Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood by James Urry

Author:James Urry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL043000, HIS006000, SOC008000
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: 2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

While support for Social Credit was apparent in the 1945 provincial elections, none of the candidates were Mennonite. This situation changed dramatically in 1953, when Mennonites stood for Social Credit in both the electorates where Mennonites potentially were in a majority: Klaas T. Kroeker of Steinbach in Carillon, and in Rhineland, a Russländer schoolteacher who, before the war, had been attracted to right-wing political movements in the Winkler area, Victor Peters.63 At the same time five other candidates with identifiable Mennonite names contested other electorates across Manitoba.64 In the 1953 campaign, Social Credit entered forty-two candidates in Manitoba electorates. Its most “colorful stump campaigner,” the Reverend Ernest Hansell from Alberta, led the party’s push to gain power and an American newspaper reported that its “political rallies have the air of religious revival meetings” aimed at attracting the votes of Mennonites and other groups.65

Although none of the Mennonite Social Credit candidates won a seat, the presence of so many candidates with Mennonite names suggests a deeper Mennonite involvement in the party above local-level organization. In 1957 a person with a Mennonite name, Bernhard H. Rempel, who had stood for Portage la Prairie in 1953, was elected president of the provincial party and his vice-presidents also had Mennonite names and connections—I.R. Dyck of Winkler and S. Toews of Steinbach.66 More research is needed on these Mennonite connections, but it is clear from voting returns from places like Niverville East (and La Broquerie), and given the support for the party in north Winnipeg, that in certain areas members of the Mennonite Brethren, many of them of Russländer background, were keen supporters.67 In the 1945 election, for instance, the votes for Social Credit in Niverville were as high as 88 percent, compared with average support of 21 percent, and voting for Social Credit in this Mennonite-dominated area remained above 50 percent for a number of subsequent elections.68 The religious attractions of evangelical fundamentalism are clear, but for these Russländer living in the shadow of the Bolshevik revolution and Stalin’s terror, the right-wing, anti-communist message was also significant.69 Somewhat disturbing, however, are press accusations of anti-Semitism among members of the Manitoba party and at the national level, which hint at a sinister continuity with certain pre-war sentiments among older Russländer.70

Support for Social Credit, however, was not restricted to Mennonite Brethren or Russländer, but, particularly on the old West Reserve, included Kanadier. Here, newly developed connections with evangelical fundamentalism combined with the view that government should not interfere in individuals’ lives. Such ideas began to replace the older prescription that as a religious people, Mennonites should remain separate from politics and the state. At the same time Social Credit conservatism with a religious message became embroiled in local political and socio-economic dynamics unique to the area. The result was the phenomenon of Jacob M. Froese, who would hold the seat of Rhineland for Social Credit for ten long years through four provincial elections.

Froese possessed important credentials to secure the old and new conservative religious vote in the Mennonite community.

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