ped. The few Americans in the fessed themselves to be true fol­ the strenuous opposition of his area are of little help, as he learns lowers of the Creator of all life, mother, Liese, and others in Blum- during World War I when he is heirs of a close companionship with suspected by his teacher for being that Creator for which their an­ enhof who are adamantly against, cestors had waded through blood, the learning of English. While Germanic in background. As a boy, and had fought, unremittingly, for Jacob, in his mad rush to be some­ Peter’s impressions of the World centuries, among these men and thing, to establish a genuine foot­ War are picked up from photographs women who believed themselves hold, is beguiled by Gottlieb Craft- he has viewed in local newspapers closer than any other group of hu­ mans to that powerful regenerative holt into over extending himself on and from the ugly tone of daily con­ force, there should exist such an marginal land at too high a price, versations.32 With the clarity of atmosphere of exhausted and irre­ the religious forces in the village youth he sees the carnage for what coverable mankind. These people work mightily to save Peter. They it is. At the same time, Peter is were almost sullen in their lethargy witness to Liese and others of the of spirit. Their clothes, their tones plot revival meetings, speak ill of of speech, their few actions, their Jacob, and numb Peter with their group, whom he knows to be bigoted faces and hands, showed nothing mean parochialism. The book nearly and intolerant themselves, take a of a creative, joyous life, nothing groans with an endless array of stand against war on religious of a love and respect for creation, grounds. Some including Liese him­ but rather a sour, total disinterest, stunted or evil characters. There is a mistrust of life, and a decision, Liese to start with, who besides his self are actually fleeing to Canada as though in spite, to live it as dully physical longings is preoccupied to elude the crisis. The confusion as possible. . . . It would have been with the collapse of Blumenhof and of values is symptomatic for Peter difficult to find a group of men and the loss of his former greatness. He of all that is wrong with Blumenhof, women anywhere so devoid of all evidence of joy, so devoid of all sometimes thinks it would have been or for that matter the world. In the zest for living, so devoid of all better never to have left Russia. He middle of the war his only role spirit.34 lives now in a disheveled shack at model, the son of a neighbor who the edge of the former village, where has violated community taboos by The reprieve Peter has longed he works feverishly but to no avail attending an unapproved Oklahoma for finally comes when he enters on a printing press and poems that college, enlists in the fighting. Peter Fenrow’s University. The school is others disregard. American-style glories in this nonconformist de­ a small Oklahoma religious college, greed having wormed its way into cision, observes it in fact as a noble not of his background, where his his utopian conception, nothing il­ and sacrificial act. He too can break idol had attended before going to lustrates Liese’s pathetic decline so the mold; he can become a knight! war. In his past life Peter has been much as the oily condescension But the hero is killed, and a horrible as unsuited for friendship as he has which his very own son-in-law, the image is pressed on Peter’s mind. been for faith. He feels himself de­ wily and much envied landowner The shooting fires of hatred, his formed by Blumenhof, a psychic who hoodwinked Jacob, dotes upon child’s thoughts tell him, are no casualty of daily village warfare, him. more searing on the battlefield than but through female history profes­ But there are other, more disturb­ they are at home, church or village. sor Duane Terrison, ten years his ed characters, such as the half- The spectacle of flamethrowers elder and the star of the faculty, he demented Theresa, who in her un­ emblazoned forever on his memory, discovers a person who tries to un-

14 MENNONITE LIFE derstand him. Their meeting on the Blumenhof, lacks even the honesty they had defied man’s nature, first day of classes is fraught with of weathered farmers’ faces. He is sought nonexistent answers, and in tension. Having caught glimmers of a poor lost innocent to Duane, but the process made life meaner and the homogenized student body, he is also the child that leads her drabber. The final episode has Peter where few knew the angst such as away from her own and Fenrow’s realize the philosophy which his sad he had gone through, he realizes at suffocating aura of pious idealism. years had quested. In a discussion once that he will always be for­ In the end they are too much for the with Duane which ends the book, he eign. He clasps his books ashamedly, school’s administrators, who dismiss pounds home the truth that Blumen­ his mind in the self-conscious cell the pair as impertinent trouble­ hof taught him: the world could that Blumenhof constructed, when makers with no hope of salvation. only be accepted as it actually was. Duane inquires briskly about his In the end also life at Blumenhof Hovering mysteriously in the back­ interest in history. Rattled by his goes full circle. On a visit home, ground is the voice of his mother, fear, partly in her own thoughts Mrs. Rachting dies, then her dis­ who extolls from the far distance of about a dissertation she is writing gruntled son (by suicide), next his subconscious the very same real­ on the effect of the World War on Peter’s mother, and finally his fath­ ism which in life she had lacked. Christianity, she finds herself in­ er. The grimy deaths of his parents Friesen cannot recall any Men- truding with insensitive questions symbolize their failure. The mother nonite reactions to Flamethrowers' about an event in the past that for who despised her family, whose conclusion or even its contents. her is academic but for him steeped grief over Joseph smothered reality Though relatives read the book, and with pain. More fear registers on and tortured Peter, has lost faith in brothers Edward and Oliver must Peter, followed by a scary mutual God. She dies a terrible death in have since it was dedicated to them, silence. Duane fumbles for escape, their old shack. Jacob could not af­ language problems and other factors acknowledging to herself that she ford more, having lost most of his shut the novel off from his parents. had never considered the World land to a fatal combination of mis­ Were Mennonites in general aware War as anything more than a case management, drought, and recession. of the book? According to one au­ study of man’s inevitable climb on Her search and failure had been a thority, Flamethrowers raised con­ the road to improvement. Because spiritual one, his was material. Bit­ troversies among Mennonite Breth­ of the conflict, she had written in ter at Craftholt, angry with the ren and Krimmer Mennonite Breth­ her dissertation the evening before, pious villagers who in his opinion ren similar to the debate surround­ “we can look forward confidently to belied their faith with sharp busi­ ing Rudy Wiebe's 1962 publication a better, more wholesome, more per­ ness dealings, he collapses in a corn­ of Peace Shall Destroy Many 37 The fect religion in the future.” She field. From a distance, Isaac Liese nature of the discussion is now al­ asks several further questions: ponders all that has gone wrong. most impossible to recapture. Con­ He had brought these people from ducted sub rosa at the time, in oral You are not a football player. across the seas, raised their sod rather than written form, the gist And then, more recklessly, more huskily: “What is more cruel than homes, laid out their village, and of the response is perhaps best inti­ a poet without words?” now, Theresa in her way and Jacob mated by an entry in the Mennonite His face was white with amaze­ in his, epitomized the loss of a Encyclopedia. Not under Friesen or ment. All at once he heard himself dream. "Yes, Kansas had been too his book, but in a passing note in a speaking as from afar, listened stupidly and helplessly to the productive . . . Craftholt and those fairly long section on Mennonite lit­ shameful thing his fierce voice who came after him had been erature by Harold S. Bender, the cried: "My mother!”35 changed by the insidious land; the reference work published in 1957 land swept from their brains the described the novel as “highly ini­ In Peter’s murky psychology, words of the man who had cried: mical, and written from a ‘leftist’ Duane realizes, there are only illogi­ ‘Sell all that thou hast and give point of view; its characters are cal answers to implausible questions. unto the poor,’ and, in their stead, not typical.”35 An individual who She pities the student like a mother had implanted a ghastly selfishness took issue personally with Friesen would a son, but is struck with deep­ and a lust for more and more land, was Bethel College Professor Menno er feelings than sympathy. Gradu­ for the material, stifling things, S. Harder. His Krimmer pastor- ally, what begins as curiosity ends gold and power.”36 father and Friesen’s father had up as love. The two form a peculiar Peter avoids replying directly to been friends and neighbors in alliance, and as time passes make an Liese’s diagnosis (though in an odd, Weatherford. Remembering the re­ odd couple at Fenrow’s, deviant for hard to pinpoint way he even seems lationship, Harder wrote Gordon the unacceptable nature of their to share it), but his own explanation what must have been a letter of student-teacher relationship and goes a long stride farther. Blumen­ complaint. The copy of his protest dangerous to school authorities be­ hof was indeed wracked by internal is unfortunately not available. In cause of Peter’s unbent agnosticism. contradictions, and yet not for the direct reply to the comments, how­ Fenrow’s is a middle-brow school of reasons which Liese could fathom. ever, Friesen answered with the one-part patriotism and one-part His tragedy and that of his people statement that warfare kills “not football. The glue that welds the was that they had grounded their only in the trenches with stalking halves together is a glossy revival­ lives on faulty ideals. In the man­ soldiers hideously casting liquid fire ism that to Peter, having endured ner of their overzealous ancestors, in the faces of their fellow men, but

