Home
I Wish I Had Been There: John Schrag and the Kansas Mob, 1918
by James C. Juhnke
On November 11, 1918, the citizens of the small town of Burrton, Kansas, celebrated the end of World War I.1 The celebration climaxed in a mob persecution of John Schrag, a Mennonite who had refused to buy war bonds. I wish I could have witnessed the event through the eyes of three men: John Schrag, Tom Roberts, and Charles Gordon.
John Schrag was a member of the Hopefield Mennonite Church. I would like to know what he was thinking and feeling when five carloads of Burrton men came eleven miles out to his farm to give him one last chance to buy war bonds. Was he terrified, defiant, or calm as he refused to salute the flag and carry it at the head of a parade? Did he nearly change his mind when they poured yellow paint over his head and rubbed it into his beard? Did he expect to die when they got a rope and marched him over to a tree to hang him?
Tom Roberts was the head of the Burrton Anti-Horse-Thief Association. I would like to know if he was in the group that got Schrag into town. At what point did Roberts decide that the mob was getting out of hand? Did Roberts always wear a gun? Would he actually have used his gun, as he threatened, to stop the mob from hanging Schrag? Was it Roberts who got Schrag into the city jail and called the Harvey County sheriff to come and take the victim to Newton to be cleaned up and kept in safety?
Charles Gordon was a young farm worker about to be drafted when the war ended. I would like to know how involved he was when the mob frenzy took hold. Was he on the fringes or at the center of things when the mob began beating and smearing Schrag? How accurate was Gordon's later testimony that Schrag was totally nonresistant-that he never raised a hand to defend himself and that a kind of halo appeared over his head in his humiliation? Was Gordon among the group that laid plans to come back that night, overwhelm the guards, and hang Schrag after all? Was it honesty or was it guilt that led Gordon later to describe Schrag as a kind of Christ-figure?
I have written and spoken many times about the mobbing of John Schrag. I wonder how my story would change if I could go back and live through the event myself-through the eyes of these and more participants.
1. James C. Juhnke, "John Schrag Espionage Case," Mennonite Life, July 1967, 121-122.
James C. Juhnke is professor of history at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. He is the author of Vision, Doctrine, War, the third volume in The Mennonite Experience in America series.
Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October 2000