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Anti-Evolution
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Genesis
Chapter 1
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Tennessee
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and Cartoons
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Scopes Trial
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Year 1925
Trial of the
Century?
Evolution
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Inherit the
Wind
Expert's
Impressions
Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the trial
Photo Credit: CORBIS/Bettmann
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An Introduction
by Douglas Linder (c) 2002
The early 1920's found social patterns in chaos. Traditionalists, the older Victorians,
worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether
society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their
intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz
Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian
theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of
revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South.
Who would dominate American culture--the modernists or the traditionalists?
Journalists were looking for a showdown, and they found one in a Dayton, Tennessee
courtroom in the summer of 1925....[CONTINUED]
Famous Trials Homepage
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Tennesse Anti-evolution Statute - UMKC School of Law
Tennessee Evolution Statutes
PUBLIC ACTS
OF THE
STATE OF TENNESSEE
PASSED BY THE
SIXTY - FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1925
________
CHAPTER NO. 27
House Bill No. 185
(By Mr. Butler)
AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other
public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the
State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.
Section 1. 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 of the State which are
supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any 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.
Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor
more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.
Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare
requiring it.
Passed March 13, 1925
W. F. Barry,
Speaker of the House of Representatives
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Tennesse Anti-evolution Statute - UMKC School of Law
L. D. Hill,
Speaker of the Senate
Approved March 21, 1925.
Austin Peay,
Governor.
PUBLIC ACTS
OF THE
STATE OF TENNESSEE
PASSED BY THE
EIGHTY - FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1967
________
CHAPTER NO. 237
House Bill No. 48
(By Smith, Galbreath, Bradley)
SUBSTITUTED FOR : SENATE BILL NO. 46
(By Elam)
AN ACT to repeal Section 498 - 1922, Tennessee Code Annotated, prohibiting the teaching of evolution.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee :
Section 1. Section 49 - 1922, Tennessee Code Annotated, is repealed.
Section 2. This Act shall take effect September 1, 1967.
Passed : May 13, 1967
James H. Cummings,
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Frank C. Gorrell,
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Tennesse Anti-evolution Statute - UMKC School of Law
Speaker of the Senate
Approved : May 17, 1967.
Buford Ellington,
Governor.
Scopes Trial
Homepage
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Genesis - First Chapter - Scopes Trial - UMKC School of Law
FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth."And the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. "And
God said, let there be light: and there was light. "And God saw the light, that it was good; And divided
the light from darkness. "And God Called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the
evening and the morning were the first day. "And God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it divide the waters. "Ands God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; And it was so.
"And God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
"And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land
appear, and it was so.
"And God called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the seas: And God
saw that it was good.
"And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit trees yielding fruit
after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: And it was so.
"And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding, fruit,
whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was good.
"And the evening and the morning were the third day.
"And God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let
them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.
"And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth; and it was so.
"And God made two great lights: The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night: He
made the stars also.
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.
"And to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that
it was good.
"And the evening, and the morning were the fourth day.
"And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowls that
may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
"And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it was good.
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Genesis - First Chapter - Scopes Trial - UMKC School of Law
"And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl
multiply in the earth.
"And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
"And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and
beasts of the earth after his kind: And it was so.
"And God made the beasts of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: And let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him; male and female He
created them.
"And God blessed them, and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it; and have dominion over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth
and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the
earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meal; and it was so.
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the
morning were the sixth day."
SCOPES TRIAL HOMEPAGE
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State V. Scopes - UMKC Law School Famous Trials Series
State v. Scopes: Trial Excerpts
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Impressions of the Scopes Trial by Marcet Haldeman-Julius
Impressions of the Scopes Trial
by Marcet Haldeman-Julius
(excerpts from Clarence Darrow's Two Great Trials, a pamphlet published in 1927)
Arrival in Dayton
It was just a few minutes of three on the morning of the first day of the trial when we rolled into the trim,
neatly-paved little town that nestles at the base of Walden's ridge in the Cumberland mountains.
Well-lighted and festively bedecked as it was with many banners, not a soul stirred in the streets; a few
hounds in front of the stores lay, heads on paws, tails neatly indrawn, eyes closed; for once since he had
entered Tennessee the garrulous William Jennings Bryan had ceased to talk. Dayton was sound asleep.
Everywhere signs were posted hit and miss on buildings and fences:
"Read your BIBLE."
"God Is Love."
"Read your BIBLE for a Week."
"You Need God in Your Business."
"Where Will You Spend Eternity?"
Little stands, newly built, with the usual hot-dog and sandwich or soft drinks equipment lined the
sidewalks and directly across from the court house stood an anti-evolution book-stand on which large
placards announced "Hell and the High Schools," "Mr. Bryan's Books." I felt as if I had stepped by
mistake into a Methodist camp-meeting. Evidently the case of the State of Tennessee versus John
Thomas Scopes was to be tried in the super-heated, jazzy atmosphere of a Billy Sunday revival.
Aqua Hotel Lobby Scene
In and out of the Aqua lobby come and go continually a galaxy of men whose names, in the newspaper
and magazine world, are ones with which to conjure. Practically every journal of importance is
represented--from those in the neighboring towns of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama to the London
Daily News, the correspondent of which cables, each afternoon, five hundred words to England. Never
but once before--at the Arms Conference in Washington--has there been, in this country, such a
concentration of high pressure talent. Even the big prize fights and national conventions have been
covered both by a lesser number and by a lesser caliber of writers. All give an impression of having their
sleeves rolled up for action. Quite literally, too, many sleeves are rolled to the elbow, light suite of every
material predominate, fully two-thirds of the men are coatless, many go without collars, palm leaf fans
steadily flutter, handkerchiefs mop, for the bright, lovely tenth of July morning is breezeless and hot.
Mansion House (Defense Headquarters) Scene
And now, with the general scene clearly in you minds, let us drive out--as E. H.-J. and I did immediately
after breakfast--to the Mansion House. It is situated about a mile from town and there the Defense is
domiciled. An old, faded yellow with brown trim frame house is the Mansion, so-called because it is the
largest residence in Rhea (pronounced Ray) County, and has been, in its day, a very proud and hospitable
home. In architecture is suggests the early eighties. Set on a little hill, surrounded by the same beautiful
mountains that surround Dayton, approached by a gravel driveway and shaded by majestic trees, deserted
for all of these ten years past and believed by many of the mountain folks to be "haunted," it stands, at
present, stark empty, without screens, without lights, and with a plumbing system so long disused that it
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refuses to function.
The Mansion was selected by Scopes and Rappleyea for Darrow's headquarters because it was the one
place big enough to accommodate including expert witnesses, the entire battle line of the Defense, and
also because it appeared to offer to them comparative coolness and moderate seclusion. But, as it turned
out, on the eve of an epoch-making battle, Darrow, his associates, Dr. John R. Neal and Dudley Field
Malone--a gentleman who looks as if he were accustomed to every luxurious nicety, although, for all I
know to the contrary, he may quite genuinely enjoy roughing it--Arthur Garfield Hays (the lawyer sent
from New York City by the Civil Liberties Union), the Modernist Unitarian minister, Dr. Charles F.
Potter and his wife, not to mention others with whose names I am not familiar--one and all had been
obliged to retire by the soft but inadequate light of candles, and had been awakened by the friendly
tap-tap of woodpeckers to a choir of song birds and waterless faucets. Shaving and washing were out of
the question; food not even remotely on the horizon.
G. W. Rappleyea
Dr. G. W. Rappleyea, as many people now know, is the young chemical and mining engineer who,
impatient and disgusted with the anti-evolution law, arranged with what seems to be his characteristic
initiative, for the present trial. He is an untidy little person with rather ill-tended teeth, thirty-one years
old, short (not more than five feet six at the most) and in complexion olive to the point of swarthiness.
His dark brown eyes, behind horn-rimmed spectacles, are fine and alert, his thick, bushy, jet black hair is
liberally sprinkled with grey which, with his youthful face, gives a bizarre and striking note to his
appearance. He looks Jewish, but is not. On the contrary he is of French descent, although his people
have lived for over three centuries in this country, chiefly in and around New York City, where
Rappleyea, when a youngster, was a newsboy. He speaks with the accent of Third Avenue.