JUNE, 1983 15 wherever life moves and men and Mennonite Brethren Church.42 ment. Decades before anyone else, women harbor fear of themselves Anyone who reads Flamethrowers he took the private experiences and and hatred toward others.”39 today will find that it owes far thoughts of an intensely private sect Harder, one might guess, rejected more to Freud and psychology than into public discourse. the defense. A lament over man’s anything to Marx. Peter’s accept­ Gordon Friesen at age seventy- nature and fate was not the motif ance of what is, as opposed to what four has done a very Mennonite he or the next generation of novel­ might be, is nothing if not anti­ thing. Not that it is peculiarly Men­ reading Mennonites found central to revolutionary, a quality Friesen nonite by any stretch of any imagi­ Flamethrowers. Of the two scholars must have recognized in later years nation, but he has forgiven his par­ who discussed the book eventually, when he demeaned it. Except in the ents, and with the very word “for­ Gerhard Baerg and Elmer Suder­ most parochial sense, the novel con­ given.” Whether they needed for­ man, each treated the novel as a veys no battle of social classes. It giveness percisely may be unclear defamatory attack on Mennonite certainly has no proletarian heroes, to the outside observer. From character. While they granted, in none at all, and proposes no grand Flamethrowers and the material Suderman’s words, “that man’s in­ solution to economic inequality. At Friesen has assembled for an un­ humanity to man is all too prevalent the center instead is a neurotic child finished autobiography, however, it in the world,” they criticized Frie­ whose vision of life is so twisted is evident beyond words that his sen for using Mennonites to depict that he cannot react normally even mother’s anguish and his father’s it. “There are no normal human be­ in a rebellious way to abnormal failure wreaked torment on Gordon. ings (and certainly no normal Men­ circumstances.43 Knowing nothing Out of that torment he derived his nonites) in the book,” Suderman beyond Blumenhof, he has nothing own private guilt for which the argued. Could anyone conceive of else to rely on. So little does he novel may partly have been an act an actual Jacob Franzman, the cyni­ know about the outside world, his of expiation. Jacob Franzman, when cal combination of greed and piety; own country, that in the last analy­ all was written, did not emerge un­ or of Isaac Liese, who besides being sis Flamethrowers is a novel about sympathetic in Peter’s eyes, while “the most unbelievable Mennonite” America that has no inkling about Theresa Franzman, for every de­ stood out as “the most unbelievable what Americanization is. This may structive behavior she manifested, character in the story?” To Suder­ be its uniquences and also its most was made by a sleight-of-hand to man as to Baerg, they lacked credi­ Mennonite quality. Unromantic and come to Peter’s side. bility because in addition to allowing anational, Flamethrowers is a cul­ Friesen’s current explanation of his characters no room for growth turally fixed novel driven by one his family members’ agony was that (the reader had to know, absolutely, anguished question: how can a man they, like he, were shared victims of that Jacob was clumsy, Liese a fool, be human in a world that inflicts “an anarchistic system.” He reached and so forth) the author of Flame­ moral pain? this conclusion through Marxist- throwers was bent on a caricature. Mennonite readers interested in Leninism. Lenin, it is said, thought “It is poor taste to use any particu­ their history will not accept Frie­ the most interesting question in life lar religious, cultural, racial, or eth­ sen’s conclusions, may not even a- was “ ‘who whom?’ Who exploits nic group for themes of this na­ bide his descriptions. The question whom ? Who sentences whom to ture,” Suderman concluded. “Frie­ is worth considering, however. Is it death?”44 In the tangled history of sen would have been more success­ possible that beyond the anti-image twentieth-century American social­ ful had he made his community an resemblances to Gnadenau and to ist movements, few if any individ­ anonymous one.”40 real or imagined traits of the group uals took the question more person­ By the time these criticisms were as a whole that Flamethrowers som­ ally than Friesen and Cunningham. written, in 1947 and 1949, Friesen’s berly betrays what prudence would Say what one will about Friesen, departure from Mennonite circles normally conceal? That it is 'not an that he overthrew one perceived had long been completed. Somewhat issue, finally, of revisionist portray­ dogma for a more rigid system, that mysteriously, he did leave two part­ als or selective focus on the “under­ some of his beliefs are disagreeable, ing messages in the unlikely pages side” of a community, however that upholding as they seem to a myth of Who's Who Among the Menno­ may be defined, but rather a con­ about Communism that has long nites. In the first edition published centration on a peculiar and once been exploded, his concerns were in 1937, he summarized Flame­ self-determined community whose honest ones. He saw poverty aplenty throwers as a novel about “a Men­ values redound on itself? Despite —and hated it. He observed Okla­ nonite boy trapped between the old his unpalatable narrative and resolu­ homa vigilanteism—and fought back world and the new.”41 Its title, he tion, Friesen suggests that the val­ The saddest chapter for him and wrote in the second edition publish­ ues of a separatist faith might be Sis was their blacklisting. Unaccept­ ed six years later, “derived from the lost in preserving them. He also able as some of their views would conflict of pacifistic ideals against brings to light the social and eco­ seem to have been, for Stalinism a world in which battle for preser­ nomic group exemplified by his and its variants are as indefensible vation seems inescapable.” Almost as actual and fictive parents. For this as fascism, it was never said that an after thought, he notified read­ alone Flamethrowers is valuable. they were Stalinists. And even if ers that his parents were at the time Not to be forgotten, moreover, is they had been, their beliefs were members of the Corn, Oklahoma, Friesen’s own remarkable achieve­ opinions which should have been

