Departing Friends

When Quaker William Penn arrived in Philadelphia to begin his "holy experiment" in government, he made a peace treaty with his Indian neighbors and planned to get along without an army or navy. His colony did so for 73 years, until its Quaker-dominated legislature voted funds in 1755 for the French & Indian War. But then and later, Quakers found the U.S. more hospitable than most countries to their creed.* This week, for the first time in history, a group of Quakers were planning to leave the U.S. because of their peace-loving convictions.

Spokesman for the group was 33-year-old Dairyman Hubert Mendenhall of Fairhope, Ala. Said he: "Our economy has become so involved with military effort throughout the world that a person can hardly make a living without being a part of that system . . . Even the price of milk depends upon it."

Mendenhall and 25 other Quakers near Fairhope have put their farms up for sale. They plan to move to Costa Rica, which disbanded its army in 1949. In their new land, picked after a survey of Latin American farm areas, they plan to raise livestock and coffee. Said Mendenhall: "The sense of values in this country is becoming more materialistic all the time . . . In Costa Rica we can only hope to make a modest living, but it will not be so directly tied in with the military economy."

*And between times produced some first-class fighting men. Examples: the Revolutionary War's Nathanael Greene, the Marine Corps' late Smedley Butler.

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