Wagler Wisdom

Amish settlements all over the USA have faced this question over the last  decades . The more conservative Amish have always tolerated , sometimes even touted the use of Tobacco .So ,shall we continue using it , or not ? That question has periodically been asked among themselves.

Those who have a Right-wrong equation about it, and things like that , or want to know if it is Biblical to use it , have moved away from it , if  rather slowly . Those to whom the Right or wrong question comes way down on the list if at all , still use Tobacco products , and claim to be Okay with it .

A side question arose quite quickly when the Tobacco use questions came up . How about the folks along the East Coast that raised it , and were Amish ?

All these questions came to a head in 1969 .(Admittedly a while back.) A new Amish Publishing house was just started in Aylmer, Ontario , called Pathway Publishers . They had a stable of very good writers of the Right -Wrong persuasion . In other words ,” I  will reason with you , point out how I am right and you are wrong , if you then do not agree with me I will try and Ban you ” type of thinking . That group of Amish, in Aylmer, Ontario ,have never been known for being very tolerant of diverse thinking. (They almost go berserk concerning Amish or Mennonites with Cars)

A then young Amish writer , and historian by the name of Joseph Stoll , published an article in the Amish Family Life Magazine in the August 1969 issue pointing out the evils of tobacco  use among the Amish.

It is a well written , and researched article that shows that the early Anabaptist , and even Jacob Ammon himself were on record as being against Tobacco use ,except for medicinal purpose. The article never mentions the Raising of the  leafy crop . Just how bad it is for one’s health , and the poor witness to ‘outsiders’. This particular article is almost always referred to in today’s media mention of tobacco use by the Amish . especially for what it did not mention , the cultivating of the stuff. A sort of Ground Zero about Tobacco & the Amish.

”There ,the Reasoning was out in the open ”, the  Aylmerites may have thought , ”surely this will make a difference , Amish everywhere will surely consider this and at least try quitting the poison leaf.”

The Postman is the center of most Amish interaction or question, and it took a while for the question to be presented by letters to the Lancaster Pa . Amish Leaders, and those of them with influence. “Why are you raising Tobacco , and making money off it’s use , when it is plainly shown (by us ) to be Wrong ?”

‘There Now” ,the Aylmer Amish writers must have assumed, their fellow brethren in Amish-dom would surely see the error in their way , and not only consider to stop using Tobacco , but surely not to raise the stuff too  .

They and their new-finagled ideas  did not even come close , if that was their goal .

In today’s conservative Amish settings , What is right or wrong or biblical is often not at all the most important thing in the Equation . If it is even in the Equation. Other things are thought much more important ….

Like , have we and our forefathers done this for generations , and does it not work well for us ?would we not dishonor our forbears by changing things now ? Does this help pay off our farms ? Does this keep us from being what we think of as Worldly ?   The right or wrong content of the question about a matter is thus not very important to a very large segment of Amish folks today .

We suspect that type of thinking would be mostly found with the same stricter Amish folks that would also not allow ”going to Florida in Winter times”. That would also include the ”Hardscrabble crowd” . Amish who have pretty well painted themselves into a corner . Not allowed to have a business, not allowed this and that , certainly no interaction with the ”World ” , many of those about do not survive financially today . They would not dream of giving tourists buggy rides at $10 a person for a 15 minute ride .

One big exception to the above is the Lancaster Pa. mainline Amish who do go to Florida in the winter, gladly interact to fleece the Tourists at home daily in every way imaginable  , And use any and all means to pay off their expensive farms , now as they did in 1969.And they absolutely love Money , as in $$$$ , love to quietly sack it up .

That said , they can be very helpful if a need arises that they believe in . In the  1800′s Lancaster co. pa Amishmen raised $60 K in hard cash to save the entire Amish-Mennonite  settlement in what is now  Kitchneer -Waterloo Ont. They had run into severe problems with their land titles.

So, having sacks of cash available does come in well sometimes. Back then it bought clear title to 60000 acres.This episode in Amish-Mennonite  history is little acknowledged by most Anabaptist historians , because the  desperate delegation from Canada had been turned down by all the other  major Amish-Mennonite Settlements , before they arrived in Lancaster Pa. , which was to be the last stop .

