Roland D Sawyer

Early years

Roland Douglas Sawyer was born January 8, 1874, in Kensington, New Hampshire, the son of a father who was a shoemaker and a mother who taught school. Roland dropped out of school at age 16 to learn he craft of shoemaking from his father, but at the age of 20 he made the decision to change his career path and entered the now defunct Revere Lay College in Revere, Massachusetts, a Protestant evangelical seminary.

Upon graduation from Revere in 1898, Sawyer took a position as a pastor at Hope Chapel in Brockton, Massachusetts, the first of four Congregational churches he would head.

Political career

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. In 1940 he was the first representative to call for the impeachment of Governor's Councilor Daniel H. Coakley. Coakley would be impeached by the House and found guilty and removed from office by the Senate the following year.

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.

Clerical career

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.

Death and legacy

Sawyer died in October 1969 at the age of 95.

Sawyer's papers reside in the Milne Special Collections department in the library at the University of New Hampshire in Manchester. The collection runs to 165 archival boxes, some 55 cubic feet (1.6 m³) of material.

An additional 13 boxes of materials, chiefly his dime novel collection, reside at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

Works

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