A CITIZENS GUIDE for the Mass. House of Representatives, signed by Roland D. Sayer on the front cover. 20 pages, about 6x9 in. Roland Douglas Sawyer (1874 - 1969) was a Congregationalist minister and for nearly 30 years a Massachusetts state legislator. He is best remembered as one of the leading Christian socialists of the first decade of the 20th century and as the author of an array of self-published books and pamphlets on genealogy and the local history of New England. In about 1907, the previously conservative Sawyer began to gain an interest in Christian socialism, a growing movement in that day. Sawyer joined the Socialist Party of America and ran for Governor of Massachusetts on the Socialist ticket in 1912. In 1913, Sawyer ran in a non-partisan race for city council in Ware, Massachusetts. Under the rules of the organization during its early period, Socialists were not permitted to run in non-partisan campaigns without having been previously granted extraordinary permission from the organization, however, and Sawyer was therefore expelled from the Socialist Party of Massachusetts. Following his expulsion, Sawyer joined the Democratic Party. Running as a Democrat in the fall of 1913, Sawyer ran for the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature. Unlike his previous electoral experiences, this time Sawyer won his race for office. He ran for re-election and won every two years thereafter for more than a quarter century, sitting in the Massachusetts General Court until 1941. Sawyer took an interest in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists accused of murder in conjunction with a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, and was active in the unsuccessful campaign to win the pair a stay of execution and a new trial. In the Massachusetts General Court, Sawyer was regarded as a crusader against political corruption. Sawyer ran three more campaigns for higher political office as a Democrat, all without success: for U.S. Congress in 1925, a second try for Governor of Massachusetts in 1928, and a race for U.S. Senate in 1930. Sawyer was a Congregationalist minister throughout his life, heading churches at Brockton (1898-1900), Hanson (1900-1905), Ward Hill (1905-1909), and Ware (1909-1950s) in the state of Massachusetts. Sawyer was also, particularly early in his clerical career, active in conservative social organizations, including the Anti-Profanity League, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Anti-Saloon League, and other temperance organizations. Ironically, as a Massachusetts legislator Sawyer came to believe that liquor prohibition was a failed system with unintended negative consequences and was involved in campaigns for its abolition. Following his retirement in the 1950s, Sawyer spent his remaining years at his home in Kensington working on research projects in local history and genealogy. RARE!

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