16 MENNONITE LIFE honestly rebutted without persecu­ (Oct. 1941). A photocopy of this rare pam­ ‘When Doctors Disagree’ ” (Caldwell. phlet has been deposited in the Mennonite Idaho. 1936). The complete or abridged re­ tion. Library and Archives. views were organized alphabetically by 4 “Thumbnail Autobiography,” n.p. state and city and the newspaper or peri­ Cunningham and Friesen have 5 The latter quote is from Abram War- odical thereunder. Caxton Printers gener­ kept up their vigil. In an old apart­ kentin (ed.). Who’s Who Among the Men- ously provided me with gratis copies of nonites (Bethel College, 1937), 47. this and other promotional matter regard­ ment on the West End of Manhat­ R In the mid-1930s and again during the ing the novel. Because of a fire at the tan, they relive Oklahoma, never war. party meetings sometimes opened printers in 1937, correspondence and other with the singing of the Star Spangled Ban­ editorial data concerning the writing and having left it in spirit, determined ner. For background see Joseph Starobin. publishing of the book no longer exist. from their enclave to advance the American Communism in Crisis, 19.'/3-57 82 Chapter 17, pp. 243-247 describes a (Cambridge. Mass., 1972). The story of the "Kill the Kaiser" demonstration in Gall- message of a socialist brothehood. Almanac Singers and their near-rendevouz wan which despite its seeming exaggera­ with popular success has been told by tion and peculiar ending was not untypical Their receptive audience is small various sources, including Klein. Chapter 6. of small towns across the country during now, especially compared to the 7 Woody Guthrie. American Folksong World War I. See for instance James H. (New York, 1947). 46. Fowler. II. "Tar and Feather Patriotism: 1960s, and they must feel in one « The article by Friesen was titled "Aunt The Suppression of Dissent in Oklahoma respect like Isaac Liese with his Molly Jackson,” January 10. 1942, and the During World War I," Oklahoma CTironi- review of the play was by Ralph Warner. cles (W inter 1978-79), 409-426. printing press that their words fall o The FBI allegation appears as a ques­ The reader of Flamethrowers might con­ wastefully on barren soil. They ac­ tion in "Interrogatory of Gordon Elmer trast Friesen's fictional super-patriotic rite Friesen.” U.S. Civil Service Commission, with the positive, almost lyric recollections knowledge that conditions for them 1945, Question XII, referring to an article of an actual celebration in Hillsboro, Kan­ announcing the dance in the Daily Worker, sas during the perfervld Spanish-Amerlcan have changed for the worse, but March 28, 1942. War: Adolf I. Franz. Water From the Well still they speak. Despite many bleak !<• Klein, 215-219. (Philadelphia. 1978), 28-31. Frantz, like 11 Abram Warkentin and Melvin Gln- Friesen was of Mennonite Brethren origin. experiences going back the decades gerich. Wlio's Who Among the Mennonites 88 Flamethrowers, 258. of a lifetime, Gordon exalts as his (N. Newton, 1943). 74-75. 84 Flamethrowers, 213. 12 Henrietta Yurchenco, A M ighty Hard 35 Flamethrowers, 301. hero the protest singer Guthrie. He Road, The Woody Guthrie Story (New 3(1 Flamethrowers, 432. was positive, effervescent, not just York, 1970), 118-119: and Friesen, "Woody 3* Telephone interview with Elmer F. Guthrie: Hard Travellin’,” Mainsfreajn Suderman, Professor of English. Gustavous a doomsayer. He fought in song and (Aug. 1963). 8-9. Adolphus College, St. Peter. Minn.. Feb. 18 Friesen. "Winter and War Come to 22. 1982. WIebe’s book was published by in deed for a more just society. A Almanac House." Broadside (June 1962), Eerdamns, 1962. tune the editors of Broadside like No. 8. n.p. as in v. 3. "M ennonites in L iterature” 14 Friesen. "The Almanac Singers—End (Scottdale. Pa.. 1957). 372. to repeat had the following stanza: of the Road,” Broadside (Nov. 1962), no. 39 Quoted in Suderman. "The Mennonite 15. n.p. Character in American Fiction,” Mennonite There’s a better world a-comin’, 18 Klein, 212-213. Life (July 1967), 126 and ftn. 6, 130. Can’t you see, see, l'l Testimony of Richard Franklin O'Hair, 4fl Baerg, "Mennonites in Fiction—Gnad­ Communism in the Detroit Area, Part I, enau,” Mennonite Life (Oct. 1947), 22-23, There’s a better world a-comin', Hearings Before the Committee on Un- 28: and Suderman, "The Mennonite Pion­ Can’t you see.45 American Activities, House of Representa­ eer,” In Cornelius Krahn (ed.), From the tives, 32 Cong., 2nd Seas. (Feb. 1952), 2716, Steppes to the Prairie (Newton. 1949), 106- Therein lies Gordon Friesen's hope, 2740. 109. Both w riters were of Gnadenau or 17 Friesen. "Day of Infamy.” Mainstream Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren-related back­ and also his belief. (Feb. 1963), 3-18. ground. is Starobin. and David A. Shannon. The 41 Who’s Who Among the Mennonites FOOTNOTES Deline of American Communism (Chatham, (1937). 47. 1 Interview with Gordon Friesen and N.J.. 1959) are two in a steady stream of 42 Who’s Who Among the Mennonites Agnes "Sis” Cunningham. New York City, books which describe the party’s changing (1943), 74-75. Dee. 4. 1982. Quote is from Friesen responses to World War II and American 43 The alienation of children and young "Thumbnail Autobiography of Gordon Frie­ involvement. people was a common, perhaps dominant sen by Author Himself,” Broadside (April- 1» “Day of Infamy,” 3. 16-18. theme among thirties writers who were June 1976). no. 131. n.p. Unless otherwise 2» "And a Personal Experience.” 36, radical or Communist at the time they stipulated or cited, quotations and back­ 21 See for instance the following ex­ completed their major works. According ground for this article were obtained from amples in Broadside: "New Joan” (July- to Marcus Klein, Foreigners, The Making my December Interview. Shortly after the Sept. 1977). no. 136, p. 10: “Joan Baez's of American Literature (Chicago and Lon­ meeting, Friesen and Cunningham graci­ ’Cruel and Wanton Act' " (Juiy-Dec, 1979). don. 1981), "these w riters . . . tended to ously sent me copies o f their unfinished no. 142. p. 4: and “Joan Baez and Pol Pot's write about the growing-up—the emigra­ autobiography and related tapes and ma­ Supplies” (1980), no. 143. n.p. tion. as it were—of children and adoles­ terial which they hope to publish. By then 22 "An Editorial” (Aug. 1967), no. 83, pp. cents.” (p. 34) On the further point of the bulk of this article had been com­ 8. 12-13. emigration and acculturation. Joseph Star­ pleted. and since I used their manuscript 23 "Thumbnail Autobiography." n.p. obin. a former party official, ventures the more as verification for what had already 24 On the history of the KMB Church see assertion that “American Communists had been related to me than for any new data David A. Wiebe, Grace Meadow, The Story become a melting pot of their own. Second it contains, I decided to credit the first­ of Gnadenau and Its First Elder, Marion generation Americans found the Commu­ hand conversation. Efforts are now being County, Kansas (Hillsboro, 1967). See also nist movement a channel for their rebel­ made to get some or all of the Frlesen- John A. Toews, A History of the Menno­ lion, a cure for their anomie, a vehicle for Cunningham memoirs published. nite Brethren Church (Fresno, Calif., 1975). ambitions to make their mark in the coun­ 2 Klein. Woody Guthrie, A life (New 25 New York. 1973. try adopted by their parents. . . . Children York, 1980); “Sis Cunningham: Songs of 2r. More on his “Aunt Millie" and "Uncle of the disintegrated ‘middle border* of Hard Times. As Told to Madeline B. Rose,” Dave” has been published in a brief remi­ Hamlin Garland's day, the uprooted Popu­ ills. (March 1974). 29-32: Cunningham, niscence, "W eatherford. 1912-14,” Broadside list farmers, as well as young people of “And a Personal Experience,” Meeting (1980), no. 144, pp. 15-16. a more Brahmin and ‘eastern’ tradition . . . Ground, undated and unnumbered photo­ 27 Outline to unpublished autobiography, sought to resolve their rootlessness in a copy received from author: and Cunning­ 6-7. changing America by the camaraderie and ham, "The Red Dust Players.” Cimarron 2S Klein. 212. the apocalytic hope that Communism offer­ Revieiv (June 1977). 38-43. David Duna­ 29 On Gipson see Vardls Fisher, The Cax- ed. Thus an ‘un-American movement turn­ way’s biography of Pete Seeger, How Can ton Printers in Idaho (Cincinnati. 1944). ed out to be the vehicle of Americaniza­ I Keep From Singing (New York, 1981) 30 Literary Digest (June 27. 1936), 24. tion.” (Italics mine.) Starobin, 23. uses Friesen and Cunningham as a source 81 The Saturday Review of London quote 44 A. J. P. Taylor, From Napoleon to and thus sheds light on their own activi­ is from an article "Some Fine Novels” Lenin (New York. 1966), 168-169. ties. (April 4, 1936). 440. All other quotes are 45 Epigraph to Chapter 10 of Friesen and 2 Gordon Friessen [sic], "Oklahoma from a pamphlet of reviews compiled by Cunningham’s unpublished autobiography, Witch Hunt,” Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Caxton Printers under the title "Reviews from Guthrie’s Folkways album "Bound Committee to Defend Political Prisoners of Flamethrowers, by Gordon Friesen: for Glory."

JUNE, 1983 17 Mennonite Church Theological and Social Boundaries, 1920-1930— Loyalists, Liberals and Laxitarians

by James C. Julinke

Theological questions and social German publications at the Menno­ many to be deeply infected with the issues were intertwined in the nite Publishing House in Scottdale, spirit of modern worldliness. There troubled quest for group identity in Pennsylvania, published his 143- were rumors of unacceptable stu­ the MC Mennonite Church in the page book, The Mennonite Church dent behavior, offensive pictures in 1920’s and 1930's. The MC Menno- and Modernism. He did so at a mo­ the college yearbook, and non-Men- nites, known in those years as "Old ment of acute crisis in the MC Men­ nonite teachers on the faculty. Mennonites,” set limits to acceptable nonite Church. It was a crisis of For John Horsch, the most impor­ theological discourse as well as so­ both church and college. The Indi­ tant issues of this time of upheaval cial behavior in a process of defin­ ana-Michigan Conference Commit­ were theological. A battle was rag­ ing and enforcing the group bound­ tee revoked the ministerial status of ing between fundamentalism and aries. The changing character of six ministers; about an eighth of modernism. The fate of the Chris­ MC Mennonite Church life took the conference church members tian faith hung in the balance. shape in part out of restrictions on withdrew to other churches or new Horsch was an interesting figure what ideas members could discuss congregations; the Mennonite Board in the MC Mennonite Church. He as well as what style of clothing of Education closed Goshen College was not a "typical" MC leader but they could wear. for the 1923-24 school year to re­ a South German immigrant who The stories of two documents il­ organize the school on a new basis.2 moved across several American Men­ lustrated the complex relationships Hereafter MC Mennonites would nonite boundaries. The two great between theological and social devel­ speak of an “Old Goshen" dnd a contributions of his prolific writing opments. One document was a “fun- , “New Goshen," often disagreeing career were his pioneering research­ damentalist” book by John Horsch, whether Goshen College had truly es in Anabaptist-Mennonite history The Mennonite Church and Modern­ left its modernist or liberal tenden­ and his passionate defense of the ism (1924). Another was a “neo- cies behind. Christian faith against the en­ orthodox" treatise by Gustav Enss, The social or cultural implications croachments of liberalism and mod­ "First Steps in Christian Theology, of “liberalism” were probably more ernism. He carried on both efforts A New Theological Orientation important for most MC Mennonites simultaneously, and neither can be based upon Barthian Principles." in this context than were theological properly understood without taking (1932) Both publications had impli­ questions. The enforcement of rules the other into account.3 There was cations for the emerging denomina­ for distinctive dress and the pro­ a fundamentalist bias in Horsch’s tional role of Goshen College in hibition of life insurance were the Anabaptist writings, as well as a northern Indiana.1 two major questions upon which Mennonite bias in Horsch's anti­ the Indiana-Michigan Conference modernist writings.4 Anti-Modernism and Protecting Executive Committee examined con­ The spirit and the shape of Goshen gregation leaders and members in Horsch’s antimodernist crusading n 1924 John Horsch, editor for 1923. Goshen College appeared to were in part the product of eight

