The Slaughter of the Innocents

This is unmistakably Saroyan, with his sentimental yet probing concern for people as human beings; it is Saroyan at his most intelligent and most meaningful. The story is that of a bartender whose saloon has been confiscated to be used for public trials by the new police state. Juries have been dispensed with; the victims are marched in on an assembly line, accused, sentenced, then marched out through the back door to be shot while the populace cheers in wild enthusiasm. When a small boy is run through in this fashion, the bartender rebels, throwing a large monkey wrench into the smoothly running mechanism. Then comes the directive: the six officials are to change places with the next six victims. Thus it is that the people come to a realization of the meaning of justice in a democracy.