»Eine offene Beleidigung«  Jantzen 81 three-part review was a small portion of the forty-five articles he wrote for publication that year in the Monatsblätter aus Bethel College. Other articles ranged from Russian Mennonite developments to church history and edu­cational matters. 7 His original thought on Quitt was»Wir würden ihn sehr links liegen las­sen, wenn er uns nicht wegen seiner Schilderung mennonitischer Verhält­nisse bedeutsam erschienen wäre«. The next question was,»Wo er seinen hierauf bezüglich Stoff aufgelesen hat, möchten wir wohl auch in Erfahrung bringen. Hat er unsern ›Bundesboten‹ mit seinen Missionsnachrichten ir­gendwo angetroffen, oder sind ihm etwa Briefe in die Hände gefallen, ­welche aus Deutschland stammende Soldaten des Forts Reno nach Hause geschrieben haben?« 8 Fontane scholarship has known for a long time that Fontane indeed ac­quired Mennonite mission reports. 9 On closer examination, however, it turns out that all of Fontane’s information on Mennonite mission work came one way or another from the publicity work of David Goerz. Thus, it is ironic that Wedel could not decipher this puzzle of Fontane’s Mennonite sources since Goerz was his good friend and the business manager of Bethel College. David Goerz Like Wedel, Goerz was born in Russia, in 1849 in Berdjansk on the Black Sea, the town that served as the port for the Molotschna Mennonite colony. Go­erz’s friend, Bernhard Warkentin, visited America already in 1872, staying at Summerfield, Illinois, with Christian Krehbiel, a recent immigrant from the Palatinate who later spearheaded the Mennonite settlement at Halstead and ran the vocational school for Native American children. Warkentin’s let­ters to Goerz about America prompted Goerz to emigrate already in 1873 in advance of the large-scale migration the following year. Goerz taught school in Summerfield for two years before moving to Halstead in 1875 with Kreh­biel, Warkentin, and others from Summerfield arriving there at different times in the next few years. In Halstead, Goerz became a key leader in Mennonite education and im­migration endeavors. He helped recruit his friend C. H. Wedel to teach there in 1890. An offer of money and land from the city of Newton in part led to the founding of a new school there, Bethel College, in 1887. David Goerz was the driving force behind this school as well and became its first business man­ager under the new president, C. H. Wedel, when the school finally opened in 1893. 10 Goerz also remained active in immigration activities from Halstead, serving as secretary of the Mennonite Board of Guardians set up to assist