18 MENNONITE LIFE (1920).6 This book, with its clear in 1894. Bluffton College in north­ exposition of the issues in the fun­ western Ohio was a school with damentalist-modernist controversy, inter-Mennonite ambitions, founded found an audience among American in 1899 by the Middle District of Protestant evangelicals. It sold more the General Conference Mennonite copies among non-Mennonites than Church. The two schools competed any previous book written by a to some extent for Mennonite stu­ Mennonite. The second edition came dents, teachers and money. The com­ out in 1924, the third in 1938. petition was especially dramatized Horsch's Mennonite Church and at two moments : In 1913 when the Modernism in 1924 was explosive, Goshen College President, Noah then, not because his theological Byers,9 and Academic Dean, C. approach was new to Mennonites, Henry Smith, resigned and moved but because the author now claimed to a reorganized Bluffton: and that modernism had infected the again in 1921 when J. E. Hartzler, Mennonite Church and because he who had succeeded Byers in the explicitly identified the persons and Goshen presidency but resigned un­ the institutions involved. In a time der fire in 1918, became president of upheaval, fear and crisis, John of the new Witmarsum Seminary on Horsch was willing to name name3. the Bluffton campus. Paul Whitmer, Seldom in Mennonite history has from the Goshen Bible Department, such a distinguished group of Men­ joined the Witmarsum faculty as nonite leaders and their institutions dean. been so specifically, publieally, and Bluffton and Witmarsum, then, eloquently denounced. Horsch gave functioned as a kind of Goshen Col­ one chapter to an explanation of why lege in exile. They were the pro­ Harold S. Bender, left, and his it was appropriate to call these mod­ gressive institutional alternative to father-in-law, John Horsch outside ernists "traitors.’' H. S. Bender Goshen. In January 1924 the con­ the Horsch home in Scottdale. read the book in Tuebingen and cerns of this “Old Goshen” group years (1900-1908) he spent at vari­ wrote to his father-in-law that it found a public voice with the found­ ous places with John A. Sprunger was “sort of an epoch-making ing of the Christian Exponent, a and the Light and Hope Society. event.”7 bi-weekly journal which countered Sprunger was a fringe Mennonite The names named had social and the ascendant MC Mennonite Church from Berne, Indiana, who recruited institutional focus, and their cen­ conservative line. The first editor, idealistic Mennonite young people ter was Bluffton College and Wit- Vernon Smucker of the Oak Grove to a multi-faceted benevolent insti­ marsum Theological Seminary in Church in Ohio, switched from the tutional endeavor which incuded hos­ Bluffton, Ohio. Named were the Mennonite Publishing House at pitals, orphanages, deaconness work, Witmarsum President, J. E. Hartz- Scottdale where he had edited the publications and overseas missions. ler, and the Bluffton President, S. K. Christian Monitor. Most of the Horsch worked with Sprunger first Mosiman. Also named were Noah E. Bluffton-Witmarsum-^ajponent men in Berne, Indiana, where he ex­ Byers and C. Henry Smith, aca­ who moved to Bluffton initially be­ perienced a personal religious re­ demic dean and history professor at came members of the (MC) Zion newal, and later at Cleveland and at Bluffton, as well as Samuel Burk- Mennonite Church five miles west Birmingham, Ohio. Two of his hard, Lester Hostetler, the Chris­ of Bluffton rather than joining the friends, who also came away from tian Exponent, and others. Byers, (GC) First Mennonite Church of the Sprunger association with Burkhard and Hartzler responded Bluffton. strongly fundamentalist orientation, to the charges in defense of their In 1923 MC conservatives closed were Heinrich J. Dyck, General Con­ positions. Thereupon, Horsch attack­ Goshen College for one school year, ference Mennonite of Elbing, Kan­ ed again with another pamphlet, so it appeared that the Bluffton- sas and Heinrich Bartel, Krimmer "Is the Mennonite Church of Amer­ Witmarsum-.E'.rporcenf group was Mennonite Brethren of Hillsboro, ica Free From Modernism?,” copies strongly positioned to win the com­ Kansas, who pioneered Mennonite of which were mailed to Mennonite petition for the loyalties, minds and mission work in China. ministers free of charge across the pocketbooks of midwestern Menno­ By 1924 Horsch had written ex­ country.8 nites. John Horsch’s 1924 book was tensively on the dangers of modern­ Horsch’s attack had special mean­ perfectly timed to protect a be­ ism, beginning most vigorously in ing in the context of evolving Men­ leaguered Goshen by dramatically Mennonite papers in the new Gospel nonite educational institutions. discrediting the alternative to Gosh­ Herald of 1908.5 His most signifi­ There were two Mennonite colleges en in the eyes of the Mennonite cant publication, however, was a in the midwest. constituency. Horsch helped to iso­ 331-page book, Modem Religious Goshen College in northern Indi­ late Bluffton from Mennonites and Liberalism: The Destructiveness and ana was an MC school which grew to gain time for Goshen College to Irrationality of the New Theology out of the Elkhart Institute founded reorganize and reestablish on a

JUNE, 1983 19 more conservative basis. “Let us, to be dismissed from the Goshen very appreciating (sic) about the who believe in prayer,” wrote College faculty it would be over the new pamphlet—far more so than Horsch, "not forget Goshen College. issue of distinctive clothing, for he the editor of the Gospel Herald.”16 There is no more valuable service could not in good conscience defend There were also critical responses, that we can render.” (p. 130) Gosh­ regulated dress on Scriptural such as that of A. S. Bechtel of en College eventually emerged as grounds.12 Such a showdown never Summerfield, Illinois, who saw the the overall winner in this competi­ came. Bender wore the plain coat social-institutional implication: “I tion for the heart of the limited at Goshen as a pragmatic conces­ feel that we as Mennonites need to midwestem Mennonite constituency. sion, soon won the confidence he uphold our Institutions as long as we The Christian Exponent ceased pub­ needed to work creatively and pro­ can conscientiously do so. We need lication in 1928; Witmarsum Semi­ ductively at Goshen College, and them very much and we need to do nary closed in 1931; Bluffton’s Col­ founded a new journal addressed constructive work in our Church.”17 lege’s inter-Mennonite dreams flour­ with rhetorical flourish “to the Horsch’s dismay at his failure to ished only briefly and she had to Youth of the Mennonite Church.” earn the blessing of Gospel Herald struggle to overcome the limits of a The Mennonite Quarterly Review editor, Daniel Kauffman—a feeling small GC constituency by recruit­ was Bender’s answer to The Chris­ exacerbated when Horsch was drop­ ing non-Mennonite students and fac­ tian Exponent13 Already by the ped from the Mennonite Church ulty. spring of 1926, Bender published his Historical Committee in 192518— Horsch’s relationship to his youth­ own boundary-setting attack on may be seen as symptomatic of a ful, ambitious son-in-law, Harold President Hartzler of the Witmar­ thread of alienation that ran Bender, illustrates how the boun­ sum Seminary in the form of a de­ throughout his life. But it cannot daries were drawn in specific cases. vastating review of Hartzler’s new be denied that John Horsch per­ Bender was studying in Germany book, Education Among the Menno- formed yeoman service for the MC at the time of Horsch’s 1924 book nites of America™ Along the way, Mennonite Church in critical forma­ and had recently accepted a teaching Bender scolded Hartzler for perpet­ tive years of denominational and position at the “New Goshen.” How­ uating “the fiction of a united Men­ institutional organization. He not ever, Bender was too much identi­ nonite support of these institutions only helped the church recover its fied with the young progressives, (Bluffton and Witmarsum) . . Anabaptist historical memory, but some of whom were publishing The (p. 40). A youthful Mennonite pro­ protected the MC Mennonite Church Exponent, to be given the full time gressive thus certified his own con­ from the presumed dangers of “mod­ position he wanted in the Bible de­ servative reliability and helped se­ ernism” and helped secure the fu­ partment. First he would serve in cure his institutional base for (MC) ture of Goshen College against the the history department and as li­ Mennonite Church renewal. prospects of the Bluffton-Witmar- brarian until he could prove him­ Horsch’s anti-modernist writings self safe and reliable to the con­ found a non-MC Mennonite audi­ servatives. Bender had many friends ence which had something to do in the Christian Exponent group with the modernist-fundamentalist and wanted to keep in touch with polarization in other Mennonite them. In 1924 it was still not clear groups. In the Horsch archives are whether future academic employ­ over sixty letters from 1924 to 1926 ment for Mennonite educators would commending him for indicting be at Bluff ton or Goshen. When Mennonite modernism. Included are John Horsch and S. C. Yoder,10 the letters from Mennonites of Russian new Goshen president, asked Bender or Prussian background, such as to stop writing articles for the Gustav Enss of Hesston, Kansas; Christian Exponent, Bender chafed J. J. and Louise Schräg of China; under the restriction and protested H. J. Dyck of Elbing, Kansas; J. B. as follows: Epp of Meno, Oklahoma; C. H. Frie­ sen of Buhler, Kansas; Michael The difficulty is that the Exponent is read by most of the thinking peo­ Klaassen of Morden, Manitoba; P. ple of the church and a lot of the R. Schroeder of Berne Indiana; J. E. young people who often pay little Wiebe of Newton, Kansas.15 Ap­ attention to the (Gospel) Herald. proving letters also were received Are we to cut ourselves off from from J. R. Thierstein of Newton, the privilege of speaking to and influencing this group of people and Kansas; P. J. Boehr of Princeton, leave them entirely to the liberals? New Jersey; and A. S. Shelly of I am not sure that we can safely Philadelphia. Horsch was pleased do so. Either the Herald must be with this response, as he noted in reformed and improved, or a new journal or review must be start­ a letter that C. H. Friesen, “prob­ ed. .. .11 ably the most influential layman in Gustav Enss. professor of philoso­ the Mennonite church in the west, phy and Bible at Goshen College. Bender speculated that if he were has written in the Herold of Newton

