Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 June 1936 — Page 5

KANSAS HELPED DEVELOP STATE = pn)

Brought Vast Wealth oy 22 Introduction of Red Wheat.

BY FORREST DAVIS -Times Special Writer NEWTON, Kas., June 15.—Kansas’ “old native stock” cult—a haughty doctrine of Puritan Nordic supremacy affably preached by Wiliam Allen White, editor, platform-biilder and chief journalistic prop of Nominee Alf M. Landon-—comfortably ignores the Mennonites, who transformed this dusty section three counties away from White's Emporia into a garden. Yet it was the Mennonites—a

band of despised foreigners, con-

scientious pacifists in flight from the hard boot of Tsar Alexander II— who, by introducing, Turkey red wheat, converted hard-scrabbling, native-stock Kansas into the hanner wheat state. They made Kansas rich. Moreover, the pious, unromantic Mennonites infused a certain glamor into the state's sparse legend and refreshed Kansas’ Puritan memory by duplicating in the Nineteenth Century the idealistic behavior of the Non-Conformists who founded New England. They forsook wealth in the Crimea for the sake of religious liberty, and out of their sacrifice vast, sudden riches descended on the prairies. Contribute Much to State The Mennonites, aliens speaking a Russo-Germanic dialect, wearing peculiar homespun costumes, contributed more to the state's wellbeing than all the John Browns, Carrie Nations, border raiders and prohibitionists ever colonized in “bleeding Kansas” by the rifle-and-Bible abolitionists of New England. The saga of the Mennonite fugitive deserves, on the score of economic significance, a prominent place in the history of the West. Beeause of Turkey red, the semiarid high plains were put to the plow. Wheat ranchers crowded out the cattle men. The range was fenced. Turkey red supplanted buffalo grass. Deprived of its grass binder, the soil began to crumble and blow. Today we have the “dust bowl,” an incipient desert covering 68,000 square miles in five states, primarily because Tsar Alexander revoked century-old privileges respecting military immunity and language that Catherine the Great had granted the Mennonites. Originally the Mennonites had been Germans and Swiss. Blame Is Divided The burned-out, eroded, gullied, dust-stained but magnificently undiscouraged farmer of the “dust bowl” may, if it comforts him, blame Catherine, Alexander, the zeal of the Anabaptist Mennonites, and the Santa Fe Railroad whenever a hot southwest wind picks up tons of his topsoil and scatters it across the Middle West. A fabulous incident, the arrival of the brown-habited, broad-hatted immigrants at the Santa Fe station in Newton. That was in 1874, six years before Kansas adopted prohibition—a “Chinese wall” against European immigration. The Santa Fe, chartering a Red Star liner, brought the Mennonites to Kansas free of charge. Tucked away in trunks, tied up in sacks, were the Turkey red kernels. A winter wheat, planted in September, maturing in June, which thrived in the Crimea. Winter wheat, richer in proteins, was unknown to Kansas and the wheat belt, and Minnesota, adapted to spring wheat, then produced more of the white cereal than other states. Pioneers Were Deceived By 1880, Turkey red had overrun moist eastern Kansas and deceived by a series of rainy years, pioneers hegan to seed the high plains. The first drought, in 1887, depopulated the ranch lands but the farmers came again, betting 1 to 5 on rain each time they seeded. Wheat became king in Kansas, replacing cattle as the chief crop. Presently, the yield grew to 150,000,« 000 bushels a year—one-fifth the normal average for the country. Spring wheat and the Chisholm trail, along which in one year 4000 cow hands had herded 1,000,000 grazing cattle out of Texas into a Kansas railhead, vanished int» memory. Meanwhile, the alien peasants who brought the new wealth plodded on, oblivious to it. Their farms became models of careful husbandry—among the finest in Kansas. They spread out in a tier of counties between here and Hutchinson. They built a college, Bethel, here at Newton, and hospitals. Kept to Themselves Minding their own business—a singular trait in Kansas—they kept to themselves, shunned law courts and politics, practiced a mild, primitive, Sermon-on-the-Mount Christianity. The older Mennonites clung to their Germanic speech, an idiom corrupted by Russian phrases during their 100 years’ sojourn in the Crimea. During the World War they maintained their pacifist principles. Their sons became conscientious objectors —the butt of bloodthirsty local patriots. Sana “Old stock” Newton merchants discharged Mennonite clerks and put up signs reading “Only English Spoken Here.” The German-speak-ing Mennonites transferred their trading permanently to other towns, and Newton merchants, I was told. regret to this day that petty persecution. The story of the Mennonites in

SIT

aera], 3

Text of

By United Press Ind. June 15.—Fol-

year the capture of Vincennes, more Shan & Sépiuisy and a half ago when the thirteen colonies were seeking

lay in the effort of the British, with their Indian allies, to drive a wedge from Canadd through the valley of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Mohawk, to meet the British frigates from New York at the head of navigation on the Hudson river. “If the important offensive in 1777 had been successful, New England would have been cut off from the states lying to the south, and by holding the line of the Hudson, the British, without much doubt, could have conquered first one-half and then the other half of the divided colonies.

