Biography
John Schrag was a prosperous Swiss-Mennonite farmer from Harvey County, Kansas, whose faith forbade supporting war. Because he refused to buy Liberty Bonds, a mob in Burrton, Kansas seized him during the Armistice Day celebration on November 11, 1918, doused him with yellow paint, and tried to force him to carry the flag. When the flag fell to the ground he was accused of desecrating it, and he escaped lynching only because a local officer held off the crowd at gunpoint and got him into the town jail. He was then held in the Harvey County jail at Newton and charged under the Espionage Act with showing disrespect to the flag. At his federal trial in December 1918 he was found not guilty, the court noting that the law did not require anyone to salute the flag. His case became one of the best documented examples of wartime mob violence against the peace churches.