20 MENNONITE LIFE sum-Exponent alternative. Christianity. "Religion is essentially Russia who had studied at the Uni­ phenomenalistic, it glories in out­ versity of Odessa, the University of Anti-Neo-Orthodoxy or Holding ward appearance, clings to things Berlin, and the University of Kan­ Indiana and Virginia Together and forms and rituals; while true sas, but did not receive a bachelor’s In the July, 1932 issue of the Christian faith reckons with ulti­ degree until one was granted to him Mennonite Quarterly Review, Edi­ mate spiritual realities.”24 For MC by Hesston College (ca. 1921). He tor in Chief Harold S. Bender an­ Mennonites of the 1920’s and 1930’s, taught German Language and Liter­ nounced the forthcoming publica­ religious forms such as the prayer ature at Bethel College, 1915-18, tion of a four-part theological covering, and footwashing were in­ during which time he took the con­ treatise by Goshen College Profes­ dispensable rather than incidental servative side in a bitter public dis­ sor of Philosophy and Bible, Gustav —they were an incorporation of pute with Bible Professor J. F. Enss, a man "passionately devoted God’s word as clearly as commanded Balzer, focusing initially on the to the historical evangelical faith in the Bible. They functioned as dis­ question of the date of authorship of Christianity.’’19 The four articles tinctive behaviors which set MC of the book of Daniel. Enss later were to be entitled, “Christianity Mennonites apart from many other taught German and Bible at Hess­ and Religion, Christianity and Mys­ Mennonites and from most Chris­ ton College, 1922-28, where he help­ ticism, Christianity and Philosophy, tians in America. ed attract General Conference Men­ and Christianity and Revelation.”20 A second point of tension was in nonites to a presumed safer school The subtitle of the treatise, which Enss’ fourth article, the climax of than a nearby GC college, Bethel, Bender did not mention, was “A the series, where he defined revela­ which some thought was influenced New Theological Orientation Based tion positively as God’s self-dis­ by modernism. By the time he came Upon Barthian Principles.”21 A con­ closure, an event over which man to teach Bible and philosophy at troversy emerged over the publica­ has no power. The Bible was seen the New Goshen in 1928, some of tion of Enss’ new theology which as “witness” but not as “revela­ his ideas were beginning to change. throws light on the role played by tion” : John Horsch, who in earlier days Mennonite Conservatives to limit As the divinely inspired witness had used Enss as an informant the range of acceptable theological concerning God’s self-revelation, about the extent of modernism at discourse in the MC Mennonite the Bible must be accepted as the Bethel College,27 had reason by 1929 Church. truth about this revelation, but it to think that Enss was a “dangerous Gustav Enss was apparently the must never be identified with reve­ modernist.” H. S. Bender assured first North American Mennonite to lation itself. When the revelation of God is the subject of discussion, his father-in-law that such a charge come to terms with neo-orthodox then the witness must take the was preposterous, and that if it theology. In 1931 Enss took a course second place.25 were made public Horsch would lose in “Recent German Theology” un­ all credibility and respect at Gosh­ der Wilhelm Pauck at Chicago Theo­ Such a definition of the place of en.28 Enss was orthodox, said Ben­ logical Seminary. He wrote a 46- the Bible would hardly be acceptable der. page manuscript in German, “Der to Mennonite leaders of the Bible Enss’ first two articles, “Christi­ Offenbarungsbegriff in Karl Barths Doctrine mold who had accepted a anity and Religion” and “Christiani­ Theologie,” and exchanged letters fundamentalistic definition of bibli­ ty and Mysticism” appeared in the with Barth to confirm that he had cal authority in an effort to defend July and October, 1932 issues of understood Barth’s thought right­ the faith against the challenge of MQR. The last two articles, how­ ly.22 higher criticism, evolution, and, ever, never appeared as announced. The Barthian theological ap­ more generally, “modernism.”26 George R. Brunk, conservative Men­ proach, mediated by Enss, could Why did editor Bender choose to nonite leader of Virginia, published surely seem strange and threaten­ give such prominence to the new an attack on Enss' views in the Jan­ ing to MC Mennonite leaders whose Barthian theology in the pages of uary 1933 issue of The Sword and doctrinal cues came from two doc­ the journal which was his primary Trumpet, even suggesting that Enss trinal books mainly by Daniel Kauff­ publishing instrument for his great should resign his position.29 Bender man, published in 1914 and 1928. endeavor of Goshen-based Menno­ defended Enss vigorously in private According to historian Theron nite peoplehood renewal? Perhaps correspondence with Brunk and al­ Schlabach, Kauffman's Bible Doc­ Bender didn't realize the implica­ lowed Enss to publish a defense and trine was “for many Mennonites tions of what Enss was saying. explanation of his definition of re­ the last word on what to believe.”23 Perhaps Bender was attracted to ligion in the January, 1933 MQR30 Two points in particular were bound something in Barthian theology and Yet the final two articles never ap­ to touch sensitive Mennonite nerves thought that an airing of these peared. After the 1933^34' school —the definitions of “religion” and issues in Mennonite circles could year, Enss was released from Gosh­ of “revelation.” In the first article serve a useful purpose. And per­ en College. It was depression time, Enss drew a strong dichotomy be­ haps, also, Bender was using Enss, and money for faculty salaries was tween Christian faith and religion, an outsider, to float a trial balloon. tight. insisting that religious form was Gustav Enss carried strong cre­ Brunk had some difficulty in “incidental, concurrent or attendant” dentials as a Mennonite fundamen­ identifying and classifying this new rather than “essential” to real talist. He was an immigrant from theological position. In his first

JUNE, 1983 21 the message. In his last year at years to come.”35 Goshen Enss for the first time Bender counter-attacked on the started wearing a plain coat and “religion” issue, arguing that having his daughters wear the pray­ Brunk’s positive view of religion er coverings. 33 expressed in social forms was a Bender reacted to Brunk’s Sword theological error akin to that of the and Trumpet attack on Enss with a modernists who espoused a social vigorous defense and counter-attack. gospel. "Religion” is not a Biblical The closing of the "Old Goshen” category, Bender said in echoing amid charges of modernism and Enss, and the confusion is due in worldliness was still a vivid memory, part to a mistranslation in the King and now again the conservative James Version, James 1:26-27. Fur­ wing of the church was attacking thermore, he lectured Brunk, "If the Goshen Bible Department and you should come to Goshen College the Mennonite Quarterly Revieiv on and preach a sermon on ‘pure re­ the same old grounds. Bender's re­ ligion’ as you propose, defending action was intense. Perhaps he ini­ this idea, we would stop you in the tially thought Brunk’s arguments middle of your sermon and tell you were groundless and therefore it to sit down because we will not was an opportunity to put this East­ tolerate such modernist teachings ern critic in his place for once. Per­ at Goshen College.36 haps he feared that Brunk’s argu­ It is most interesting to observe ments, if unopposed, would be con­ what new twists the Barthian cat­ vincing to Goshen’s constituency. egories brought to Mennonite label­ George R. Brunk, Mennonite leader Bender moved to isolate and em­ ing. The progressive Bender de­ in Virginia. barrass Brunk by sending copies of nounced Brunk as modernist, and Enss’ first two MQR articles to four the conservative Brunk denounced Bender as fundamentalist. More im­ Sword and Trumpet article he sug­ leading American fundamentalists portant was the fact that Bender gested that Enss had been influenced (Dr. James M. Gray. Dr. A. C. Gaebelein, Dr. J. Gresham Machen and Brunk did manage to compose- by modernism. In later correspond­ and Dr. Harry Rimmer), telling their differences, or at least reach ence he called Enss (as well as Ben­ an accommodation, within the der) a “Laxitarian Fundamentalist”, them that the author was charged with modernism, and asking for framework of the church that was albeit one who had also apparently their evaluation. After responses so important to both of them. The absorbed a "big dose of Darby- from all four which found no taint MC East and the MC Midwest held ism.”31 The point of dispute was the together. The accommodation, how­ Barthian disparaging definition of of modernism in the articles, Ben­ der wrote to Brunk with copies to ever, made Enss and Barthianism religion, and the consequences this Daniel Kaufman, J. B. Smith, S. E. the sacrificial goats. Not only did would have for Mennonites. Brunk Allgyer and other MC Mennonite Enss leave Goshen College, but the- put his key concern in capital letters leaders, telling what he had done pages of MC Mennonite publications for emhpasis: and ending, "There is still time for remained closed to explorations of IF ENNS (sic) CAN CAJOLE THE you to withdraw your charges.” Im­ Barthian neo-orthodox theological CHURCH INTO ACCEPTING HIS plied of course, was the threat that categories. The limits of acceptable- THEORY THAT RELIGION HAS theological discourse had been de­ NOTHING TO DO WITH CHRIS­ Bender could go public with all this TIANITY HE THEN HAS TRAP­ material.34 fined at a critical juncture in Men­ PED THEM INTO THE CONFES­ Bender was lavish in his personal nonite history. SION THAT THERE IS NO RE­ praise of his colleague in the Goshen The process of group boundary LIGIOUS GARB IN CHRISTIANI­ Bible department. Enss was, he definition is a dynamic and ever- TY AND THE GATES OF NON­ CONFORMITY ARE DOWN AND wrote, "a devoted believer, an hon­ changing one. Conservatives such as THE CHURCH THROWN WIDE est and sincere seeker after the John Horsch and George Brunk OPEN TO WORLD FORM AND truth of God in his Word, and a did manage to set limits for the FASHION FORM, IN DRESS, IN staunch and able teacher of the church. The conservative correctives DOCTRINE, AND IN LIFE.32 fundamental truths of Christianity served a significant function for the Brunk did not know Enss person­ and of a full Gospel. . . . He is deep­ time being in shoring up Mennonite ally, but he asked if the man was ly interested in our Mennonite faith identity and protecting Mennonites "safe and loyal throughout? Does and principles, and believes in them from outside influences. The arch­ Enns (sic) teach the devotional cov­ all from beginning to end including ival records can reveal only some of ering for single sisters? Does he non-conformity to the world.” Ben­ the more formal and dramatic cases support the Church standards of der also said that Enss was a pre- in which venturesome MC Men­ regulation dress? Does he teach and millenialist, the only one in Goshen’s nonites were told what ideas were- uphold close communions?” Cultural Bible Department. He hoped Enss non-discussable, what books could issues were critical, and Enss got would continue at Goshen "for many not be published in the historical

