Education: The Man Who Played George

No teacher or parent in the city of Evanston. Ill. (pop. 75,300) cared more deeply about the Orrington elementary school than Swedish-born Hjalmar Andersson. For 23 years as janitor, he kept the building clean and in good repair: no matter how much there was to do, he always had time to joke or chat with the pupils and listen to their troubles. But for all his good humor, Janitor Andersson is a stubborn man. Last week he was barred from the school he loves because of a rather odd and lonely crusade.

The crusade began in 1955 when the state legislature passed the famed Broyles law requiring public employees to sign an anti-Communist loyalty oath to uphold the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions. Lutheran Andersson decided that the oath was a subtle limitation on an American’s freedom to speak his mind. Unlike the hundreds of teachers who agreed with him but still bowed to the law, he flatly refused to sign. “I pledged my allegiance to the United States and to God when I took my citizenship oath in 1932,” said he. “Must I then swear loyalty to one of its states, too?” In any case, there were just too many people around “who would chip away at our freedom and make us afraid to voice our belief.”

Unable to tear himself away from his school, he kept on working as if nothing had happened. But since the school board could not legally pay him. he had to live on his $3,500 savings, while almost $7,500 in back paychecks piled up in the school safe. To make matters worse, the Internal

Revenue Service said that he owed $25.33 in taxes on his 1955 salary. Though he wrote the service that his salary had been stopped, the revenuers were back again the next year with an additional demand for $69. Meanwhile, the school board began to get a bit embarrassed about having an unpaid crusader around. Last month, at the board’s request,Janitor Andersson finally quit.

Letters poured in from his former pupils. “I want you to stay in school.” wrote one little girl. “You always meet us at the door.” wrote another, “and are so joyful.” But last week, his savings gone,52-year-old Bachelor Andersson began looking for another job, still determined, foolishly or not, never to sign the oath. “Too many people say ‘Let George do it,'” he explains, “even in matters involving defense of individual freedom. Someone has to be George.” But being George is not easy. “The day goes fast,” says Hjalmar Andersson quietly, “when all the children are around you.”