Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

merchants. On my suggestion that a public meeting be held to explain our plans in this hot-bed of anti-Mennonite feeling, in this county-seat of the terrorist Bagon, the veteran teacher Cornelius Wiens, in his characteristically prompt fashion arranged with Bagon to have the meeting in the large Mennonite meeting house. For about an hour I spoke in broken German to a crowded house. It was important to make clear that the help was coming as an expression of Christian love; that we would help the neediest, regard- less of religion; that we had contracts with the highest authorities in Russia who were demanding cooperation for us from their local officials. Bagon himself was present and very attentive. He was one of the individuals singled out in the audience, though not until afterwards did I know who he was. Froese followed with a very accurate repetition of the talk, in the Russian language. Every one was to learn that the A.M.R. had come to help the need- iest, and that the central Government would support us in our plans. The next day we proceeded undisturbed to organize our volost committee of which Heinrich B. Janz was made Chairman, serving the A.M.R. efficiently and loyally in that position until near the time of his departure to Can- ada. In the Molotchna the suffering was similar to Chor- titza. In the Prischib volost, next to the Molotchna, about 9000 were starving out of a total population of 11,700. A gas motor was exchanged for 45 pounds of flour; a 3 bottom plow for 7 pounds. From the Crimea, Abraham H. Unruh came as head of their Mennonite or- ganization, pleading for help. He estimated that about UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 203 80% of the 6000 Mennonites in that community were hungering. A cow had been exchanged for 100 pounds of flour. All about us mountains of misery, terror, rapine, starvation. Delegations from the Lutherans, the Molok- aners, the Baptists and Evangelicals came, asking for help in the name of God. It was overwhelming. But when we remembered the misery of the thousands who lived there daily in fear and terror, our own troubles sank into nothingness. Slagel quickly built up a machine for the: distribution and I returned to Moscow for more food. ORGANIZING FEEDING OPERATIONS IN THE UKRAINE CHAPTER V Arthur W. Slagel CAUSES OF THE FAMINE One is not surprised to hear of famine in such places as India and China, with their over-population, low stand- ards of living, and frequent insufficiency of food to satisfy the hunger of all. But why should there be a famine in Russia, which has long been considered the granary of Europe; and especially why should there be hunger among the Mennonites there, with their thrift and foresight? The world-war did not affect Russia so directly as it did some of the countries of western Europe, where most of the fighting was done. But the events that followed the war—the collapse of the Czarist government, the revolu