22 MENNONITE LIFE A full do spt/- (1 o corn pro m 1st, y « f — but—5+i/l-i/— h Owfvt«'— ;s m i H#w — J.0YAU3T im LA?CjTAR|AN] Vie muff fake a new stand o f we will lose our young ptople, Onward and upward fo rtvtri

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series, and what ecumenical peace American society. The fruit of such Cartoon by Ernest G. Gehman and meetings could not be officially at­ persistent probing of the boundaries George R. Brunic in The Sword and tended. But peoplehood boundaries included such inter-Mennonite de­ the Trumpet, Jidy 1932, p. 4. were being set in Mennonite daily velopments as the international wit­ life in manifold other ways, both ness of the Mennonite Central Com­ verbal and nonverbal, from the sub­ mittee and the cooperative Civilian major statement on the basis of tle discomfiture inflicted upon the Public Service Program in World Scriptural authority, and then it marginal member who lacked a War II. was a relatively brief statement “Mennonite name” to the ways in • At the same time, the conserva­ which identified the ivrong ways of which the women discussed young tive limits contributed to a theo­ Biblical interpretation without tak­ people who had gone to the state logical and hermeneutical impover­ ing a clear position on the methods fair. “The raised eyebrow,” says ishment of the MC Mennonite of historical-literary criticism.38 The Kenneth Boulding, “is the most po­ Church between the World Wars. great postponement of vigorous and tent force in human history.”37 The career of H. S. Bender can scholarly Mennonite heremeneutical illustrate this point. Bender began study was a product, then, not sim­ Benefits and Costs of Denomi­ his academic career with the inten­ ply of the abstract development of national Boundary Definition tion of pursuing Biblical studies, ideas, but also of the way Mennonite The boundaries of MC Mennonite but he discovered that there was theological dialogue was restricted peoplehood were never totally rigid. much greater freedom and promise by the efforts of conservatives to It was the role of the progressives in Anabaptist historical studies as a maintain the social-cultural bound­ such as H. S. Bender at Goshen and base for Mennonite renewal. As a aries of MC Mennonite denomina­ Orie Miller at Akron creatively to historian Bender was free to use tional peoplehood. For good and for test those boundaries—trying out historical-critical methods, and to ill, Mennonite theology and Menno­ new ideas, meeting new people, in­ bypass or ignore the explosive issues nite styles of life and institutional terpreting and mobilizing the Men­ of Biblical higher criticism. Not development were inextricably inter­ nonite presence in the broader until 1959 did Bender publish a woven.

JUNE, 1983 23 Publishing House, but of the “Fundamen­ 22 The English title on the paper in the ENDNOTES: tal Truth Depot.” Suderman collection Is “Karl Barth's Con­ 1 Research for this article was assisted 7 Letter from Bender to Horsch. June 6. cept of Revelation in the Light of Ancient by Rodney Sawatsky's pioneering study on 1924. Horsch Collection. Box 8. Folder 1. and Modern Christian Thought.” A note the role of fundamentalism In the MC Men- s Horsch. “Is the Mennonlte Church of regarding the exchange of letters with nonlte Church: “The Influence of Funda­ America Free from Modernism?" (Scott­ Barth is In Suderman's hand. mentalism on Mennonlte Nonrisistance 1908- dale: Horsch, 1926), 31 pp. 2" Gospel Versus Gospel (Scottdale. 1980) 1944," MA Thesis, University of Minnesota, ft Byers, wrote Horsch, “went to Bluff- 110-1. May 1973, 194 pp. Also helpful was the ex­ ton, Ohio, to undertake, with the help of 24 Ms. 16. tensive critique by Guy F. Hershberger, others to make of Bluffton College what 25 Enss ms. 55. “Comments on Sawatsky's Thesis," 1979. for lack of support he failed to accomplish 2fl See C. Norman Kraus. “American 145 pp. Copies of both manuscripts are in in Goshen." The Mennonite Church and Mennonltes and the Bible," MQR, October the Hershberger Collection. Archives of Modernism, p. 114. 1967, 309-329. the Mennonlte Church, Hist Mss 1-171, Box in Yoder to Bender, Mar. 12, 1924. 27 Enss to Horsch, Sept. 11, 1919: Horsch 57. 11 Bender to Horsch, April 19, 1924, to Enss. Sept. 16, 1919: Jacob Suderman 2 See J. C. Wenger, The Mennonitea in Horsch Collection. Box 8. Folder 1. Collection, uncatalogued. Indiana and Michigan (Scottdale: Herald 12 Bender to Horsch. June 6, 1924. 28 Bender to Horsch, Dec. 28, 1929, Press. 1961, 41-3: John Sylvanus Umble. 13 MQR, Vol. 1, No. 1, Jan. 1927, inside Horsch Collection, Box 4, 1919 A-H. Goshen College, 1894-1954 (Goshen: Goshen front cover. 29 "Teachers and Teaching,” Jan. 1933, College, 1955), 111-114: and Hershberger. H The review appeared in the predecessor 20-21. 1979, 58a-61. to MQR, The Goshen College Record Re­ 3ft “The Term 'Religion' not a Biblical 3 The July, 1947, Issue of MQR is a John view Supplement, May-June 1926, 35-44. Concept,” 61-6-4. Horsch Memorial Number and includes a in John Horsch Collection, Boxes 2 and 3. 31 Brunk to Bender. Mar. 16, 1933. H. S. number of helpful articles. For more re­ io Horsch to Bender, June 18, 1924. This Bender Collection, 1/8, 1931-38. George R. cent contrasting views of Horsch, see the was an exaggeration of Friesen's Influence. Brunk. For a visual representation of differences between Sawatsky (1973) and The Gospel Herald editor was Daniel Brunk's definition of "Laxitarlan, see tha H ershberger (1979). One m ajor gap In the Kauffman. cartoon p. 26. Information and understanding of Horsch 17 Bechtel to Horsch. June 29, 1925. 32 Brunk to Bender, March 27, 1933. relates to the period 1900-08 with J. A. 18 Bender to Horsch, Nov. 9, 1925. 33 Carl Kreider, interview. April 16, 1981. Sprunger’s Light and Hope Society. The io For a summary of Enss’ life see James 34 The correspondence on this exchange MQR "Bibliography of the Writings of C. Juhnke, “Gustav H. Enss, Mennonlte is located in the H. S. Bender Collection, John Horsch” 205-228. includes none of his Allen (1885-1965),” Mennonite Life, Dec AMC 1/8. 1931-38, George R. Brunk. The writings ln Licht und Hoffnung, even 1981, 9-15. most important letter is an eight-page epis­ though It is probable that he did consider­ 2ft “Editorial," 131. MQR had carried an tle from Bender to Brunk, March 21, 1933. able writing for this publication. Horsch's earlier article by Enss, “The Relation of 35 Bender to Brunk. March 21. 1933. 7. anti-modernism was something of an em­ Philosophy to Christian Theology,” July, 3fi Ibid. 5. barrassment for his son-in-law Harold Ben­ 1929, 159-168. 37 Lecture at Bethel College. Kansas, der, who understated Horsch's “semi-par­ 21 The manuscript for this treatise is lo­ Spring 1980. ticipation" in the modernist-fundamentalist cated in the Jacob Suderman Collection in 38 Harold S. Bender. “Biblical Revelation controversy. (MQR, Ju ly 1947. p. 142). the Archives of the Mennonite Church. The and Inspiration" (Scottdale: Mennonite 4 Letter from Horsch to Bender, May 18. four articles together were the first 62 Publishing House. 1959). My understand­ 1924. typewritten pages of a longer theological ing of the role of H. S. Bender has been 5 “The Danger of Liberalism." June 20. study which was projected to 250 pages, ac­ shaped by conversations with Theron Schla- 1908, 178-9. cording to the table of contents. The later bach. Marlin Jeschke, Leonard Gross and <1 This book was published at Scottdale sections beyond page 62 are not together others at Goshen College, although the in­ and bore the imprint not of the Mennonlte with the manuscript, however. terpretations in this article are my own.

24 MENNONITE LIFE A Letter from Mahatma Gandhi by Griselda Geliman Shelly

My first introduction to Mahatma felder migration of 1734-36, grew nonite, Schwenksville; and Upper Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand up in Montgomery and Berks coun­ Milford Mennonite, Zionsville. My Gandhi) came at age seven when ty regions of Pennsylvania, at Corn, parents served Methodist congrega­ my father received a letter from the ing, Hendricks, and Chapel. Church­ tions at Ebenezer, Delaware (where renowned Hindu spiritual-political es with which the family had mem­ I was born) ; Elam, Pennsylvania; leader of India. Dated December 17, bership at various times were Here­ and Columbia, Pennsylvania. 1931, the letter was written at Port ford Mennonite, Bally; Eden Men­ Following my father's death in Said, Egypt, while Gandhi was sail­ ing to India following the Indian Round Table Conference in London. Posted at Aden, Saudi Arabia, on December 23, the letter arrived at our parsonage in Columbia, Penn­ sylvania, on January 13, 1932. Gilbert T. Gehman, my father, was then the 34-year-old pastor at Cookman Methodist Episcopal Church in Columbia, and had preached a sermon on the life of Gandhi at a Sunday evening service on November 15, 1931. At that time, he wrote a letter to Mahatma Gand­ hi, addressed to London, expressing appreciation for Gandhi’s nonviolent way of life. Although my father died six months after receiving the letter, my mother, and later I, became the guardians of this simple one-para- graph message for the past 51 years. Roots of both my parents are in southeastern Pennsylvania. How­ ever, my paternal grandparents moved to Delaware where my father was born in 1898. Since there were no Mennonite connections in the First State, the family joined the Methodist denomination. My mother, Lizzie Kratz Hiestand, whose ma­ ternal line is traced to the Schwenk-

Gilbert T. Gehman and his wife, Lizzie Kratz Hiestand Gehman, and their daughter Griselda.

