Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

About a month or six weeks later another representative of the govern- ment, this time from the Justice Departmnt, called at Hillsboro for the same purpose as the first inspector had done, but with the additional duty of finding out all he could of the refugees themselves. The man seemed much surprised to find that the Mennonites were progressive, and believed in education. In our conference with this gentleman it happened very opportunely that Delegate C. H. Warkentin was in town, who, as it developed, knew practically all of the young men listed among the sixty- two. ‘Together we, therefore, gave him all the informa- tion possible, and he, too, left us, apparently well im- pressed by the whole situation. Upon the force of our affidavits and the reports of these investigations the passports were eventually granted in July, after considerable writing back and forth had been carried on. Immediately upon learning of this happy conclusion of the first chapter of this matter, the Central Committee through Bro. Orie Miller secured the funds and made the necessary arrangements with the steamship lines to transport the men to New York. They set sail on the steamer ‘‘Acropolis” from Constantinople on Au- gust 3, arriving at New York on September 1, and were landed at Ellis Island. In the meantime homes on farms had been found for these young men, through the efforts of Levi Mumaw, Orie Miller, W. J. Ewert, and others. During the examination on Ellis Island which every immigrant must undergo, they were asked among other things, as to who supplied the money for their passage, 382 FEEDING THE HUNGRY where they intended to go, and what they expected to do. ‘To this they truthfully made reply, but such as turned out to be ambiguous; since the inspectors interpreted it to mean that they came under the Contract Labor Law, which barred them from admission and were subject to deporta- tion. The decision to send them back to the land from where they had come was transmitted to the brethren in the committee, whereupon O. O. Miller, M. H. Kratz and Levi Mumaw took steps to appeal to the Department at Washington. In order to make their appeal more effec- tive they went to Washington in person and engaged legal assistance. After the hearing, the case was referred back to the immigration officials at New York, who again decided as before, whereupon another appeal was made to Washington. In the meantime influential men both from the House and the Senate, who were friendly to the Mennonite people were engaged to intercede with the officials of the Bureau of Immigration. Thus time passed on while the appeal was pending, the young men were detained with nothing but deportation before them, which to them meant death; since they knew that if once delivered into the hands of the reds in Russia, they had no chance of escape. A letter reached me almost at the same time as a message from Bro. Mumaw, stating that the