20th Century
Ms. Shen
Name: _______________________________
The Return to Normalcy: Rise in Fundamentalism
1. The 1920s saw a rise in religious intolerance
• Permeation of general spirit of intolerance
• Henry Ford was very anti-Semitic
• Many country clubs and resort hotels would not allow Jews
• Colleges, private academies, and medical schools had Jewish quotas
• Catholics established private universities as a result of discrimination and exclusion
2. There was also a surge in Christian fundamentalism.
a. Definition of fundamentalism: belief in a literal translation of the Bible. Movement mostly concentrated in the
Mid-West and South (otherwise known as the Bible Belt.)
b. Goals: sought comfort and stability through religion. Believed that if people followed the Bible directly, society
would be ok (needed in a time of rapid change.)
3. Fundamentalists’ attention was drawn to schools in the 1920s as mandatory attendance laws meant their children were in
school more and away from the watchful eye and control of their parents. Many parents saw schools as the place where
children learn the values of society, as well as a place where kids could easily be led astray.
a. Opposition to the theory of evolution:
i. Regarded the theory of evolution as “the most present threat to the truth they were sure they alone
possessed.”
ii. Opposed to the concept that men derived from apes – thought the theory was absurd and degrading
iii. Evolution directly conflicts with the teachings of the Bible
iv. Desire to prevent the teaching of evolution, particularly in schools!
4. Scopes “Monkey” trial:
a.
What happened?
i. Butler Act of 1925 (Tennessee): “Be it Enacted, by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, that
it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the universities, normals, and all other public schools in the
State, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach the
theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that
man has descended from a lower order of animals.”
1. Named after a TN state representative who took up anti-evolution banner in 1922 after hearing
a visiting preacher tell of a woman whose faith had been shaken after she’d gone to a university
and been taught evolution. Butler made opposition to teaching of evolution in schools a
centerpiece of his campaign that year. The bill passed in the house 75 to 5 and in the senate 24
to 6. It banned the teaching of evolution in publicly funded schools.
ii. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) protest: violation of 1st Amendment. They hired John T. Scopes
as a test case – he taught evolution and was arrested = press coverage
iii. Trial of the century – PUBLICITY – why so big?
1. People involved in the case were huge – Darrow was the best lawyer
of his time, Bryan was a 3 time presidential candidate.
2. Topic was big because it was symbolic of the clash of values and
morals taking place in the 1920s. The trial embodied the struggle
between traditional vs. new values.
b. Who were the key players?
i. John T. Scopes: (defendant) Rhea County science teacher & the defendant in
the trial. Accepted his first teaching job in Dayton after graduating in 1924
from U. of Kentucky where he was taught evolution. He was only 24 at time of the trial. He never
testified in the trial – defense conceded that he had in fact taught the theory of evolution in his classes
ii. Clarence Darrow: (attorney for the defense) America’s most famous defense lawyer. Worked in
corporate law until age 37 when he switched to defend fringe of society (murderers, communists,
anarchists, socialists.) Scopes was the only client Darrow ever volunteered to represent for free – did so
because he really wanted to be involved in the case, partly because he had a strong interest in
Darwin…probably more because of his intolerance of intolerance.
1. “Here we find to-day as brazen and as bold an attempt to destroy learning as was ever made in the Middle Ages
and the open difference is we have not provided that malefactors shall be burned at the stake. But here is time for
that, your Honor. We have to approach these things gradually....”
2. “If to-day you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school...at the next
session you may ban books and newspapers....Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always
they are anxious and gloating for more.”
iii. William Jennings Bryan: (attorney for the prosecution) At the time of the trial, he was the country’s most
prominent figure in the fundamentalist crusade against the theory of evolution.
1. In speeches and writings, he attacked what he called “ape-ism”.
2. Said “When I want to read fiction, I don’t turn to Arabian nights, I
turn to works of biology – I like my fiction wild.”
3. By 1925, Bryan and fundamentalists had successfully passed
legislation in 3 states banning the teaching of evolution. Legislation
was being considered in 15 states at the time of the trial. Bryan
wanted an amendment to the Constitution passed.
4. “The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never
anything more....The second objection to Darwin's guess is that it has not one
syllable in the Bible to support it. This ought to make Christians cautious about
accepting it without thorough investigation....Third--Neither Darwin nor his supporters have been able to find a
fact in the universe to support their hypothesis. With millions of species, the investigators have not been able to
find one single instance in which one species has changed into another...Theistic evolution may be defined as an
anesthetic which deadens the patient's pain while atheism
removes his religion.”
iv. What was the outcome of the trial? Scopes found guilty.
Jury deliberated for a mere 8 minutes before returning
with a guilty verdict. Scopes was fined $100 the
minimum fine allowed by law. (This was the outcome the
ACLU expected.)
iv. Why was it significant? Nationally, the Scopes case called
attention to the tension that existed between old and new
and the growing divide between proponents of tradition
and religion and those who embraced the “seize the day”
attitude of the ‘20s.