JUNE, 1983 25 July 1932, Mother and I lived in of these institutions and from Men- Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Washington, D.C., for two years nonite Biblical Seminary, Chicago, Karamchand. Gandhi >. with my paternal grandparents and in 1949. Father’s brother and his wife. The life and philosophy of Mahat­ Mother and I then moved to Penn­ ma (great soul) Gandhi have always sylvania in 1934 to live with my been of interest to me because of mother’s sister and brother where this unique link between Gandhi, we helped care for my bedfast my father, and myself. While serv­ grandmother for several years. ing with Mennonite Central Com­ with Gandhi on a pilgrimage in this Following graduation from East mittee in Bangladesh (1971-74), region of East Bengal (now Bang­ Greenville High School in 1942, I Maynard and I had the opportunity ladesh) to settle the communal riots attended Bluffton (Ohio) College to meet one of Gandhi’s disciples, between Hindus and Muslims in the and graduated in the class of 1945. Charu Chaudhry in Noakhali Dis­ mid-forties. In New Delhi, India, Maynard Shelly, my husband, also trict with whom we still have cor­ we were able to visit the memorial graduated the same years from both respondence. Chaudhry had walked at the location of Gandhi's funeral

26 MENNONITE LIFE cremation which then brought the story full circle. Seeing the motion picture, Gand­ hi, once again revived memories of past associations with India, Bang­ ladesh, and my father’s keen inter­ est in Gandhi’s statement on peace and nonresistance and, of course, the letter. My hope is that the mes­ sage of Gandhi and the film, a dramatic work of art, will have a benevolent effect on our national leaders as well as people of all ages who will see a portrayal of the life of a man who changed the world with his powerful message of justice and peace.

Right, letter to Gilbert T. Ge hinan posted, at Aden, December 23, 1931. Below, letter from. M. K. Gandhi to Gehman, December 17, 1931.

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JUNE, 1983 27 Reflections on America

by Huang Xinqu

Professor Huang Xinqu from and annotator of Lu I-Isun (1881- please tell us your first impressions Sichuan Teachers College, Chengdu, 1936), China’s most famous writer of these relationships? Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, of the twentieth century and found­ In the fall of 1980, the first group came to the campuses of Bethel er of Modern Chinese revolutionary of Goshen SST came to the Sichuan College, Bluffton College, and literature. Professor Huang is him­ Teachers College for a 4-month stay. Goshen College during the 1982-83 self an able poet. He graduated from The Goshen SSTers were led by Dr. academic year as a visiting profes­ West China Union University in Atlee and Mrs. Winifred Beechy. I sor and one of the vanguard in the Chengdu and then from the Depart­ had a rather good impression of the newly-developed China Educational ment of English, Beijing Foreign Goshen College undergraduates who Program. This grew out of a pro­ Languages Institute. were well-behaved and cooperative gram first initiated in 1980 between The China Educational Exchange with the Chineses faculty and stu­ Goshen College and Sichuan Teach­ Program is viewed as an important dents. We got along pretty well with ers College under the sponsorship bridge in the promotion of friend­ Dr. Atlee and Mrs. Beechy, later of the Sichuan Bureau of Higher ship and understanding between the with Professor Howard and Mrs. Education. In 1981 the base was people of China, accounting for one- Verda Kauffman. They are very broadened to include a consortium fourth of the world’s population, nice people. of North American Mennonite col­ and the people of the United States. 2. What have been your first im ­ leges and agencies. The goals of this exchange program pressions of American college stu­ Professor Huang, a poet and a have been identified “to provide op­ dents and small liberal arts colleges teacher of English, became the first portunities to learn about and to as observed during your stay at visiting professor from the People’s experience each other’s cultures, to Bethel College and Bluff ton College? epublic of China to be hosted on the understand better the achievements Well, I had some contacts with Bethel and Bluffton campuses. He and the problems of the Chinese and the Goshen students back in China. is distinguished as the translator American peoples, to contribute in However, it’s interesting to teach a small way to building a more American students Chinese history Professor Huang Xinqu teaching peaceful and just world, to share and culture in the USA. Most of the a course on Chinese history and knowledge, training, and personnel students in my class are very at­ culture, fall semester, 1083. which may be mutually beneficial, tentive and courteous. They try to and to be a presence demonstrating understand the New China through to each other our common humanity, this course. They are more active interest, friendship and respective in raising questions than the Chi­ value systems.’’ nese college students. Sometimes I We have invited Professor Huang have found out that they know so to respond to a few questions about little about China. We hit it off his experiences as a visiting profes­ wonderfully with both Bethel and sor on three campuses and in his Bluffton students. They seemed to visiting and travels in the United enjoy my courses quite a bit. I was States. The three campuses are in­ certainly very much moved when debted to Professor Huang for pio­ some students at Bluffton placed a neering in a program which might big apple on my desk before each be expected to grow in significance. class. You might say, this is a spe­ —Editors cial favor to be honored with such a graceful gesture. I really appreci­ 1. How did you first become ac­ ate their willingness to learn and quainted with Mennonite college their openness to understand and students and faculty? Would you their easy manner to relax.

28 MENNONITE LIFE 3. You have studied and taught for preparation. The English majors English-speaking country. If this English for years. What have you at Bethel studied quite a bit of dream could come true, so much the noted as to how English is spoken English literature but not American better. Anyhow I hope he could do on the Bethel campus as compared literature. This came to me as a big something for mutual understand­ with English which you have studied surprise! ing and international friendship and taught in China? 6. You are a poet and a translator with his knowledge of English in You have surely put a nice ques­ of poetry. Do you have any poem or the future. tion. What I have studied and taught poems which you have written since 8. You have read widely in Ameri­ in China was a little different from coming to this country which you can literature. What American the English spoken by the American would be prepared to share? novels and poems have been espec­ students. First, we have actually As a matter of fact, my poetry ially enjoyable and meaningful to studied and taught quite a few and translation are not up to much. you? courses in written English, rather Since I came to the United States, I like to read Mark Twain, Jack formal and sometimes even a little I have written quite a few poems. London, and Theodore Drieser’s pedantic. During my daily conver­ I shared some of the poems with my novels. Longfellow, Robert Frost, sation with the Bethel and Bluffton students in class. I was also invited and Walt Whitman are my favorite students, I have noticed with great to read my poems in the Bluffton American poets. All these great interest that their English is very writers’ club meeting. The Bethel American writers and poets pre­ simple and expressive. Second, they Bidletin published one of my poems sented me with a realistic picture use quite a few slang expressions. dedicated to my first host college of America. Sometimes a couple of slang words in North America. 9. What do you envision as the or local colloquialisms would make 7. Your wife is a medical doctor f uture of American-Chinese cultural me rather refreshing. It’s great fun and your two sons have studied relationships particularly with rela­ to listen to their talk. English. One of them is an English tion to the China Educational Ex­ 4. What are the particidar ex­ major at Sichuan Teachers College. change Program? periences during your fall semester What dreams and expectations do To me, cultural and educational on the Bethel College campus which you have for your sons? exchange is an essential step toward stand out most vividly? First of all, I wish my two boys mutual understanding and interna­ I enjoyed the friendship with would be patriotic Chinese citizens. tional friendship which is the first some of the faculty and interna­ They should contribute their talents step toward world peace. I hope the tional students on the Bethel cam­ to China's modernization. Since my China Educational Exchange Pro­ pus. The Fall Fest is quite fasci­ oldest boy will get his BA degree- gram could continue on the basis of nating. Some of the interesting field this July, if possible, I hope he mutual equality and mutual benefit. trips I made stand out most vividly might further his English in an Thank you. in my mind. The Kansas State Fair was quite interesting. It was the first time that I saw cow girls. I also enjoyed the chitchats with Bethel faculty during lunch time in the cafeteria. Sometimes I was kidding with some professors there. The jokes we cracked set the table laughing, which worked up our ap­ petite as well as our friendship. 5. I f you ivere to spend an addi­ tional semester on the Bethel Col­ lege campus, what woidd you be interested in teaching? What ex­ periences woidd you like to have to supplement the ones already had? I might teach Chinese literature and American literature if I were to spend an additional semester at Bethel, Of course, I need some time

Professor Huang Xinqu with Bethel College students, fall semester, 1983.

