CHAPTER XIX
TESTING TIMES DURING THE GREAT WORLD WAR
When great armies are made up by selective draft regulations, it is apt to develop a hard situation for people of noncombatant faith. It is mentioned that in Germany Mennonites were shot for refusing to go into the army. In Canada, as well as in the United States, the widespread sentiment prevailed that Mennonites were dodgers, slackers, and friends to the enemy. Many others, out of no religious motives whatever, were styled "pacifists" and "conscientious objectors." Officers and soldiers in the ranks looked reproachfully upon all these different classes as a common herd.
Even in places outside of army circles, public feeling became wrought up to such degree that mob raids were made on certain settlements where Mennonites were located.
It is to be admitted that public officials under such circumstances found it difficult to always discern the line of demarkation between one whose religious creed forbids him to engage in carnal warfare and one whose creed does not declare against its members going to war. Because of the greatly aroused public sentiment Mennonites had to be drafted and were held in camps throughout the period that the United States was engaged in the conflict.