From: 20 Questions about the Scopes Trial, American Heritage Magazine
Q. Was there any chance of Scopes being sent to jail or having to pay a fine out of his own pocket?
A. No. The law made no provision for imprisonment, and newspapers and evolution supporters had agreed to pay all Scopes’s fines and
legal costs. In the end, the jury convicted him (an outcome both sides had requested) and fined him $100. In 1927 the Tennessee Supreme
Court voided the fine, though not the conviction itself, on a technicality.
Q. Isn’t [the Butler Act] blatantly unconstitutional?
A. By today’s standards, yes. But in the 1920s, courts interpreted the “establishment of religion” clause much more narrowly. Not until
1962 did the U.S. Supreme Court declare state-sponsored school prayer to be illegal, so it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court would have
consented to hear a challenge to this law, particularly since the law did not require any religious observance but merely prohibited certain
subjects from being taught.
Q. Was the trial an epic debate between reason and faith?
A. Hardly. The first six days were spent on procedural matters, speeches by the attorneys, and prepared testimony from assorted experts…
The only reason anyone remembers the Scopes trial today is for Clarence Darrow’s examination of William Jennings Bryan on the seventh
day.
The two clashing titans spent most of their time rehashing chestnuts like the origin of Cain’s wife, the sun standing still at the battle of
Jericho, and the snake being condemned to crawl on his belly. Along the way they quibbled over whether Jonah was swallowed by a fish or
a whale, quarreled about the difference between “interpretations” and “comments,” and spent several minutes with pencil and paper
calculating exactly how long it had been since the Tower of Babel was built.
At times the two men came across like pettish schoolboys. After Darrow asked Bryan “how many people there were in China 5,000 years
ago” and Bryan, unsurprisingly, was unable to answer, the following dialogue ensued:
DARROW: Have you ever tried to find out?
BRYAN: No, sir; you are the first man I ever heard of who was interested in it.
DARROW: Mr. Bryan, am I the first man you ever heard of who has been interested in the age of human societies and primitive man?
BRYAN: You are the first man I ever heard speak of the number of people at these different periods.
DARROW: Where have you lived all your life?
BRYAN: Not near you. [Laughter and applause]
DARROW: Nor near anybody of learning?
BRYAN: Oh, don’t assume you know it all.
In his examination, Darrow alternated between quizzing Bryan on scientific trivia in an attempt to reveal his ignorance and asking Bryan if
he believed in the literal truth of various Bible stories. Bryan shrugged off most of Darrow’s questions as unimportant, Darrow responded
with sarcasm, and that was their historic confrontation.
Q. Did Darrow embarrass or humiliate Bryan, or maneuver him into contradicting himself?
A. There is no evidence that Bryan felt embarrassed or humiliated. When a fellow member of the prosecution team repeatedly asked the
judge to stop the examination, Bryan insisted on continuing. Bryan did admit that the six “days” in which God created the world might
have been geological eras of undetermined length, rather than 24-hour periods, but he had been saying that for years, and it did not
conflict with his view that the Bible excluded the possibility of evolution.
Q. Did Darrow make Bryan lose his composure?
A. At the end, both Darrow and Bryan lost their composure and descended to name-calling. Their final exchange, which ended with both
men on their feet and shaking their fists, went like this:
BRYAN: . . . I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee—
DARROW: I object to that.
BRYAN: To slur at it, and, while it will require time, I am willing to take it.
DARROW: I object to your statement. I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.
At which point the judge mercifully adjourned the proceedings.
Q. Did the audience turn on Bryan?
A. Absolutely not. He repeatedly elicited cheers or appreciative laughter from the audience, and their support was at least as strong at the
end as it had been at the beginning.
Q. Then who won the debate?
A. Most creationists thought Bryan had won… Most evolutionists thought Darrow had won. Since the bulk of the examination covered
very familiar ground, it’s hard to imagine anyone’s mind being changed by it, despite all the fireworks. When considered from the
standpoint of who made a stronger impression at the time, the debate was pretty much a draw. In trying to prove that Bryan’s creationism
rested on shaky assumptions and incomplete knowledge, Darrow scored some points, though the question ultimately came down to faith
and belief. In trying to prove that Bryan’s creationism was self-contradictory, however, he failed. If you accept Bryan’s assumptions that
God is omnipotent and the Bible is his revealed truth, then Bryan’s version of creationism is entirely defensible—not the only possible
interpretation, to be sure, but one that is consistent with itself.
Q. Did the trial leave Bryan a broken man?
A. No. He died of a heart attack five days after it ended, but in view of his age (65), hefty girth, and general poor health, that hardly came
as a surprise. The day before his death, he made an antievolution speech before 8,000 cheering supporters.
Q. Did the trial prevent a wave of creationism from sweeping the nation?
A. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but there is little evidence that other states had anything similar in mind when Tennessee passed its
law in 1925. By the end of the decade, two more states (Mississippi and Arkansas) had enacted similar laws—so if anything the trial may
have caused at least a ripple of creationism.
—Frederic D. Schwarz is a senior editor of American Heritage magazine.