That part of the eastern Pa.  Amish and also Mennonite Psyche, their fixation on the hard cash life, may be due to a severe farm depression back in the 1880′s when a large number of  Amish and Mennonites  In Lancaster Co. lost their farms .. And they , and their Noch-comma never forgot  ,up to today.

Tobacco use today is still there , and the tobacco raising by Amish in Lancaster Co. and that area is much expanded today after quotas were abolished several years ago and it is a free market in it now. During the 1990′ s less and less tobacco was being raised by the Amish , some thought they were “seeing the light” . Now, however , when there is again money to be made from the Cancer plant they are flocking to raising it again. Beliefs, anyone ? Or is it all just for show , The “Monkey see, monkey do ” Thing ?   (That is an old saying , not one tailored just for Amish )

Back to 1969 , and the challenge by the Aylmerite writers , to Amish leaders in eastern Pa. to step up to the plate and do what was right , on the tobacco issue.

Well , they stepped up to the Plate , alright , In defense of their fathers , their father’s fathers on back  as far as they were in Pa. The ”What was good enough for them is surely now good for us” reasoning won a total victory with them .

Today’s Internet is a remarkable thing . Someone puts a snippet on there , a letter pops up that was written decades ago , and things come together , what happened and perhaps why . so it is with the Tobacco issue in 1969 and afterwards.

As the Amish Leaders and Thinkers of Lancaster co. Pa. were slowly banding together to address this bold challenge to them and their ways , even in 1969 it did not take them long to come to a consensus .

Not only did they reject the idea that the use and raising of tobacco products was not good or right , They as one turned and took a new look at these bold folks from afar who dared question them and their affairs. What they saw they did not especially care for .

One of the most influential Amish men in Lancaster County in the past 50 years was perhaps a man named Andy Kinsinger . Not a preacher , but a Hard working Print-shop man ,having a shop in Gordonville Pa. An uncomplicated man of impeccable character who said and did exactly as he believed . A really nice giant of a man , equally comfortable talking to lawmakers in the halls of Congress , as he was Chairing the dozen or so Amish Interests committees he was involved in . When you saw the back of an Amish man strolling out of the US Supreme Court Building , it was probably him .A really nice man to know , and surely one to reason with , the aylmerites in 1969 may have thought.

After soundly rejecting the challenge from afar to Lancaster tobacco tilling, It was the influential Andy Kinsinger who suggested they might need to look at some of the Aylmerites’ other Activities and ideas. In a letter , since archived, he noted that the School curriculum that the Aymer Ont  Amish Publishing house was even then putting out , was not so good , because it ”Contained bits of religion , and young children should not be exposed to religion in School , they may think it common and tire of it , they should get their religion in Church”. (Not an exact quote ,somewhat condensed)

The Pathway School books from Aylmer are Amish-Oriented , but with no pictures or drawings of people . They became quite poplar with the Homeschooling movement in the 1990″s and sold a pile of material to Non-Amish customers then. Today they would be somewhat dated for the Homeschoolers as that movement has matured , and a lot of better material is now available.

As for the Amish , their newest material now available is called “Study Time” , out of northern Indiana, A system that is set up to really teach children new things. That is very unusual in and of itself , to teach Amish children new things .

Andy Kinsinger was not a devious man , just a true “The old way is surely the only way ” practitioner.

So today , as in 1969 , as in 1949 , as in 1929 , most Amish School curriculum in Lancaster Pa . and that general area consists of reprinted spelling and math, and reading  books from the 19th or early 20th century . The exact same material used by their Fathers and Grandfathers ,and perhaps even their Great-Grandfathers . And it just so happened that the Gordonville Amish print shop was ,and still is the main supplier of all those ancient reprints of old school books.

Our point for this article is that there are many , if not most , so called Anabaptist that are living something that they have no particular belief in . This is not only found among Amish ,but also among Mennonite factions of all levels . Historically , this has washed itself out , come hard persecutious  times , and it will surely happen again .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesse Wagler Nov. 2011

 

 

 

 

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