Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1907-10-10

Hisfory of MlnnonIte Emigration

C. B. Schmidt had charge of the
Santa Fe Railroads immigration
bureau in the seventies, says the
Inman Review of October a, and
the following extract taken from
his address in Denver may interest
our readers.
The Mennonites, Mr.. Schmidt re-
lates, combine some of the leading
principals of the Baptist with some
of the distinctive views of the
Friends, although they proceeded
both, historically. Three thousand
of them suffered martyrdom in Ger
many and 6ooo in the Netherlands
under Philip II of Spain. When
Empress Catherine II in 1888 ac-
quired the Crimea and Taurida from
the Turks, she invited the Mennon-
ties to settle there. promising them
exemption from military service for
one hundred years.
AS the prosperity of the Mennon-
ties and other German settlers de-
veloped, strong feeling of enmity
and jealousy arose among the native
Russians and the Russian govern
ment desired to withdraw the spe-
cial privileges granted. The oppor-
tune time came during the Franco
German war in 1901, when Ger
many agreed to withdraw its politi-
cal guardianship over the three
million Germans that had settled in
the Russian Empire. Bismark
made one condition, however, that
these colonists should be allowed
ten years within which to emigrate if
they did not want to become full
fledged Russian citizens.
A Prus sian CONSUL at Berdiansk.
Cornelias Jauzen, called the atten-
tion>of his co-religionsts, the Men
nonites to this diplomatic arrange
ment, and as he advised the Men
nonites to go to the land of religious
freedom, America, he was expelled
from the country, and left for Am
erica, where the Mennoite COM
rnunites of Lancaster and Montgom-
cry counties received him with open
arms.
Armed with an American pass
port, c. B. Schmidt in 1875 VEN
tured trip to the Mennonite COL
onies of Russia, carrying many let
tiers of introduction strung on tape
and tied around his body under
meath his clothes. He received a
cold recepetion the hand of an in
! fluential merchant, Klassen of Alex
anderwohl, who with Genera! Tot
leben tried to suppress the agitation
for America. Large crowds of men
women and children greeted Schmidt
at every village school house, and
he explained to them that Kansas
was in no danger from Indians and
promised them a law that would ex-
empt them from militia sesvice, and
such a law is on our Kansas statutes
now. Everywhere he heard the ru-
NOR that he had been ,siezed by the
slodiers and was on his way to ST.
IBERIA. When after rest with
friends in Berdiansk he resumed
paeaching the gospel of emigration
to Kansas, tie rnmor became more
threatning, and when at last three
mounted gems d'arms were at HI;
heels he hurried away from the Ger
man Colonies to Melitopol, anC
after few days on the ranch of th'
father of miller Warkentin of New
ton,. he made for the Austrian borde
and returned to America.
That year 1900 Mennonites wit
two and quarter million dollars i
gold came to Kansas and purchase
90, 900 acres of land in the countie
of Marion, Mcpherson, Harvey an
Reno. They arrived simultaneou:
ly with the grasshoppers but ou
stayed them. By the year I8S
{ about $1,000 of them had settle
on the lands of the SantaFe roa
r and since then they have increase
r to at least 90. 900.