Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

the American organization to his people who then already were seeing the gaunt specter of hunger coming ever nearer and nearer to their homes. This message Rev. Janz transmitted to the various congregations in the Ukraine to reassure them and en- courage those who were taking from their own slender supply of food to help others that had even less. Before we could begin feeding operations, a survey of the hunger districts would be necessary to determine the neediest cases. This preliminary work Janz offered to have done through their local organization. But as any such activity by Mennonites might easily arouse suspicion on the part of local Government officials, it was impera- tive that Janz be given official authorization from the American Mennonite Relief organization to gather the statistics necessary for us. ‘The ‘mandate’ was type- written, rubber stamped, and signed. Later it was learned that this authorization was probably the only thing that saved Janz from arrest on his return home. Scarcely had he come back from Khar- kow when the notorious Bagon summoned him to appear before the volost (county) officials. Bagon was the cruel Lett who ruled the volost by terror. He was probably responsible for the fate of Clayton Kratz. The death of many local Mennonites, young and old, were attributed to his blood-thirstiness. After the proceedings at the volost office, when all the others had been dismissed, Bagon took Janz into another room where he began to threaten him. But this time Janz felt prepared for the ordeal. Had he not been granted an interview by the officials of the For- UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 165 eign Office at Kharkow, and by one of the three most powerful men in the Ukraine Government! Bagon him- self could not have hoped to meet those men except under extraordinary circumstances. Janz in his quiet and utterly cool fearlessness, walked up to Bagon, tapped him on the shoulder, looked down calmly into his hateful eyes, and informed him that the day for that kind of intimidation was past. The American had commissioned him—Janz— to represent the American organization until some one else should arrive to take over the work. And the Ameri- can had signed a contract with Yermostchenka and Ra- covsky in the capital of their own Republic and even with Kamenev in Moscow. These were names to conjure with. The anarchistic Bagon was actually awed. Janz was re- leased and lived to render to his people a magnificent service. CLAYTON KRatTz When Arthur Slagel and I went from Constantinople to southern Russia in the spring of 1921, it was with the hope that we could find some trace of Clayton Kratz, one of our relief workers who had remained in a Mennonite community in southern Russia at the time the Wrangel army collapsed in the autumn of 1920; he had not been heard from since then. At that time the Red army again occupied all of southern Russia. Consequently, communti- cations w