Picture Dark in 1788 “The defeat and surrender of Gen.

Burgoyne at Saratoga is definitely

recognized as the turning point of the Revolution.

“The other danger lay, tharefore,'

not in the immediate defeat of the colonies, but rather in their inability to maintain themselves and grow after their independence had been won. Records show that the British planned a definite hemming~in progress, whereby the new nation would be strictly limited in area and in activity to the territory lying south of Canada and east of the Allegheny Mountains, “Toward this end they conducted military operations on an important scale west of the Alleghenies, with the purpose, at first successful, of driving back eastward across the mountain all those Americans who, before the Revolution, had crossed into what is now Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and lllinois and Kentucky and Tennessee. “In the year 1778 the picture of this Western country was dark indeed. The English held all the region northwest of the Ohio and their Indian allies \ were . burning cabins and driving fleeing families back across the mountains south of the river. Three regular forts were all that remained in Kentucky, and “their fall seemed inevitable.

Calls Clark ‘Genius’ “Then, against the dark background, stood forth the tall young Virginian, George Rogers Clark. Out of despair and destruction he brought concerted aetion. With a flash of genius, the 26-year-old leader conceived a campaign—a brilliant masterpiece of military strategy.

service. To Father Plerre Gibault,'

and to Col. Francis Vigo, a patriot of Italian birth, next to Clark himself, the United States is indebted for the saving of the Northwest territory. And it was in the little log church, predecessor of yonder church of St. Francis Xavier, that Col. Hamilton surrendered Vincennes to George Rogers clark. “It is not a coincidence that this service in dedication of a noble monument, takes place on a Sunday m . Gov. McNutt and I, aware of the historic relationship of religion to this campaign of the Revolution, and the later ordinance of 1787, have understood and felt the appropriateness .of today. “Clark had declared at Kashaskia that all religions would be tolerated in America, Eight years later the ordinance of 1787, which established the territory northwest of the Ohio

' River, provided that “No persons

demanding himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or for religious sentiments in the said territory.”

“Religion Must Remain Free”

“And the ordinance went on to declare that religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness: of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. It seems to me that 149 years later the people of the United States in every part thereof could reiterate and continue to strive for the principle that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, “Today religion is still free within our borders. main so. “Today morality means the same thing as it meant in the days of George Rogers Clark, though we must need apply it to many, many situations which George Rogers Clark never dreamt of. In his day] among the pioneers there were jumpers of land claims and those who sought to swindle their neighbors, though they were poor in this

“Working with the good ‘will of | world’s goods and lived in sparsely

the French settlers, and overawing: the Indians by sheer bravado, he

It must ever ree |

settled communities. “Today among our teeming mil

“Today, as knowledge; but it is a vastly wider knowledge.

“During the last week I have traveled through many states, and

1 or untilled prairie, an exceedingly small population BY “Nomadic Indian tribes, untouched by white man’s civilization. “In most of this vast territory, as

CLARK

75,000 at Vincenes. Hear Roosevelt Laud Deeds of Colonial Olonial Hero. |

By United Press Ma | S, Ind, June 15, — x returnea to this hiss

after a celebration during which 75-, heard President Roose-

Clark Memorial. Speaking

from a lofty

packed beneath the hot rays of the » Mr. Roosevelt reviewed courage

here. in the Middle West, nature | has

gave her bounteous gifts to the new settlers, and for many long years these gifts were received without thought for the future, Here was

an instance where the knowledge |e

of the day was yet insufficient to see the dangers that lay ahead.

Gave No Heed to Future

“Who, even dmong the second and third generation of the settlers of this virgin land gave heed to the future results that attended to cutting of the timber which denuded the greater part of the watersheds? “Who, among them, gave thought tc the tragic extermination of he wild life which formed the principal article of food of the pioneers? “Who among them had ever heard the term “submarginal land” or worried about what would happen when the original soil played out or ran off to the ocean? “Who among them were concerned if the market price for livestock for the moment justified the over-graz-ing of pastures, or a temporary boom in the price of cotton or corn

tempted them to forget that rota- |}

tion of crops was a farming maxi-

mum as far back as he days of |

ancient Babylon? “Who among them regarded floads as preventable? “Who among them thought of the use of coal, or oil, or gas, or falling water as the means of turning their wheels and lighting their homes?

Must Restore Riches

“Who among them visualized the day when the sun would be dark-

ened as far East as the waters of |

the Atlantic by great clouds of top soil borne by the wind from what has been grassy and apparently imperishable prairies? “Because man did not have our

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Father of Waters. His done. Though we fight ons unknown to him, it

tury and a half from now, celebrate at this spot the three hundredth anniversary of the heroism of Clark and his men, think kindly of us tor the part we are taking today. in preserving the nation.”

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