In charge of six coal and iron mines with four hundred men under his direction, he is, so all agree,
thoroughly equal to his really heavy and detailed responsibilities. In point of fact, I find him
considerably more interesting in his job than in his philosophical meanderings. His mind is essentially a
scientific one, clear, disciplined; his mental integrity and intrinsic sincerity obvious. Lively and friendly,
he trots here, trots there, interested in everything, seeing to everyone, obeying one controlling
impulse--to be in effective action; ubiquitous, pugnacious, unusual, likeable. He is the impresario--and
inordinately proud of his artists. This is his show.
Clarence Darrow
I shall never forget my first impression of Clarence Darrow. As he and Emanuel emerged from the
Mansion and came toward me I thought to myself: Taller than I supposed; a noble head; big broad,
slightly-stooped shoulders; a kindly face with deep-set blue eyes--they twinkle--a face like creased
leather, scarred with the lines of a long and exciting lifetime; long-palmed hands with sensitive fingers;
rather thin, not too carefully brushed, only slightly grey hair--it was all as swift as that and then he was in
the car with us. An average man meeting Darrow, knowing nothing about him, would be hard put to it to
place him. And he would not be very wrong; there is in him so much of all kinds of men, such a vast
sympathy with them, such a complete understanding of all their needs and problems.
He loves, not mankind nor humanity, but the individual man. His pity is the disillusioned, cynical,
profound pity of Anatole France; his wit the pungent, devastating humor of the man who dares, both in
word and in thought, to be fearlessly truthful. Above all, he is everlastingly honest.
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"I have never," he said to me in his gruff growly voice, "taken a case in which I did not believe. That is
why I don't prosecute. I can't help putting myself in the other fellow's place. I have, of course, taken
cases where I knew the man was guilty, but where I believed he should have a lower sentence."
We were in a drug store, Mr. Darrow, his friend Mr. Thompson, Emanuel and myself, having a cold
drink. It was directly after the session in which (on Monday, July 13), Darrow had made his great speech
urging the judge to quash the indictment. A speech of which Mencken wrote, "It blew up like a wind and
finished with a flourish of bugles." Much of Darrow's pugnacity is expressed in those eloquent shoulders
of his. I assure you that in one of his great leisurely shrugs--a shrug in which, thumbs in galluses
meanwhile, his whole torso participates--he can put more contempt, more combativeness, more sense of
reserve power, than anyone else can express in a dozen gestures. A master of crescendo in argument, he
punctuates his theme with short, staccato slaps of his right hand on the palm of his left--a movement
which, varying with the intensity and importance of his thought, increases in vigor from a mere wrist
movement it--to a sweeping swing of his arm.. With his right hand he expresses, his mood and with his
index finger emphasizes the high points of his thought. His unction is the unction of a veteran. I can
think of only one man who has it to a similar degree--that man is Otis Skinner.
He is not a noisy speaker, Darrow, but he is a forceful one. Beside the white flame of his sincerity, even
the eloquence of Malone seems unsubstantial, even a bit theatrical. Never, for instance, would Darrow
be betrayed, even by his own eloquence, into saying as did Malone: "There is never a duel with the
truth. The truth always wins. The truth does not need the law. The truth does not need the forces of
government. The truth is imperishable and immortal and needs no human agency to support it." Never, I
submit, even under the greatest pitch of excitement could Darrow be capable of such an obvious
mistatement of facts.
He is, to put it squarely, the most debunked person I have ever met. Undoubtedly he has his own
illusions. (What human being is entirely free from them?) But utterly unshackled by superstitions, fears
or idle hopes, he stands a giant among mental pygmies.
He is pessimist in theory--if I understand his position--but if he really were one surely he would not have
to come to Dayton to engage in that maddening, discouraging battle against bigotry and ignorance. To
my mind only an optimist of sorts could have thought it worth while in the first place, and, in the second
place, have found the courage to go through with it. Yet Darrow obviously did think it very worth while,
and quite as obviously he was neither beaten nor discouraged. He has a vast patience--a patience not
unlike that of a wise mother, who knows her children's shortcomings and faults, but also knows the good
that is in them. Knows, too, that they must be punished--and how Darrow can punish with words!--but
feels them all the while infinite tenderness. No one speaks in more scathing terms than did Darrow of the
ignorance now rampant in Tennessee. Yet no one, I am convinced, understood better than he the reasons
for this ignorance or felt a greater pity for the people struggling in its meshes.
Atmosphere and Attitudes in Dayton
This one fact you must understand if you are to grasp the importance of the trial: the ignorance and
bigotry against which Darrow and his associates struggled was too real, too armored in widespread
public opinion to make the conflict waged in that Dayton court room anything less than high drama.
Never, even in its most humorous moments and, fortunately, such moments were many, never was there
an element of farce. The convictions involved were too deep-rooted, too passionately held.
Although it probably will stretch your powers of credulity to credit this statement, the majority of men
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and women in Tennessee think of God as a being who resembles man in appearance. "Doesn't the Bible
say," demands the Fundamentalist, "that God created man in His own image? That's plain enough."
Furthermore, they are sure, these Southern Baptists, Methodists and Campbellites, that God took up dust
from the ground and then and there (apparently much as a boy would roll up a spit-ball) created Adam,
from whose ribs he presently proceeded to make Eve. They believe it in precisely the same way and with
precisely the same "but there can be no argument about it" feeling that you believe the world is round. In
such an atmosphere of simple acceptance of the literal world of the Bible was raised the judge before
whom this case was tried.
Judge Raulston
Perhaps this is proper a moment as any in which to introduce to you his honor, Judge John T. Raulston.
Frankly, I have conceived for him such a thorough dislike that I find it difficult to write calmly about
him. He is large, florid man; always and forever smiling; six feet tall and broad shouldered; about fifty
years old, born and raised in this part of Tennessee--as he himself puts it "jist a reg'lar mountain'eer
Jedge." Taken by and large, I imagine that he is, under ordinary circumstances, a decent enough sort of
person. Local report has it that he is a devoted husband and father--he has two daughters in their middle
teens--is a pillar of his church and is universally liked in this part of the state where he is Judge of a
circuit that includes seven countries. I surmise, too, that in this own way among local cases, he probably
succeeds fairly well in being just, although even then he must be sub-consciously influenced by his very
reactionary prejudices.
"What are your cases, mostly, Judge?" I asked him during our first conversation.
"Well, I hear damage suits, of course, and mudah cases, and cases of crimes against women--the usual
run that come up before a crim'nal Jedge. I've only (with a bland smile) sentenced one man to the death
penalty. (Another smile.) His case is now pending in a higher court. I only gave his accomplice (still a
third smile) thirty years. For mudah."
It is entirely possible that the man was a dangerous character from whom society needed to be protected,
but the complacent, almost merry tone in which Judge Raulston tossed off the "thirty years" for all the
world as if it had been thirty minutes, made me shiver. . . .
Judge Raulston is a vain man; also he is an ambitious one. There is no doubt at all in my mind but that a
bitter conflict was waged in his Methodist soul. Anyone who observed him closely the evening after the
great speech in which Malone urged that expert witnesses be permitted to testify, anyone who watched
him closely could see that he was undecided, torn.
Isn't it terrible," he said to me, all smilingly, however, be it noted, "to have so much responsibility resting
on one poor finite mind?"
"It is," I agreed. Within fifteen minutes, I heard him make exactly the same remark to two other people.
The plain fact was that he sincerely longed to appear before the world as a great and nobly generous
judge. But even more than he wished this, he wanted to be re-elected. As the crude phrase has it he well
knew on which side his bread was buttered.
W. J. Bryan
Needless to say, I studied Bryan with greater interest than anyone except Darrow, connected with the
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trial. In their attitude toward him, people divided, roughly, into two groups: to the first he was a hero, a
man who dared to speak out boldly for Christ while the world scoffed, a man sent by God to rally the
scattered forces of the Protestant churches; to the second group he was a mountebank, a hypocrite, an
out-an-out fraud.
As he sat there in the court room, day after day, silent, fanning, fanning, his face set I was appalled by the
hardness, the malice in it. No one who has watched the fanatical light in those hard, glittering black eyes
of Bryan's can doubt but that he believes both in a heaven and in a hell. At the same time the cruel lines
of his thin, tight-pressed mouth proclaim, it seems to me, that he would stop at nothing to attain his own
ends. It is anything but a weak face--Bryan's. But it is a face from which one could expect neither
understanding nor pity. My own opinion is that he is sincere enough in his religion. Also that in it is
included the doctrine Paul so frankly taught--that a lie told for the glory of God is justified. . . .
