GUILT BY MARRIAGE
Harwood, Richard
Guilt by Marriage— With a Happy Ending By Richard Harwood LATE on a January afternoon a car bounced over a rutted, country road in southeast Indiana. It stopped in front of a small farmhouse which...
...He was apparently an exemplary worker...
...And Grzelak's reply...
...One of his last jobs—before his discharge—concerned the design of a cook stove for use in the field...
...On all the evidence reasonable grounds exist for beli&f that your removal is necessary...
...In the meantime, he and his wife moved to the little farm they had bought with their savings...
...In fact, he had tried to dissuade her from her political activities but he was unsuccessful...
...When he got out of the hospital he went to work for his government as a civil servant...
...He married a woman whose given name was Josephine...
...Grzelak appealed the decision...
...Many people swore that they had seen Mrs...
...Grzelak had championed the American Peace Crusade, had signed and asked other people to sign the Stockholm Peace Petition, and had taken part in a "peace pilgrimage" to Washington...
...None of those who so swore had read the pamphlets, but they didn't "like the looks of them...
...But before the trial ended, the government had shown that—in the opinion of the government—Frank Grzelak had made one serious mistake which marred his otherwise impeccable life and threatened the security of the United States...
...When the door opened, he handed a letter to a man inside, quickly turned around, walked back to the car and drove away...
...Perhaps they can at that...
...His job was restored, and he will receive about $5,000 in back pay...
...Grzelak's latter-day political persuasions...
...He had been a government worker for nearly 18 years when, on Dec...
...I feel very happy," he said...
...Then he said: "It seems to me that the government is posing a very difficult choice for me...
...It was and is the "mission" of this depot to reclaim discarded military equipment and to provide the armed services with caskets, which the depot purchases but does not manufacture...
...Then, in one of its last official actions, the Appeals Board made Grzelak a respectable man again...
...The government witnesses replied that they would have committed such a wife to an institution or would have sought a divorce...
...In the first place, Immigrant Grzelak served in the American Army in World War I. The experience put him in a hospital for 11 years...
...It looks like I must abandon my wife or lose my job...
...The witnesses produced by the government at Grzelak's loyalty trial testified that in all his years at the depot he had never bothered anyone, had never failed to do his work, had never expressed a political or philosophical or sociological opinion, nor had he ever done anything else that might be considered disloyal or subversive...
...in the interest of national security...
...13, 1951, he was summarily thrown out of his job as a "security risk...
...This was Grzelak's sin...
...It stopped in front of a small farmhouse which gave little sign of life...
...He did lose his job...
...He didn't attend his wife's meetings and wasn't a student of "leftist literature...
...He told the government he had never done anything political...
...It was here that Grzelak worked...
...The letter was from that anonymous tribunal in Washington, the Army Loyalty-Security Appeals Board...
...Now 61, Grzelak can retire on a pension in a couple of years...
...Grzelak stand on the street corner in Jeffersonville in fair weather or foul, handing out pamphlets...
...They had no income except the rent from their house in Jeffersonville...
...It was addressed to Frank Grzelak, a Polish immigrant who came to America in 1913 and who had had an intimate association with the American government ever since...
...The order stated: "On all the evidence it is found that there is not a reasonable doubt as to your loyalty to the Government of the United States...
...who on other occasions had sold war bonds and had taught radio to Girl Scouts...
...Likewise, there was incontrovertible evidence that Mrs...
...I never thought I had better than a 50-50 chance . . . This proves decent, fair-minded people can overcome injustice...
...Until his suspension in December, 1951, Grzelak had worked for 11 years as a draftsman at the Army Quartermaster Depot in Jefferson-ville, Ind...
...There has been nothing clandestine about Mrs...
...The letter from the Appeals Board informed Grzelak that the government of the United States had made a mistake...
...A man got out of the car, went up to the farmhouse door, and knocked...
...The government prosecutor at the loyalty trial recited these facts and asked each government witness what he would have done with such a wife...
...He did not abandon his wife...
...She had also reared two sons, both of whom served with distinction in World War II, and one of whom had spent 21 months as a war prisoner in the hands of the Nazis...
...and, who, in the past couple of years, had championed the Progressive Party...
...He married...
...After 13 months of deliberation and buck-passing, the government had considered: "That there is not a reasonable doubt as to his loyalty to the United States Government . . . "That reasonable grounds do not exist for the belief that his suspension and removal were necessary in the interest of national security...
...He had never signed anything and had never joined anything...
...a woman who once crusaded tirelessly on behalf of vitamins...
Vol. 17 • July 1953 • No. 7
