Yet, in contrast to these a priori beliefs, a case tried in Dedham in April 1920 demonstrated that the citizens of Norfolk had lost neither their sense of justice nor their common sense. The very week Attorney General Palmer was curling the hair of the credulous by announcing that on May Day the Reds planned to make the national capital “the scene of the slaughter of high officials” an alien anarchist with the outlandish name of Segris Zagroff was brought before Judge Thayer, charged with advocating the overthrow of the government by violence. Zagroff had been picked up in a foreign radical club in Norwood, the walls of which were hung with pictures of the new Bolshevik Russian leaders. He freely and volubly admitted to the police that he was an anarchist and that he did not approve of the American form of government. In spite of his statements the Dedham jury freed him. Judge Thayer was vibrant with anger at the verdict. “Mr. Foreman,” he asked testily, “did you take into consideration the testimony that was given us here by the police officers that the defendant told them he believed in the overthrow of the government? Didn’t you hear the testimony to the effect that the defendant said in the presence of witnesses and in the conversations he had with officers that he did not like this form of government and that the only true government was the kind run by workingmen? How did you arrive at the verdict that you announce?” Unintimidated, and with equal testiness, the foreman replied that “the jurors disregarded the testimony of the officers after they understood the definition of ‘advocating anarchy,’ as given by the court, to be the act of a person who actually used violence in bringing about his aims and not the advocacy of those aims when he talked on the subject.” Although this verdict showed that in Norfolk County ordinary men could still think clearly and act justly, it also showed the bias of Judge Thayer. Curiously enough, the prosecution of Zagroff was conducted by Assistant District Attorney Kane, who would shortly assist Katzmann in the prosecution of Vanzetti at Plymouth. Zagroff was defended by Katzmann’s brother Percy.