The man doesn't read. As he himself put it, "I don't think about what I don't think about." (Even so!)
The question is what does he think about? There are many who answer promptly: himself; and what he
can get out of this Fundamentalist movement; how far he can project it into politics and there capitalize
it.
Myself, I think that while there is more than a little truth in this judgement, on the whole it is too harsh.
Human motives are seldom so clean-cut, so simple. His is the slowly accumulated bitterness, the bleak
tragedy of the man who never has quite achieved what he has set out to do. Failure seldom sweetens
character. To William Jennings Bryan's it has added gall. He is full of malice toward all who are his
superiors. His love for the ignorant man, for the masses is, I am convinced, utterly genuine and as
instinctive as is Mencken's admiration for the mental aristocrat. It is the scholar whom Bryan dislikes.
He knows only too well how thoroughly intellectual people have come to despise him as, slowly but as
inevitably as in one of the old Greek dramas, he has lost prestige of real leadership, he must content
himself with a following limited even within the church. Broken, he is on his way to a last defeat.
Opening Day Scene
One was hard put to it on the tenth of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and
twenty-five, to know whether Dayton was holding a camp meeting, a Chautauqua, a street fair, a
carnival, or a belated Fourth of July celebration. Literally, it was drunk on religious excitement.
"Be a sweet angel," was the beginning of a long exhortation printed on a large signboard posted at the
entrance of the court house door. Evangelists' shouts mingled with those of vendors; the mournful notes
of the hymns of a blind singer who accompanied himself on a little portable organ, stentorian tones
shouting, "For I say unto you, except ye repent and be baptized," "Ice cream and hot dogs here!"--all
poured into one's ear in a conglomerate stream. The entire courthouse yard literally was given over to
preachers who peddled their creeds as if they were so many barbecue sandwiches. Against the north wall
of the courthouse a platform, surrounded by benches, had been arranged for their greater convenience.
On the second floor of the old brick court house one entered a wide, spacious, freshly-painted court
room with a normal seating capacity of about four or five hundred. I felt as if I had stepped into
pandemonium. Men and women jostled each other; a battalion of newspaper photographers and movie
men literally wrestled for advantageous positions; just outside the bar enclosure muffled telegraph
instruments ticked and reporters for the big dailies, Associated Press, and similar services, sat dripping
with sweat, writing in pencil or on typewriters as if for their very lives; people stood in aisles and three
deep against the back walls; in spite of the big open windows the air was stifling. . . .
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Interview with John Butler, Author of Anti-Evolution Act
Boiling with the particular rage which only unfairness can arouse in me--in this case an unfairness so
flagrant, so brazen, so pleased with itself that even to contemplate it was maddening--I rose from my seat
and started, with the surging throng, to leave the court house. Directly in front of me stood a
broad-shouldered, six-foot man who had been pointed out to me as "the author of the law"--Mr. Butler.
I knew, of course, that you would want to hear about him, so, drawing a long breath, I took myself in
hand, so to speak, smoothed down my ruffled temper, and addressed him: "Are you Mr. Butler?"
"Yes"
"I should like to interview you."
A smile, so good-humored that one could not refuse one in return, broke over his kindly face.
Aggravatingly enough, I began to like him. "All right," he agreed, "I suppose you think I ought to be
hung."
"I want to know how you came to think of this law in the first place--why you decided it was needed."
"All right. Let's go out in the shade where it is cool and then we can talk easy."
I agreed and followed cheerfully in the wake of his huge form as, in the midst of the press, we leisurely
descended the stairs. On the courthouse lawn, under the wide-spreading branches of a hard maple, we sat
down. Mr. Butler hailed a passing boy and bought two ice-cold bottles of Coca Cola. And thus, in
sociable mood, we begun to chat.
He is a type of man with whom I am thoroughly familiar and for whom long experience has taught me to
have a genuine regard. I have dozens of farmer neighbors--and so, I am sure, have many of you--cut off
precisely the same piece of cloth. As he sat before me, this big Indian-brown six-footer, with his keen
gray eyes and good, even teeth, so frequently revealed by his pleasant smile, I felt that the man was
sincere and straight-forward through and through. . . .
I had heard many and various tales of Mr. Butler before I met him and, as I have said, I was in anything
but a sympathetic mood when the meeting took place. But as he talked in his pleasant voice with its
strong southern accent, I summed him up to myself in something like this fashion: Uncultivated, but
very far from illiterate; uneducated in the narrower sense, but in the broader one anything but an ignorant
man; simple-hearted, obviously country-bred and provincial, but full of an innate courtesy and
kindliness; unsophisticated, but not uncouth.
"You like fair play, I gather," I smiled.
"Yes, I do," he returned firmly. "I used to be a great baseball player--not in any of the big leagues, of
course, but in our own part of the country here. Anyone who has played baseball likes to see things done
fair. And I think the 'Jedge' should have let those experts testify if Darrow wanted 'em. I am not afraid
of expert testimony." (This was said convincingly and without the slightest touch of braggadocio.)
"Darrow could have put 'em on and made his points and then Bryan could have cross-questioned 'em and
brought on expert Bible witnesses too and made his points. That would have been fair to everybody."
"When did you first think of this law--or did something suggest it to you?"
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"I'll tell you," he said, and this, condensed is the gist of his story:
About four years ago a preacher who came around once a month to Butler's church alluded, though not
by name, to the fact that a young women whom the community knew had, after a university course,
returned believing in evolution and disbelieving in God. This set Butler to thinking. What might happen
to his own boys? (He has three; his two daughters are married.) To his neighbor's children? Come to
that, they didn't need to go as far away as universities. Evolution was taught in the high schools. It was
not right that they should raise up their children to be God-fearing and then have the schools teach them
something that took that faith away. Thus Butler mediated long and earnestly upon the preacher's
comments.
In 1922 he was urged to run for Representative of his district. There are three counties in it: Macon,
Sumner and Trousdale. Sumner County, thanks to a good creamery trade, does dairying and in the lower
end of it Southdown sheep are raised, as also in Trousdale County. Butler agreed to run, and in his
circulars stated the necessity of a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the schools. "Ninety-nine
people out of a hundred in my district thought just like I did, too," he explained. "I say ninety-nine out of
a hundred because there may be some hold different from what I think they do, but so far as I know there
isn't a one in the whole district that thinks evolution--of man, that is--can be the way the scientists tell it."
"Do you mean," I questioned, "that they believe evolution and the Bible conflict?"
"Yes."
"Do you know that lots of good Baptists believe in both--that they think that to God ages are but a day?"
"Mr. Butler considered this. "Yes," he answered. "I know they do." Then, after a pause, "I reckon it's a
good deal like politics, the way you've been raised."
Darrow in Contempt
To begin with, the court room was crowded as on no other morning. It was almost literally impossible to
get through the jam on the stairs. In the hallway I found the policeman firmly blocking the door, his
usually smiling face quite taciturn. I ducked under his arm and through the packed aisle saw E. H.-J.
valiantly holding my seat. "What's all the excitement?" I demanded. "Why is everybody so nervous?"
At that moment the Judge stalked into the court room. There was no smile on his face either. On the
contrary, his expression was grim and determined.
"He looks mad," declared E. H.-J. "The rumor is that he is going to cite Darrow for contempt." One
could positively feel the tension tighten. Suddenly there was a sputter and smoke rose from one of the
electric wires. "Shut off that switch outside," shouted someone. Panic hovered in the air. The thought of
what might happen if that throng tried to get through the one door made my tongue feel dry.
The short circuit was soon remedied, however, but the human currents continued. The rap that brought
the court to order had a peremptory sound and after a mild prayer by an oldish clergyman, the bailiff , to
his usual chant of "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, this Honorable Circuit Court is now open pursuant to
adjournment," and his equally usual "Set down," now added in a surly tone, "This ain't no circus."
"Immediately the Judge began to read in a singsong voice his lengthy reasons for citing Darrow, the first
of them being that in his--the Judge's--person, a great and noble state had been insulted. Slowly he
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intoned the whole conversation that had occurred the preceding Friday between himself and Darrow.
