A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

een that Canadian coverage has been lacking and it has failed to become popular in the majority of homes of the members of the Canadian Conference." 1 " The initiative for an English "Mennonite Brethren" family paper was taken by the Board of Directors of the Christian Press. On September 21, 1955, the Mennonite Observer made its first appearance with Leslie Stobbe as editor. However, another independent weekly newspaper, The Canadian Mennonite, published by D. W. Friesen & Sons Ltd., and edited by Frank H. Epp, was already firmly established by that time. This attractive Mennonite weekly, founded in October, 1953, endeavored to serve all Mennonite groups and communities in Canada. Because of its editorial policy of free discussion of current and even controversial issues, The Canadian Mennonite appealed especially to the younger generation, also in M.B. circles. The Mennonite Observer thus was faced with the problem of keen competition right from its inception. In 1957 the conference agreed to terminate the publication of the Konferenz-Jugendblatt, and to give its support to the Mennonite Observer as a youth paper without making the latter an official organ of 294 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH the M.B. Conference." The number of subscribers for the Mennonite Observer remained relatively small, and the paper had to be subsidized by the Christian Press. After several years, Leslie Stobbe was succeeded by G. D. Huebert as editor of the paper. The last issue of the Mennonite Observer was published on December 29, 1961. For a whole decade (1951-1961) negotiations were carried on between the publications committees and other boards of the Canadian and United States area conferences with the objective of unifying publication efforts. At the convention of the General Conference held in Yarrow, B.C., in 1957, the following recommendation was accepted by the delegates: "We recommend in principle that ways and means be found cooperatively with the Canadian Conference whereby an official English or German organ of our General Conference be gotten into every home of our constituency in the U.S. and Canada, as a unifying link for our entire General Conference." 33 At the Centennial Conference in Reedley three years later the conference reaffirmed its concern for a united voice in publications by passing the following resolution: "That the Board of Reference and Counsel of the General Conference meet with the present Board of Publication and the Canadian Board of Publication and work out suggestive steps leading to a united voice in one conference periodical." 3 ' The recommendation prepared by these boards and presented to the area conferences in 1961, however, was not accepted by the Canadian Conference meeting at Coaldale, Alberta, in July of that year. Instead, a recommendation by the Publications Committee of the Canadian Conference was accepted "that we introduce a levy of $1.00 per m