Dutch Reformed Churches Near Pella, Iowa, Faced Suspicion and Arson During World War I

The author, writing from Pella, Iowa, describes accusations once leveled at Dutch Reformed immigrants roughly a century ago, during World War I, in communities about ten to fifteen miles away. The charges included being clannish and insular, refusing to assimilate, having large families whose children achieved quickly, showing loyalty to foreign and even adversarial governments, worshiping in foreign languages, and being led by clergy who browbeat their people. Some houses of worship were set on fire by arsonists. The author quotes a 1917 editorial in the *Pella Chronicle* calling for these immigrants to become Americans or return to their homelands. The author notes that Pella itself, where the Dutch were the majority, was not regarded as unpatriotic or insular. The trouble arose in the surrounding communities, where the Dutch were a minority.

The town’s history began in 1847, when its founder named it Pella after the city of refuge to which first-century Christians fled after the destruction of Jerusalem. The first settlers saw the town as a refuge from the conditions they had left in the Netherlands. The Dutch soon spread east, where a river had limited their expansion, and after a bridge was built they encountered Americans already living in the area. Resentments and rivalries built for decades and intensified when the United States entered the war.

By then the Dutch had lived in the region for almost 70 years, and their language remained common in stores, parochial schools and churches. According to the author, people who were hostile to the Dutch and did not distinguish nuances between “Dutch” and the German of the Kaiser sent strangers to worship in Dutch Reformed churches and to visit Dutch-run shops. Their purpose was to enforce a proclamation by Iowa’s governor prohibiting the use of any language other than English in public. A Christian school was still flying the Dutch flag as American patriotic feeling rose during the war, though the Netherlands was neutral.

The author writes that a secretive anti-Dutch group called the Black Hand was linked to several arson fires at Dutch farms and a school. One of the fires destroyed the Reformed Church in New Sharon, Iowa. A bungled attempt to bomb a Reformed parsonage also took place. The author describes the group’s identity as uncertain, asking whether its members were vigilantes, domestic terrorists or inept young men.

The author draws on a sesquicentennial booklet by local historians, *Peoria, Iowa: The Story of Two Cultures* by J.P. Dahm and D.J. Van Kooten, and on conversations with a 98-year-old member of his congregation. She is the daughter of the minister whose church was burned. According to her account, her father sent the family away to safety. An attempt was made on his life, and dynamite placed under the parsonage did not detonate. She was too young to remember these events, but she has passed on what her father later told her (Psalm 78:4).

She recalled that her father worked hard to convey that he and his congregation were patriotic, “good Americans.” The congregation worshiped in English. The author writes that her father was frustrated, and perhaps hurt, that outsiders did not see the difference between his church and other Dutch Reformed churches.

The author also describes a minister at a Christian Reformed congregation in nearby Peoria. He was said to have discouraged his congregation from buying war bonds and to have advised families on how to make their young men ineligible for the military draft. The author reports that this minister was later arrested under the Espionage Act and narrowly escaped a lynch mob on his front lawn after his release. These are the author’s reports of what was said and what occurred, and the source does not give further detail on the charges.

The author compares these events with present-day public demands that Muslims denounce terrorism, and suggests that moderate voices may be struggling to be heard, as the father in the earlier account was. The author also notes that Iowa welcomed Southeast Asian refugees about forty years ago and that some people resettled there after Hurricane Katrina.

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