The latter, he announced, was to appear before the court on Tuesday morning and meanwhile his bail
was fixed at $5,000. Some expressed their opinion of this absurd amount in a low, derisive ripple of
laughter, but returned quickly to a grim silence. Grim was the Judge too, and grim was Darrow. For
perhaps the first time the entire atmosphere became hostile; the bar enclosure had become two battle
camps when Hays rose to read the statements of Bible and Science experts. Stewart was at once on his
feet. "Is this court," he demanded, "to be turned into a Chautauqua, a Summer normal course?" Hays
insisted that he might persuade the court to reverse his opinion. "I will sit here," Raulston announced
naively enough, "and, of course, I will hear what's read and, of course, I never hesitate to reverse myself.
But I have already ruled on this matter."
Trial Moved to Lawn
Exciting as the morning session had been, however, the one in the afternoon was to be more so. Even as
we came out of the court room at twelve o'clock people who had been unable to get standing room in the
forenoon had eaten early lunches and were now pushing their way to seats. Others, seeing this, decided
to go dinnerless and promptly turned back to join those who, foreseeing, had come supplied with
sandwiches and thermos bottles. I found the hotel packed as never before, and although I went back
directly to hold our seats, the court house was already jammed. There must have been well over 1,000
people in the room. This time the Judge was convincing in his exhortations. "The floor may give way,"
he insisted. "The plaster is cracking downstairs. This floor was never intended to hold so many people.
I told you that yesterday. When we begin to argue we will go out on the lawn. You better get your seats
now." This warning was well timed. The crowd, that had been waiting so patiently for over an hour,
arose, and, annoyed and petulant, joined the jubilant incoming one; together they began surging and
pushing out of the door.
Darrow Apologizes to Judge
Darrow arose and made an apology, simple, complete and convincing The moment was obviously not
one in which to cloud the issue and no one realized this better than Darrow, ever the wise and cautious
general. Moreover, his flash of biting truth and his sarcasm, unpremeditated as they had been, had neatly
served their purpose. Now, with a master hand, he cleared the deck of trifles as he prepared for the
victory that was to be his, literally within the hour. The crowd wet out to him.
Majestic was his apology; amusing was the Judge's answer. Here was a man who had been rude and
was admitting it in plain language. To him His Honor replied with a long and touching sermon on the
beauty of forgiveness. Those of us who stayed to listen lost all hope of a decent seat out of doors, but we
counted the ten minutes of his harangue quite worth the ensuing discomfort.
Darrow Examines Bryan
Instead, Darrow put Bryan on the stand as a witness. In view of the trouncing he was to receive, there
was something pathetically humorous in Bryan's easy, almost gleeful acquiescence to the request. Even
so has many an unsuspecting child climbed into the dentist's chair to descend from it later sadder and
wiser. Not that Bryan realized fully at the time, even as Darrow's questioning quite what was being done
to him. The frequent and enthusiastic applause--not to mention fervent amens--from the Tennessee
portion of the audience acted as an anesthetic. Perhaps to a cynical eye one of the most deliciously
amusing spectacles of the whole Dayton drama was the delighted, purring expressions of the Judge as he
watched the duel which, in his abysmal ignorance, he, like the other Bryanites, believed their hero was
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winning.
A duel the meeting of those two men was, Darrow, the apostle of knowledge and tolerance, and Bryan,
the arch advocate of ignorance and bigotry, had engaged at last in single-handed combat. This was what
the crowd had been hoping for; for this it had patiently waited through long sweltering hours of technical
discussions. Now it gave a long sigh of delighted expectation. It was satisfied. And no wonder! Few
who witnessed that dramatic moment in the history of this country's thought ever will forget it. Even the
physical aspects of the scene carved themselves on one's memory.
Picture to yourself that vast throng. Imagine yourself to be a part of it. Before you the branches of two
great maples, intertwining, form a natural proscenium arch, and behind it, in the ring, the two antagonists
meet--Bryan, assured, pompous, his face half turned to the audience which, rather than the Judge, he
frankly addresses, and Darrow, standing a few feet away, his eyes on his opponent, his mind
concentrated on the task before him, vigilant, relentless.
So easily he began! Almost as if he were questioning a child. . . .
Scopes Trial Homepage
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Scopes Trial - Mencken's Reports - UMKC School of Law
H.L. Mencken's Account
"THE MONKEY TRIAL":
A Reporter's Account
July 9
On the eve of the great contest Dayton is full of sickening surges and tremors of doubt. Five or six weeks
ago, when the infidel Scopes was first laid by the heels, there was no uncertainty in all this smiling
valley. The town bloomers leaped to the assault as one man. Here was an unexampled, almost a
miraculous chance to get Dayton upon the front pages, to make it talked about, to put it upon the map.
But how now?
Today, with the curtain barely rung up and the worst buffooneries to come, it is obvious to even town
boomers that getting upon the map, like patriotism, is not enough. The getting there must be managed
discreetly, adroitly, with careful regard to psychological niceties. The boomers of Dayton, alas, had no
skill at such things, and the experts they called in were all quacks. The result now turns the communal
liver to water. Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke.
I have been attending the permanent town meeting that goes on in Robinson's drug store, trying to find
out what the town optimists have saved from the wreck. All I can find is a sort of mystical confidence
that God will somehow come to the rescue to reward His old and faithful partisans as they deserve--that
good will flow eventually out of what now seems to be heavily evil. More specifically, it is believed that
settlers will be attracted to the town as to some refuge from the atheism of the great urban Sodoms and
Gomorrah.
But will these refugees bring any money with them? Will they buy lots and build houses? Will they light
the fires of the cold and silent blast furnace down the railroad tracks? On these points, I regret to report,
optimism has to call in theology to aid it. Prayer can accomplish a lot. It can cure diabetes, find lost
pocketbooks and retain husbands from beating their wives. But is prayer made any more officious by
giving a circus first? Coming to this thought, Dayton begins to sweat.
The town, I confess, greatly surprised me. I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies
snoozing on the horse blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of hookworm and
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malaria. What I found was a country town of charm and even beauty....
July 10 (the first day)
The town boomers have banqueted Darrow as well as Bryan, but there is no mistaking which of the two
has the crowd, which means the venire of tried and true men. Bryan has been oozing around the country
since his first day here, addressing this organization and that, presenting the indubitable Word of God in
his caressing, ingratiating way, and so making unanimity doubly unanimous. From the defense yesterday
came hints that he was making hay before the sun had legally begun to shine--even that it was a sort of
contempt of court. But no Daytonian believes anything of the sort. What Bryan says doesn't seem to
these congenial Baptists and Methodists to be argument; it seems to be a mere graceful statement to the
obvious....
July 11
The selection of a jury to try Scopes, which went on all yesterday afternoon in the atmosphere of a blast
furnace, showed to what extreme lengths the salvation of the local primates has been pushed. It was
obvious after a few rounds that the jury would be unanimously hot for Genesis. The most that Mr.
Darrow could hope for was to sneak in a few bold enough to declare publicly that they would have to
hear the evidence against Scopes before condemning him. The slightest sign of anything further brought
forth a peremptory challenge from the State. Once a man was challenged without examination for simply
admitting that he did not belong formally to any church. Another time a panel man who confessed that he
was prejudiced against evolution got a hearty round of applause from the crowd....
In brief this is a strictly Christian community, and such is its notion of fairness, justice and due process of
law. Try to picture a town made up wholly of Dr. Crabbes and Dr. Kellys, and you will have a reasonably
accurate image of it. Its people are simply unable to imagine a man who rejects the literal authority of the
Bible. The most they can conjure up, straining until they are red in the face, is a man who is in error
about the meaning of this or that text. Thus one accused of heresy among them is like one accused of
boiling his grandmother to make soap in Maryland....
July 13 (the second day)
It would be hard to imagine a more moral town than Dayton. If it has any bootleggers, no visitor has
heard of them. Ten minutes after I arrived a leading citizen offered me a drink made up half of white
mule and half of coca cola, but he seems to have been simply indulging himself in a naughty gesture. No
fancy woman has been seen in the town since the end of the McKinley administration. There is no
gambling. There is no place to dance. The relatively wicked, when they would indulge themselves, go to
Robinson's drug store and debate theology....
July 14 (the third day)
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seems to be preciously the same as if he had
bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan. That is, locally, upon the process against the
infidel Scopes, upon the so-called minds of these fundamentalists of upland Tennessee. You have but a
dim notice of it who have only read it. It was not designed for reading, but for hearing. The clangtint of it
was as important as the logic. It rose like a wind and ended like a flourish of bugles. The very judge on
the bench, toward the end of it, began to look uneasy. But the morons in the audience, when it was over,
simply hissed it.
