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The Mennonites' only concession to Mexican ways has been to learn Spanish. After their fashion, they are good citizens; e.g., they will not buy licenses for their wagons, instead each month they promptly pay their accumulated fines for driving unlicensed vehicles. But last week, as they were getting ready to plant the oat crop and praying for a good rainy season, the Mennonites knew that their peace with the outer world was at an end.
Promised Lands. The trouble stems from the Mennonites' prolific growth (girls marry at puberty, bear ten or twelve children). The 15,000 settlers have overrun their original 200,000 acres and an additional 100,000 more bought a few years ago. Alarmed, the Chihuahua government and the Mexican landowners have refused to sell more land. Mexico's federal government has threatened to renege on Obregón's pledge, has tried to force the Mennonites to accept the Mexican social-security system and electrification. Reluctantly, the Mennonites decided that it might be time to move. Teams of Mennonite scouts in recent weeks have traveled to British Honduras, where there is much land for sale, and to Ontario, where the Mennonites already own a vast tract. This week the Menrtonite elders were studying the reports. Each promised land has drawbacks: Ontario still has the same restrictions that drove the Mennonites out of Canada 35 years ago, and Honduras offers only a steaming jungle terrain. But the Mennonites may have little choice, are sure that Mexico will scrap the Obregón contract. And if that happens, the precise Chihuahua fields will be sold to more compliant folk, and the Mennonites will become wanderers again.