The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-06-18
5000 MENNONITES
QUITTING CANADA
WILL TAKE WHAT THEY CAN
GET FOR IMPROVED LAND
WORTH $4,000, 900
Are Going to Locate in Mississippi
Where They Are Assured of Mill
tary Exemption and Full Religious
Worship; Unusual Arrangement
Made by Government.

Eight thousand Mennonites are t,
leave western Canada this year ant
move to Mississippi, taking all theil
worldly possessions, estimated to b
worth more than $1O,000,0OO.
They are going because the Mani
toba and Saskatchewan governments
require them to conform to the edu
cational standards of the two prov
inces, teaching their children in Eng
lish instead of German, and because
they feel that if Canada ever again
is drawn into war they will be forced
to render military service.
Assurance that they will be exempt
from military service and free to wor-
ship and educate their children as
they please has been obtained from
the federal authorities at Washing
ton and from Mississippi state Off
Gals, the Mennonite leaders claim.
Leave Homes of Half Century
About 1000 persons in Manitoba
and an equal number in Saskatche-
wan belonging to the orthodox Men
monte church colonies are to leave
homes they established in 1870 when
they came from Russia to make new
homes in the Mississippi valley. Four
teen prairie towns and villages will
be practically depopulated, temporar-
lily at least, and highly improved land
holdings, valued at more than $10,-
100000, will be sold by the emil
grants for what they will bring.
Some of the Mennonites, those living
in the towns, are preparing to de-
part now, but the great majority,
who are farmers, will wait until they
harvest this years crop and will move
in the late fall.
Next spring, probably, thousands
more in those two provinces and in
are expected to leave for
Alabama.
The Mennonites' dissatisfaction
with Canada dates from 1913, when
the Manitoba legislature enacted and |
the provincial authorities began to |
enforce new school laws, requiring |
that English be taught for a specified |
period every day in every school in
the province. The Mennonites resist
ed, refusing to allow any interior
ence with their schools.
In the last two years the province
mas asserted its authority to the limit,
a large number. of the Men
lonite leaders, either for failing to
)bey the law about teaching English
)r for keeping their children out of
school. The Mennonites fought the
,ase to the Canadian supreme court
ind lost, that tribunal refusing to
lear their appeal on the ground that
he provinces have exclusive jurisdic-
ion in al school matters.
During the war the Mennonites
we're much censured because they re-
used to serve the country, even in
branches of the army.
late in the war, when the nation was
ard-pressed to find recruits to fill
q the gaps at the front, soldiers who {
ad returned, wounded, mobbed the =
Iennonites in several communities.
The question of abrogating the
greement the Mennonites arranged C
18th the federal government when p
hey first came to the country, in D
hitch exemption from military SER a
ice was guaranteed, was even raised b
/ parliament and possibly would
1ddenly. So the Mennonites feel
leir chance of escaping service in o
mother war would be slim.
The loss of 5000 thrifty, hard C
orking citizens from this sparsely k
opulated west will be felt keenly, Il
ut the provincial authorities, when n
1proached by the Mennonite leaders 1t
sfore they finally decided to move, tt
I'D them they would put no obstacle c
their way, make no effort to induce
lem to remain. ~