During the whole time of its delivery the old mountebank, Bryan, sat tight-lipped and unmoved. There is,
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of course, no reason why it should have shaken him. He has these hillbillies locked up in his pen and he
knows it. His brand is on them. He is at home among them. Since his earliest days, indeed, his chief
strength has been among the folk of remote hills and forlorn and lonely farms. Now with his political
aspirations all gone to pot, he turns to them for religious consolations. They understand his peculiar
imbecilities. His nonsense is their ideal of sense. When he deluges them with his theologic bilge they
rejoice like pilgrims disporting in the river Jordan....
July 15 (the fourth day)
A preacher of any sect that admit the literal authenticity of Genesis is free to gather a crowd at any time
and talk all he wants. More, he may engage in a disputation with any expert. I have heard at least a
hundred such discussions, and some of them have been very acrimonious. But the instant a speaker utters
a word against divine revelation he begin to disturb the peace and is liable to immediate arrest and
confinement in the calaboose beside the railroad tracks...
July 16 (the fifth day)
In view of the fact that everyone here looks for the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty, it might be
expected that the prosecution would show a considerable amiability and allow the defense a rather free
play. Instead, it is contesting every point very vigorously and taking every advantage of its greatly
superior familiarity with local procedure. There is, in fact, a considerable heat in the trial. Bryan and the
local lawyers for the State sit glaring at the defense all day and even the Attorney-General, A. T. Stewart,
who is supposed to have secret doubts about fundamentalism, has shown such pugnacity that it has
already brought him to forced apologies.
The high point of yesterday's proceedings was reached with the appearance of Dr. Maynard M. Metcalf
of the John Hopkins. The doctor is a somewhat chubby man of bland mien, and during the first part of his
testimony, with the jury present, the prosecution apparently viewed his with great equanimity. But the
instant he was asked a question bearing directly upon the case at bar there was a flurry in the Bryan pen
and Stewart was on his feet with protests. Another question followed, with more and hotter protests. The
judge then excluded the jury and the show began.
What ensued was, on the surface, a harmless enough dialogue between Dr. Metcalf and Darrow, but
underneath there was tense drama. At the first question Bryan came out from behind the State's table and
planted himself directly in front of Dr. Metcalf, and not ten feet away. The two McKenzies followed,
with young Sue Hicks at their heels.
Then began one of the clearest, most succinct and withal most eloquent presentations of the case for the
evolutionists that I have ever heard. The doctor was never at a loss for a word, and his ideas flowed
freely and smoothly. Darrow steered him magnificently. A word or two and he was howling down the
wind. Another and he hauled up to discharge a broadside. There was no cocksureness in him. Instead he
was rather cautious and deprecatory and sometimes he halted and confessed his ignorance. But what he
got over before he finished was a superb counterblast to the fundamentalist buncombe. The jury, at least,
in theory heard nothing of it, but it went whooping into the radio and it went banging into the face of
Bryan....
This old buzzard, having failed to raise the mob against its rulers, now prepares to raise it against its
teachers. He can never be the peasants' President, but there is still a chance to be the peasants' Pope. He
leads a new crusade, his bald head glistening, his face streaming with sweat, his chest heaving beneath
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his rumpled alpaca coat. One somehow pities him, despite his so palpable imbecilities. It is a tragedy,
indeed, to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon. But let no one, laughing at him, underestimate
the magic that lies in his black, malignant eye, his frayed but still eloquent voice. He can shake and
inflame these poor ignoramuses as no other man among us can shake and inflame them, and he is
desperately eager to order the charge.
In Tennessee he is drilling his army. The big battles, he believes, will be fought elsewhere.
July 17 (the sixth day)
Malone was in good voice. It was a great day for Ireland. And for the defense. For Malone not only
out-yelled Bryan, he also plainly out-generaled and out-argued him. His speech, indeed, was one of the
best presentations of the case against the fundamentalist rubbish that I have ever heard.
It was simple in structure, it was clear in reasoning, and at its high points it was overwhelmingly
eloquent. It was not long, but it covered the whole ground and it let off many a gaudy skyrocket, and so it
conquered even the fundamentalist. At its end they gave it a tremendous cheer--a cheer at least four times
as hearty as that given to Bryan. For these rustics delight in speechifying, and know when it is good. The
devil's logic cannot fetch them, but they are not above taking a voluptuous pleasure in his lascivious
phrases..
July 18
All that remains of the great cause of the State of Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is the formal
business of bumping off the defendant. There may be some legal jousting on Monday and some gaudy
oratory on Tuesday, but the main battle is over, with Genesis completely triumphant. Judge Raulston
finished the benign business yesterday morning by leaping with soft judicial hosannas into the arms of
the prosecution. The sole commentary of the sardonic Darrow consisted of bringing down a metaphorical
custard pie upon the occiput of the learned jurist.
"I hope," said the latter nervously, "that counsel intends no reflection upon this court."
Darrow hunched his shoulders and looked out of the window dreamily.
"Your honor," he said, "is, of course, entitled to hope."...
The Scopes trial, from the start, has been carried on in a manner exactly fitted to the anti- evolution law
and the simian imbecility under it. There hasn't been the slightest pretense to decorum. The rustic judge,
a candidate for re-election, has postured the yokels like a clown in a ten-cent side show, and almost every
word he has uttered has been an undisguised appeal to their prejudices and superstitions. The chief
prosecuting attorney, beginning like a competent lawyer and a man of self-respect, ended like a convert
at a Billy Sunday revival. It fell to him, finally, to make a clear and astounding statement of theory of
justice prevailing under fundamentalism. What he said, in brief, was that a man accused of infidelity had
no rights whatever under Tennessee law...
Darrow has lost this case. It was lost long before he came to Dayton. But it seems to me that he has
nevertheless performed a great public service by fighting it to a finish and in a perfectly serious way. Let
no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country
that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense
and devoid of conscience. Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts
converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock of by its sworn officers of the law.
There are other States that had better look to their arsenals before the Hun is at their gates.
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SCOPES TRIAL HOMEPAGE
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Scopes Trial - Biographies of Participants - UMKC School of Law
Biographies of Trial Participants
Author of the Anti-Evolution
Act
John Washington Butler
The Man Behind the Scopes
Trial
George Rappalyea
The Prosecuting Attorneys
William Jennings Bryan
The Defense Attorneys
Clarence Darrow
Ben G. McKenzie
Arthur Garfield Hays
A. Thomas Stewart
Dudley Field Malone
John Randolph Neal
The Defendant
John Scopes
A Student Witness
Howard Morgan
An Editorialist
H.L. Mencken
The Judge
Judge John T.
Raulston
Defense Experts
The Man Who Started It All
Charles Darwin
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Scopes Trial - Excerpts from Hunter's Civic Biology Text - UMKC School of Law
Hunter's Civic Biology
What the students in John Scopes' class read about evolution:
Excerpts from Hunter's Civic Biology (1914)
Page 192
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Next
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Dayton, Tenn. - UMKC School of Law - Famous Trials Project
Dayton, Tennessee
There were two Dayton, Tennessees in 1925. There was the prosperous and quiet town in the
Cumberland Mountains that was well-known to its 1,800 inhabitants. Then there was, for about two hot
weeks in July, the Dayton whose streets were transformed into a fair of lemonade and hotdog stands,
banners and monkey pennants, caged apes, hawkers of religious tracts and biology texts, Holy Rollers
and evangelists, and hundreds of members of the press.
Dayton was a town of beautiful homes, two banks, a hosiery mill, a canning factory, and a blast
furnace of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company. The most notable structure on a main street of brick
and wooden buildings and Model T Fords was the Hotel Aqua. Farmers in the surrounding fields of Rhea
County grew soybeans, wheat, tobacco, and strawberries.
The writer, H. L. Mencken, found Dayton to be a surprisingly pleasant community. He described a
town "full of charm and even some beauty." Homes were surrounded by pretty gardens, with green lawns
and stately trees. Mencken noted that Dayton's stores were well- stocked and had a "metropolitan air,
especially the drug, book, magazine, sporting goods, and soda-water emporium of the estimable
Robinson."