JUNE, 1983 29 Book Reviews

tions of the MB and Baptist church­ ized in recent years, their activities A Wilderness Journey, Glimpses of have not,” it is evident that not the Mennonite Brethren Church es are compared, contrasted would even a hostile regime and inumer- in Russia, 1925-1980, by Heinrich be more accurate, in two columns. able wilderness conditions have been and Gerhard Woelk, Center for Overall one gets the impression able to squelch the MB fellowship, Mennonite Brethren Studies, that while MB churches were either prevent the private and very eour- Fresno, Ca., 1082, 169 pages. closed and ministers imprisoned, the Baptist churches generally fared agious training of pastors, and stop This book describes an outward reasonably well. Fact of the matter the proclamation of God's Word. but also an inward journey of the is that most Baptist leaders were When the men were taken, the wom­ MB church in the Soviet Union. also arrested and suffered along en carried on. But “as soon as there Wilderness conditions (hardships, with the Mennonites and others. were young men who were convert­ privation, persecution) from the On the other hand it is correct to ed and baptized, the women turned outside often contributed to wilder­ say that “from the origin of the MB over the meetings, the reading of ness conditions inside (dissension, church onward the Baptist church the Word, to their sons. Our women cliquishness and divisions). It is a has tried to absorb it”, (p.75). knew the place of women in the shocking and yet a faith-building Origin here refers, of course, not church and observed it” (p.46). book. It is an especially valuable to 1860 but to the new start of the That story of how the women car­ contribution to the Russian Menno­ MB church during and after WW II. ried on when the men were in exile nite literature because it is written “But to the present day no joining needs yet to be told. One gets a brief by eyewitnesses. of this Union has taken place”. glimpse of it in passages as the Two unfortunate themes dominate Only individual MBs have joined following: A daughter was convert­ the otherwise helpful reporting, Ger­ the All Union of Evangelical Chris­ ed by her mother. In turn she spoke man nationalism and rejection of tians, Baptists (AUCECB). On the to her fiance who that night could the Baptists. And yet both need to other hand Walter Sawatsky says in not sleep and woke his mother. To­ be told if in fact they accurately Soviet Evangelicals Since World gether they went to the goatshed, reflect historic reality. War II, that “Heinrich K. Allert, a because “there was no other place German nationalism (or is it just preacher from Karaganda, was per­ where they could be undisturbed.” German culture?) surfaces many suaded to ask the delegates to ac­ The young man also made his peace times. For example. At one point cept the Mennonites into the with God. Soon young people from during the war some 6,000 persons union . . . Initially the AUCECB as far away as 100 km were swept waited at a railroad station for de­ claimed that 16,000 Mennonites had into the churches, (p.45) portation when suddenly two planes joined; by 1968 Kriger claimed The first post-war MB church appeared overhead. A dogfight en­ there were 18,500; and more recent­ was organized in Karaganda in sued. One plane was shot down. “We ly 30,000 have been claimed for the 1967. Heinrich Woelk, co-author of praised God” is the comment, but AUCECB.” (p.281). the book, was the first elder. He and was it a German or Russian plane? Noticeably absent in the book is his son Gerhard are to be commend­ The enemy plane was Russian. “Af­ any mention of relationships with ed for their efforts to share their ter this remarkable event in which the Mennonite Church (“kirch­ experiences and observations with the Lord (sic!) had dealt a blow liche”). Only two brief references the rest of us and Victor Doerksen against our enemies” the German occur: “There was also a Mennonite for translating it. troops moved in. Even when finding church with some 300 members” in Peter J. Dyck fellow believers after the disper.se- Karaganda (p.83) and "Members of Akron, Pennsylvania ments they do not have fellowship the Mennonite Church who are con­ with Mennonites or MBs but with verted and born again are admitted Elaine Sommers Rich, Mennonite "Germans”. “Here we soon found upon their wish and after an open Women: O Story of God's Faith­ German brothers and sisters” (p. declaration as ‘communion guests' fulness, 1683-1983. Scottdale: 49). And always there is “the com­ in the church, as before.” (p.99). Herald Press, 1983, Pp. 257. Pa­ mon goal of reaching Germany.” That members of the Karaganda per $9.95. (p. 130) Mennonite Church helped build the Rejection, not to say animosity, church and that for a while both The first four paragraphs of of the Baptists, especially in Sect. groups used the building is not Mennonite Women include eleven IV, is not always based on histori­ mentioned. questions about the women in the cally verifiable facts. For example, Even though “The existence of immigrant group that came from on pages 71-72 the life and condi­ some MB Churches has been legal­ Krefeld, Germany, to Germantown,

30 MENNONITE LIFE Pennsylvania, in 1683. Thus the au­ Rose Lambert worked with Armen­ and questions for further research. thor deliberately emphasizes the ian orphans in Turkey from 1899 to Mennonite Women provides a sol­ scarcity of available information a- 1910, at a time when Armenian id foundation for further research. bout Mennonite foremothers. Thanks Christians were being massacred. Most of the chapters have appended to the Martyrs' Mirror, we have She recalled: lists of women whose contribution known more about Anabaptist wom­ “After peace was restored and I to education, missions, etc., is en than about 18th and 19th century was ill with typhoid a mounted sketched in four to ten lines each. American Mennonite women. Turkish officer met one of our boys Rich has been particularly scrupu­ When the Women’s Missionary on the street. He stopped his horse lous in tracking down full names and and Service Commission of the and asked him if he was one of our dates, even for women mentioned (MC) Mennonite Church commis­ boys and then asked, ‘How is Miss most briefly, such as “Barbara Bow­ sioned this 300th anniversary study, Lambert?' The reply, ‘She is very man (Mrs. David) Shuh (1857-?), it sent out a call to all churches and ill.’ He said, ‘Allah willing she can­ president” of Sisters’ Aid in Kitch­ WMSC groups in the denomination, not die! The Gregorians in their ener, Ontario. The index includes requesting historical information on churches are praying for her re­ more than 600 women. However, women. But it was the task of covery and we in our Mosque are they usually are listed only under Elaine Sommers Rich to follow up praying for her recovery. Allah their maiden names. Thus, Mrs. the leads in this fragmentary ma­ must hear some of us.’ ” Gustav Enss, who taught at Bethel, terial, sending hundreds of letters, A decade or two later in Colorado, Hesston, and Goshen Colleges (and and searching through many de­ when the new LaJunta hospital be­ is one of the few General Confer­ cades of The Herald of Truth and came crowded and student nurses ence Mennonites in the book) is The Gospel Herald. The “WMSC complained about giving up their listed as “Greaves Sudermann Enns, Collection,” which she cites so often beds to emergency patients, the Amy Evelyn.” in her footnotes, is her own com­ nursing director, Lydia Heatwole— The lives of women in other Men­ pilation of the resulting materials, always the first to give up her own nonite branches should soon receive now lodged in the Archives of the beds—exclaimed, “Why girls! That's the same careful documentation and Mennonite Church at Goshen, Indi­ just what we need! It’s up to us to lively expression that Elaine Som­ ana. make room.” mers Rich has given to MC Men­ Dozens of “unknown” women Stories such as these give an over­ nonite women. (Unfortunately, her come to life in Rich’s lively bio­ all impression of Mennonite wom­ title, the foreword by Barbara graphical sketches. en's energy, courage, and insistent Rebel-, and t.he text itself give the —Eva Yoder and Esther Bachman self-sacrifice, in their surprising misleading impression that “Menno­ successfully petitioned the Pennsyl­ range of activities. However, there nite women” is an inclusive term. vania Assembly to revoke its severe i3 little analysis of their situation Only the author’s preface explains punishments of 12 Mennonite men and limitations or of the trends in the limitations of the study.) Many during the Revolutionary War. women's activities and the conflict­ more women’s biographies need to —Horse-and-buggy doctor Sarah ing ideologies of "women's place” be researched and written. But the Gross Lapp delivered 1200 babies that developed in the late 19th and time will soon be ripe for a chrono­ in late-19th-century Nebraska and early 20th centuries. Rich has alert­ logical, in-depth study of American was also the mother of four bishops ly gathered raw material for such Mennonite women, of the sociologi­ of the Mennonite Church. analysis and has categorized it for cal and theological forces shaping —Ella Shoup Bauman started a wives, mothers, and “aunts,” or for their lives, and of their interaction church almost singlehandedly in areas of work such as home congre­ with Protestant Sunday School and Youngstown, Ohio, in the late gation, education, overseas and women’s missionary movements as 1940’s, in connection with her fre­ home missions, health care, and well as the broader tides of women’s quent visits to that city for medical sewing and mission organizations. experience in America. treatment. Readers can draw their own con­ Anna Juhnke Many of the anecdotes are told clusions from each chapter or fol­ Bethel College in the words of the women them­ low Rich’s warm comments of ap­ selves or of their granddaughters. preciation, indignant exclamations,

JUNE, 1983 31 FOLKWAYS RECORDS Album No. FD 5319 © 1976 by Folkways Records & Service Corp., 43 W. 61st St., NYC, USA

BROADSIDE 1 3 by agnes Cunningham SUNDOWN Copyright (c) 1975 Agnes Cunningham J 1 g g r p f g M 5 Dovm in the cotton row- pickin in the sun Wishin to the Lord that the day was %i p r 1 i § % J11D f T j i done Sack gettin heavy — Sun gettin hot I'm wishin for a little what the boss has 11 m m j .u c a u 1 1 n A dipper a-water — fresh from the well A patch a-shade to sit for a f c3 c f f m jiTsii>pF=C7 ^ « H 0 / r« - m - " i spell Down in the cotton row- bendin low Think I'm goin where cot-ton don't f m n m rH 1 v —^ g il grow. (CHO) Get a- way from here Get a- way ---- Get a- way. (continued