The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1894-03-22
Thursday, March -. 1894.
SETTLERS r o RUSSIA.
Remarkable Success In Agriculture by the
Mennonite Exiles.

Quick as are Americans to criticise the
manners and customs of Russia, and in
ferior as the subjects of the car are fire.
uuently considered, the settlers on the
western p~rairies might well learn a lesson
of the Russians who have their unique
settlements among them. The Mennop
ties, exiled from southern Russia because
of their religion, made as systematic an
exodus as did the Israelites of old. The,
sent out their agents TO spy out the land
and purchased 100. 600 acres of the Santa
Feand Kansas Pacific railways for homes.
Then the people packed up their house
hold goods and came 10 America. On
the depot platforms they landed. wearing
sheepskin coats, the woolly side out, and
black handkerchiefs over their heads.
They carried iron teakettleS and regard
ed the gazing Americans with as much
curiosity as they themselves attracted.
They built their villages of yellow lime.
stone, the houses having queer hip roofs.
green blinds and doubl. doors like those
seen in a mill. Curious ovens, in which
prairie hay or straw could be burned,
overcame the lack of fuel, and a street
looked for all the world as though it had
dropped out of an illustration in aSiberi-
an~sketch. Such names as Catherine
stadt,' '.Leberthal" and "Pfeiffer" grace
their towns, and no man not of Mennon-
lite persuasion is allowed inside the limits
rs a resident, though visitors are cordial
ly welcomed.
The Mennonites number several thou
sand, but they are never heard of in poll
tics. They are busy tilling their 1000 0
acres, raising stock, planting orchards
and piling up wealth. The wide awake
westerner standing on the street corner
explaining the contraction of tbo cur
rency'' to a knot of listeners sees a half
dozen odd looking wagons com tolling
mp the road. They are loaded with
wheat and solemn faced Mennonites, who
guide the sober teams, pocket the pay
ment and trudge homeward. The ora
tors hold forth in the country school
house. and the eager real estate agent
plats additions to the towns, but the
Mennomtes pay no attention to either.
They keep on selling wheat and corn
and cattle until they become the richest
class Of farmers probably, their num-
bers considered, that Kansas affords.
They take few papers, they do not vote,
they care nothing whether the govern
ment is Republican or Democratic in its
management. They are as isolated as
though they were upon a sea island, ex-
cept as they bring in their produce to the
shipping station.
1t is noticeable that nearly all the
lands are in the much discussed arid
belt" yet the Mennonites never ask aid
or seed wheat. They prosper every year,
and their homes are veritable store
houses of garden and field products. To
step into them is like a visit to the land
of the Eolga. Curious furniture. strange
garb and peculiar habits impress one
with the feeling hat he is in another
land and another age. The houses are
for the most part surrounded by stOne
walls and old country fashions in fenc-
ing. Barns and implements are every
where apparent.
They nave their own minister, their
own church and their own schools.
When a higher education is desired
land some of the young people are as
forward in their ambition for learning
as American youth, there is plenty of
money in the village bank to send them
b Europe or TO some eastern college to
acquire it.
There is an important lesson in their
success. They nave shown by their works
what industry md frugality can accom-
plish upon the prairies and what can be
done with the right kind of effort. Still,
it is doubtful if the American settler
could bring himself and his family to the
grinding economy of European peasant
life which the Mennonites nave trans
planted in their settlement Abilene
Kan.D Cor. St. Louis Globe democrat.