Dayton was, however, very much a Christian community, as attested to by its nine churches. Mencken
came to find the town suffocatingly moral. He complained that the town had no bootleggers, no
gambling, no place to dance, and that "no fancy women" had been seen in Dayton "since the McKinley
Administration." The "relatively wicked," according to Mencken, "when they would indulge themselves,
go to Robinson's drug store and debate theology." All this strictly Christian behavior left Mencken
longing for "a merry laugh, a burst of happy music, the gurgle of a decent jug."
Daytonians viewed the Scopes trial as an opportunity to put their town on the map. In preparation
for the trial and the arriving hordes, Dayton businessmen printed a pamphlet "Why Dayton - Of All
Places?," illustrated with pictures of the town's places of commerce. Townspeople apparently believed
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Dayton, Tenn. - UMKC School of Law - Famous Trials Project
that settlers would be attracted to Dayton, in Mencken's words, "as to some refuge from the atheism of
the great urban Sodom and Gomorrahs."
Despite their religiosity and economic motivation for the trial, the Darrows found the locals a
generally friendly lot. Mrs. Darrow observed that "the attitude of the townspeople toward us was
especially kindly despite the differences of our beliefs."
The Scopes trial took place in the Rhea County Courthouse, a large brick building with a belfry,
surrounded by a large yard and trees. The courthouse yard was filled with vendors, banners, and
preachers. As the trial commenced, the town "was literally drunk on religious excitement." There was
seating in the courthouse for 700, but 300 more standees crammed in to watch Dayton's most historic
event.
Link to Map of East Tennessee
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Scopes Trial - The Year 1925 - UMKC School of Law-- Images
Images from the Scopes Trial
Photos
Cartoons
Photos:
1. Scopes Trial principals re-enact the case's beginnings in Robinson's Drugstore
2. Scopes, Neal, and Rappalyea beneath "Read Your Bible" banner (Bryan
College Archives)
3. Malone, Stewart, Bryan, Raulston, and Darrow exchange courtroom greetings
(Bryan College Archives)
4. Judge Raulston standing with the Scopes jury
5. William Jennings Bryan (speech during trial)
6. William Jennings Bryan
7. Clarence Darrow (Bryan College Archives)
8. Darrow addressing the jury and courtroom spectators (Bryan College Archives)
9. Judge Raulston delivers a ruling
10. Darrow examines Bryan
11. A. Thomas Stewart
12. John Scopes
13. Anti-Evolution League stand in Dayton
14. William Jennings Bryan and fan
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Scopes Trial - The Year 1925 - UMKC School of Law-- Images
15. Drugstore owner Robinson with his family and chimp
16. William Jennings Bryan in a Dayton pulpit
17. Web author's photos of Rhea County Courthouse today
18. Prof. DeRosa's chimp poster
19. Dayton scene during trial
Cartoons:
1. Darrow and monkey (Detroit News), Darrow tells Bryan about Santa Claus
(Ward), Bryan the Crusader (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
2. Dayton playing it for all it's worth (Dallas News), Bryan as Quixote (Chicago
Tribune), Monkeys vote on evolution (Chicago Tribune)
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Scopes Trial - Images- How it Began
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Scopes Trial - Images
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial - Images - UMKC School of Law
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Scopes Trial-- Images
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IMAGES FROM THE scopes trial
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IMAGES FROM THE scopes trial
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Image of William Jennings Bryan from the Scopes Trial
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The Clarence Darrow Home Page
"Darrow" by
Edgar Lee
Masters
Darrow on
His
Childhood
Reflections
on a 61st
Birthday
Clarence Seward Darrow
(1857 - 1938)
On How to
Select a Jury
Scopes
"Monkey
Trial"
Leopold &
Loeb Trial
The Bill
Haywood
Trial
The Sweet
Trials
Images of
Darrow
References
& Links
Darrow
Who is Clarence Darrow?
by
Prof. Douglas Linder
How does one begin to explain this paradox, this
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/darrow.htm (1 of 2) [9/22/2002 4:28:07 PM]
The Clarence Darrow Home Page
Famous
Trials Page
sophisticated country laywer, this hedonistic defender of the
poor and downtrodden, this honest, devious man, Clarence
Seward Darrow?....
Send
Comments
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Scopes Trial - Appellate Court Decisions - UMKC School of Law
Appellate Court Decisions
Supreme Court of Tennessee (1927):
John Thomas Scopes v. The State, 154 Tenn. (1 Smith) 105, 289 S.W.
363
Reversed the judgment on technical grounds.
Supreme Court of the United States (1968):
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S.Ct. 266, 21 L.Ed.2d 228
Held unconstitutional statutes prohibiting the teaching of evolution as violative of the First Amendment.
Scopes Trial Homepage
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/appctdec.htm [9/22/2002 4:28:25 PM]
Scopes Monkey Trial Satire
Scopes Trial Satire: Satirical Reports Written by the
Staff of THE ONION and published in Our Dumb
Century (1999)
(Reprinted with the permission of The Onion)
.
Scopes Monkey Trial Raises Troubling Question:
IS SCIENCE BEING TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS?
SHOULD CHILDREN BE EXPOSED TO FACTS?
Are Reason and Empirical Evidence Suitable School Subjects?
Scopes Defended By Super-Intelligent
Chimpanzee- Man From Future.
.
Scopes Trial Homepage
Famous Trials Homepage
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Scopes Monkey Trial Satire
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The Year 1925
The Year 1925 - What else was
happening?
Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business"
T.S. Eliot wrote: "This is the way the world ends
not with a bang but a whimper"
"Dinah" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" were hit songs
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington made their first recordings
Lawrence Welk started a new band
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby
Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf
The first working television set was produced by Charles Jenkins
Rogers Hornsby won the triple crown in baseball
Nellie Ross, of Wyoming, became the nation's first female governor
"Rin Tin Tin" and "The Phantom of the Opera" opened at movie theaters
40,000 KKKers marched in Washington, D.C.
Flagpole sitting became a national fad
Earl Wise invented the potato chip
Scopes Trial Homepage
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Trial of the Century?
What is THE trial of the century?
A producer for NBC's today show called me this morning to say, "Thanks, but no thanks." The
Today Show will be running a segment next Tuesday in which two scholars will debate the question
"What is THE trial of the century?" (Yes, I agree that all these "blank-of-the-century"debates are
somewhat silly, but I'm willing to play along). I was one of two finalists for the honor of debating
Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard who will contend that the O.J. Simpson trial was the
century's greatest. I guess I never will meet Katie Couric.
But since NBC asked (and so has the Washington Post, the AP, the Fox News Channel, and
assorted AM talk show hosts), I've decided to tell you what really is the trial of the century.
First, a few serious contenders. The Hauptmann "Lindbergh Kidnapping" Trial was called at the
time "the greatest story since the Resurrection." It WAS a great story, involving the greatest hero
of our century, every parent's worst nightmare, and a first-rate whodunit complete with ransom
money passed in dark cemeteries and witnesses that could hardly be dreamt up in Hollywood. For
sustained day-to-day public attention, the Hauptmann Trial, covered by more reporters than
covered World War II, ranks number one. The Nuremberg Trials, however, were of far greater
significance (though not truly American trials, and so probably disqualified). So was the "Rodney
King Beating" Trial that led to massive riots and 58 deaths. More significant too were the
Scottsboro Trials of the 1930's that produced two landmark Supreme Court decisions, reshaped
race relations, and produced a terrific story of heroism in the person of Judge James Horton who
set aside the guilty verdict of black rape defendant Haywood Patterson knowing that it would
almost certainly end his career as an elected judge in Alabama.
But I was asked to pick only one trial: THE greatest trial of the twentieth century. That honor, of
course, must go to the "Monkey Trial" of 1925, which considered whether Tennessee could
prosecute John Scopes for teaching the theory of evolution in a public school science class. So why
is the Scopes trial, not the Simpson trial, THE trial of the century? Let me count five ways:
1. The Scopes Trial already has stood the test of time. Seventy-five years later it stands as the most
talked about trial of the first part of the twentieth century. How many people will give a hoot
about the OJ Trial in the year 2070?
2. The Scopes Trial brought together America's greatest defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, its
greatest political orator and a sort of Fundamentalist Pope, three-time presidential candidate
William Jennings Bryan, and its greatest and most acerbic journalist, H. L. Mencken....Johnnie
Cochran, Marcia Clark, Geraldo Rivera. Enough said.
