184 / World War I and Reconstruction Work

and doing or assisting in anything by which Men's Lives are destroyed or hurt. We beg the Patience of all those who believe we err in this point."

In the decade of 1874-84 the Ohio churches had assisted in the immigration of the Mennonites from the steppes of Russia to the plains of the Middle West. During 1896-1900 they had contributed to the Mennonite Church's program of relief for the famine-stricken in the Central Provinces of India. That they should enter into a relief and reconstruction program for Europe in 1919 was to be expected. Reconstruction work in France had been started by the English Quakers early in World War I. American Friends joined in the work and they in turn invited Mennonites to share in the task. A number of Mennonite draftees were given furloughs to serve within Friends Reconstruction Service and others upon their discharge of release from Leavenworth united with reconstruction units. A total of at least fifty-one young men from Mennonite churches were in the French reconstruction units and of these the following seventeen were from Ohio: J. Roy Allgyer, West Liberty; Arthur Diller, Elida; Fred Augsburger, Elida; Orrie B. Gerig, Smithville; J. E. Gnagey, Archbold; Atlee Hostetler, Baltic; Hamer V. Hostetler, West Liberty; James A. Hostetler, Baltic; Chauncey D. Kauffman, West Liberty; John Mervin Kauffman, West Liberty; Harry M. Liechty, Sterling; Ora R. Liechty, Sterling; Jacob C. Meyer, Sterling; Eli A. Miller, Millersburg; Walter E. Oswald, Charm; Robert M. Stemen, Lima; and Eli Stoltzfus, Lima .20

Most of the work was done in the Verdun sector where, in 200
square miles, scores of villages were in ruins and the landscape
scarred with shell holes, trenches, and barbed wire entanglements.''
The actual work consisted largely of rebuilding homes from pre
fabricated materials produced in two factories of southern or eastern France. Poultry and cattle were shipped to France and distributed to the needy villages. Clothing and medical items were
dispensed and relief workers used many opportunities to show
goodwill and to bring hope to the people of the devastated land.
In the summer of 1919 two men from Ohio, S. E. Allgyer
and Vernon Smucker, were sent to Europe as representatives of the
American churches. It was during their tour that they attended a
conference of those Mennonites engaged in reconstruction in
France. The conference was held at Clermont-en-Argonne, Meuse,
on June 7, 1919, in the midst of war-ravaged territory. It provided an occasion for serious discussion on the nonresistant Chris-