3. The Scopes Trial produced what the New York Times called "the most amazing courtroom
scene in Anglo-American history," the calling of prosecutor William Jennings Bryan to the stand
by Clarence Darrow for examination on the question of whether every story in the Bible was
literally true. If that weren't strange enough, the examination took place in the courthouse lawn
before a crowd of thousands after the judge expressed concern that the courtroom floor might cave
in because of the weight of spectators....Yes, there were those gloves that didn't fit well.
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Trial of the Century?
4. The Scopes Trial inspired "Inherit the Wind," one of the greatest courtroom dramas ever
starring Spencer Tracy as Darrow, Fredric March as Bryan, and Gene Kelly as Mencken....And
the Simpson Trial inspired what?
5. The OJ Trial was a domestic murder, one of thousands that happen each year. The facts of the
case had nothing, really, to do with race. The main significance of the Simpson trial is as a lesson
for judges and prosecutors in how not to conduct a trial....The Scopes Trial, on the other hand,
was about ideas. It was about whether Science and Religion could be reconciled. It was a symbolic
struggle for America's culture between the forces of Traditionalism and the forces of Modernism.
It was about whether we look for guidance from, as Bryan said "the faith of our fathers," or from
our own intellects. The Scopes Trial was about what much of the twentieth century has been
about.
Tune in the Today Show on Tuesday and find out why I'm wrong.
--Doug Linder, January 28, 1999
TODAY SHOW FAMOUS TRIALS SURVEY
SCOPES TRIAL HOMEPAGE
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The Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Controversy
The Evolution Controversy
The issue: What restrictions does the First Amendment place on the ability of
states and school boards to restrict the teaching of evolution or encourage the
teaching of "creation science" in the public school classrooms?
Introduction
Cases
Epperson vs. Arkansas (1968)
Conflict between science and religion began well
before Charles Darwin published Origin of the
Edwards vs Aguillard (1987)
Species. The most famous early controversy was
the trial of Galileo in 1633 for publishing Dialogue, a
book that supported the Copernicun theory that the
earth revolved around the sun, rather than--as the
Bible suggests-- the other way around.
The so-called "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1925,
concerning enforcement of a Tennessee statute that
prohibited teaching the theory of evolution in public
school classrooms, was a fascinating courtroom
drama featuring Clarence Darrow dueling with
three-time presidential candidate William Jennings
Bryan. However entertaining the trial in Dayton,
Tennessee was, it did not resolve the question of
whether the First Amendment permitted states to
ban teaching of a theory that contradicted religious
beliefs. Not until 1968 did the Supreme Court rule in
Epperson vs. Arkansas that such bans contravene
the Establishment Clause because their primary
purpose is religious. The Court used the same
rationale in 1987 in Edwards vs Aguillard to strike
down a Louisiana law that required biology teachers
John Scopes, defendant in the celebrated 1925 trial
who taught the theory of evolution to also discuss
concerning the teaching of evolution.
evidence supporting the theory called "creation
science."
The controversy continues in new forms today. In
Other Materials
1999, for example, the Kansas Board of Education
Tennessee vs. Scopes (1927)
voted to remove evolution from the list of subjects
Genesis, Chapter 1
tested on state standardized tests, in effect
Tennessee's
Anti-Evolution Statute
encouraging local school boards to consider
Account of the Scopes Trial
dropping or de-emphasizing evolution. In 2000,
Scopes Trial Transcript
Kansas voters responded to the proposed change by
throwing out enough anti-evolution Board members
Biology Book Used by Scopes
to restore the old science standards. In 2002,
Images of the Scopes Trial
attention shifted to Ohio, which is presently
CNN.com Chat on Scopes Trial (7/12/2000)
considering changes in its science curriculum.
Nation
Article on the Kansas Controversy (1999)
Conflicts between science and religion will not end
N.Y. Times Article on Intelligent Design Theory (2001)
any time soon. In the future, legal conflicts between
Creationism in 2001: State by State Report
science and religion can be expected over theories
such as "The Big Bang," which also undermines
Notes on Intelligent Design in the Public Schools
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The Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Controversy
Fundamentalist beliefs about creation.
(2001)
Who's What?
A CREATIONIST: A creationist is a person who
rejects the theory of evolution and believes instead
that the each species on earth was put here by a
Divine Being. A Creationist might accept
"micro-evolution" (changes in the form of a species
over time based on natural selection), but rejects
the notion that one species can-- over time-become another species.
Prof's Prerogative
YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST: A young earth
1. To call evolution a "theory" says nothing about its
creationist believes that the earth is nowhere near
ability to accurately explain facts observed in the world.
the 4.6 billion or so years old that most scientists
The sun-centered solar system of Copernicus and
estimate, but is instead closer to 6,000 or so years
Galileo is a theory.
old, based on the assumption the Genesis contains
2. Evolution is the central theory of biology. It is a
a complete listing of the generations from Adam
powerful tool for explaining the presence of millions of
and Eve to historical times.
fossils and other evidence (such as the fact that over
INTELLIGENT DESIGN PROPONENT: An ID
98% of the DNA of chimpanzees and humans is
proponent rejects the theory of evolution and, more
identical) about the origin of life forms.
generally, the notion that natural law and chance
3. Evolution is not considered to be inconsistent with the
alone can explain the diversity of life on earth.
religious beliefs of most Christians or Jews. Most
Instead, the ID proponent argues--often from
mainline Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church,
statistics--that the diversity of life is the result of a
and many other religious faiths accept the teaching of
purposeful scheme of some higher power (who may
evolution.
or may not be the God of the Bible).
4. There is not a single first-rate biologist* in the United
States who does not believe that life on earth has
developed through the process of evolution, starting with EVOLUTIONIST: An evolutionist accepts the
Darwinian argument that natural selection and
single-cell organisms.
environmental factors combine to explain the
(*This seems to be a controversial assertion. As one
diversity of life we see on earth. An evolutionist
objective measure, consider the group of tenured
may or may not believe that evolution is the way in
members of the biology departments in the nation's fifty
which a Divine Being has chosen to work in the
top-rated universities. I do not mean, of course, to
world. Evolutionists divide into various camps,
suggest that all people who reject evolution are
including PUNCTUALISTS (who believe that
second-rate thinkers.)
5. There are disputes about evolution as there are about evolution usually occurs sporadically, in relatively
short bursts, as the result of major environmental
almost any theory. For example, most--but not
change) and GRADUALISTS (who are more inclined
all--biologists believe that evolution has not worked
to believe that evolution occurs more evenly, over
evenly throughout history: they believe that there have
longer periods of time). The PUNCTUALISTS seem
been periods of rapid evolutionary change followed by
now to be winning the argument.
long periods of relatively little evolutionary change.
6. It took over 200 years, but eventually the Catholic
Church accepted the scientific evidence that the earth
Questions
revolved around the sun. Eventually, most
Fundamentalists will come to accept the theory of
1. Is it consistent with the intentions of the framers to call
evolution as well--whether in 20 years or in 200 is hard to
every law that has the primary purpose of advancing
say. But it will happen. Facts are stubborn things.
religious beliefs a violation of the Establishment Clause?
2. Is it a violation of the Establishment Clause for a
biology teacher to discuss with her students the reasons
that she believes in "intelligent design theory" (the theory
that holds the universe was the product of the conscious
design of a Creator)?
3. Is it a violation of the Establishment Clause for a
biology teacher to tell his students "the story of creation in
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The Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Controversy
Genesis is hogwash and here's why"?
4. If a State Education Board decides to drop evolution
from the list of courses it requires to be taught in public
schools, does that decision violate the Establishment
Clause?
5. May a biology teacher be fired, on competence
grounds, either for teaching creation science or for not
teaching evolution?
6. Is the desire of state or school board officials to avoid
entanglement in a primarily religious controversy a
"secular purpose"?
7. May a school system allow Fundamentalists to opt out
of classes in which evolution is discussed? Would that be
a good solution to the controversy?
"The Darape"
Selected E-mail Messages
A student's pro-Creationist critique of this page
Critique of this page by a Creationist theologian
Creationist critique #3
E-mail messages from an eyewitness to the Scopes
trial
The man who started it all: Charles Darwin
Pro-Creationism Sites:
Center for Scientific Creation
Creation Science
Creation Research Society
Access Research Network
Discovery Institute
Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia
Answers in Genesis, Response to Sci Am's "15
Answers"
Sites Generally Supporting Evolutionary Theory:
Further Reading
The case for the theory of evolution is made most
compellingly in Science and Creationism (Ashley
Montagu, ed.)(1984 Oxford Press) which includes
essays by scientists such as Asimov, Hardin, Gould,
Marsden, Boulding, Stent, and others.
Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould devoted
considerable attention to the issue. His works are
voluminous. Some of the better reads include
Wonderful Life (1989), Bully for Brontosaurus (1991),
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995), and Ever Since Darwin
(1977).
BBC's Evolution Website
Scientific American, "15 Answers to Creationist
Nonsense"
Evolution Entrance (UC_Berkeley)
Darwin's Evidence for Evolution
Origin of Life
Introduction to Evolutionary Biology
Creation/Evolution Bibliography Database
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The Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Controversy
Creation "Science" Debunked
National Center for Science Education
Darwin's H. M.S. Beagle
Why does this debate go on and on?
Haiku
Did Darwin figure,
Examining finches' beaks,
There'd be a Kansas?
--Doug Linder, 2000
The theory of evolution undermines the view that we
as a a species have a special place in the universe. It
suggests that the universe is chance-filled. Those are
hard ideas for us to accept. Genesis is much more
comforting. Believing, as many people do, that every
word (or nearly every word) of the Bible is the literal
word of God gives those believers a great deal of
personal peace and joy.
Perhaps the state should not force exposure to the
theory of evolution to those students who view the
theory as too threatening. Perhaps. But at the same
time, the majority of students who do not subscribe
to a literalist interpretation of the Bible need to be
prepared for advanced study in biology, should they
choose to undertake it. They need to know about
evolution. Teachers should follow the facts wherever
they go.
Exploring Constitutional Conflicts Homepage
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Inherit the Wind & the Scopes Monkey Trial
Notes on Inherit the Wind
Playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote Inherit the Wind as a response to the
threat to intellectual freedom presented by the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era.
Lawrence and Lee used the Scopes Trial, then safely a generation in the past, as a vehicle for
exploring a climate of anxiety and anti-intellectualism that existed in 1950.
Inherit the Wind does not purport to be a historically accurate depiction of the Scopes trial. The
stage directions set the time as "Not long ago." Place names and names of trial participants have
been changed. Lawrence and Lee created several fictional characters, including a fundamentalist
preacher and his daughter, who in the play is the fiancé of John Scopes. Henry Drummond is less
cynical and biting than the Darrow of Dayton that the Drummond character was based upon.
Scopes, a relatively minor figure in the real drama at Dayton, becomes Bertram Cates, a central
figure in the play, who is arrested while teaching class, thrown in jail, burned in effigy, and taunted
by a fire-snorting preacher. William Jennings Bryan, Matthew Harrison Brady in the play, is
portrayed as an almost comical fanatic who dramatically dies of a heart attack while attempting to
deliver his summation in a chaotic courtroom. The townspeople of fictional Hillsboro are far more
frenzied, mean-spirited, and ignorant than were the real denizens of Dayton.
Nonetheless, Lawrence and Lee did draw heavily from the Scopes trial. A powerful Darrow
condemnation of anti-intellectualism, an exchange between Darrow and Judge Raulston that
earned Darrow a contempt citation, and portions of the Darrow examination of Bryan are lifted
nearly verbatim from the actual trial transcript.
Although Lawrence and Lee completed Inherit the Wind in 1950, the play did not open until
January 10, 1955. The Broadway cast included Paul Muni as Henry Drummond, Ed Begley as
Matthew Harrison Brady, and Tony Randall as E. K. Hornbeck (H. L. Mencken). The play
received rave reviews and was a box office success.
Nathan Douglas and Harold Smith wrote the play into a screen script in 1960. The Douglas and
Smith screenplay differs from the stage version in several respects, most notably perhaps in its
downplaying of some academic and theological points, and its playing up of the trial's circus
atmosphere.
A made-for-TV rewrite of the 1960 Stanley Kramer movie ran on NBC in 1988. In this Inherit
the Wind adaptation, Jason Robards played Darrow, Kirk Douglas played Bryan, and Darren
McGavin played Mencken. The TV rewrite departed in only minor respects from the plot of the
earlier Hollywood version.
Cast of Inherit the Wind (1960)
Produced by: United Artists Running Time: 127 Minutes Black and White Directed by: Stanley
Kramer
Spencer Tracy --Henry Drummond [Clarence Darrow], Fredric March-- Matthew Harrison Brady
[Wm. Jennings Brian] ,Gene Kelly-- E. K. Hornbeck [H. L. Mencken], Dick York-- Bertram T.
Cates [John Scopes], Henry Morgan --Judge [John Raulston] ,Florence Eldridge --Sara Brady
,Donna Anderson-- Rachel Brown, Claude Akins --Rev. Jeremiah Brown, Elliot Reed-Davenport, Phillip Coolidge-- Mayor, Paul Hartman --Meeker ,Jimmy Boyd-- Howard [Howard
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Inherit the Wind & the Scopes Monkey Trial
Morgan] ,Noah Beery, Jr . --Stebbins ,Ray Teal --Dunlap, Norman Fell --Radio Announcer, Hope
Summers-- Mrs. Krebs
Movie Reviews of Inherit the Wind
Jay Brown, Rating the Movies **** (of 4) "A fascinating slice of American history brought
brilliantly to the screen....Tracy and March are superb as Clarence Darrow and William Jennings
Bryan, respectively."
Bowtey Crowther, New York Times (10/12/1960) "Kramer has wonderfully accomplished not
only a graphic fleshing of his theme, but he also has got one of the most brilliant and engrossing
displays of acting ever witnessed on the screen.... When the two men come down to their final
showdown and the barrier of dogma is breached, it is a triumphant moment for human dignity--and
for Mr. Tracy and Mr. March."
Variety (7/6/60) "A rousing and fascinating motion picture. Virtually all the elements that make
for the broadest range of entertainment satisfaction--drama, comedy, romance, social significance,
even suspense--are amply present.... Pairing of Tracy and March was a masterstroke of casting....
If they aren't top contenders in the next Academy sweepstakes, then Oscar should be put in escrow
for another year."
Jay Nash and Stanley Ross, Motion Picture Guide ***** (of 5) "In their scenes together, Tracy
and March are nothing less than spellbinding, working off each other and holding their own--two
of the most forceful images to grace the screen.... Tracy never lost a scene to anyone except in this
film, where March uses every histrionic trick in his acting arsenal to bring the scene to his own
presence, his face, hands, and body contorting and moving with every measured line Tracy
uttered....The film contains some of the most witty, literate lines ever put on the screen."
Karl W. Weimer, Jr., Magill's Survey of Cinema "Inherit the Wind is infused with Kramer's liberal
sensibility.... The play, following closely on the heels of the McCarthy era, was very much an
allegory of its time, and this dimension is fully exploited by Kramer and his screenwriters. Indeed,
if the film can be faulted at all, it is on this level: The townspeople seems a trifle too bigoted, while
Drummond's (Darrow's) unrelenting altruism is equally suspect....Kelly, in one of his few straight
dramatic roles, brings just the right degree of cynical detachment to the pivotal role of E. K.
Hornbeck (H. L. Mencken) without once sacrificing the empathy of the audience."
Carol Inannone, "First Things" (WWW) "Inherit the Wind reveals a great deal about a mentality
that demands open-mindedness and excoriates dogmatism, only to advance its own certainties
more insistently.... A more historically accurate dramatization of the Scopes Trial might have been
far richer and more interesting--and might also have given its audiences a genuine dramatic
tragedy to watch. It would not have sent its audience home full of moral superiority and happy
thoughts about the march of progress."
Robert Harsh, "Exposing the Lie: Inherit the Wind" (WWW) "Christians, particularly William
Jennings Bryan, are consistently lampooned throughout, while the skeptics and agnostics are
consistently portrayed as intelligent, kindly, and even heroic. I simply cannot escape the
conclusion that the writers of the screen play never intended to write a historically accurate
account of the Scopes trial, nor did they seriously attempt to portray the principal characters and
their beliefs in an unbiased and accurate way."
John Leonard, New York Magazine (3/21/88) In liberal melodrama, we feel bad the morning after.
Thus, in Inherit the Wind, after freethinker Darrow humiliates fundamentalist Bryan, both turn on
the cynical Mencken: ‘Where will your loneliness lead you? No one will come to your funeral....'
For liberals, winning is guilty, gloating is indecent, and cynicism is un-American. This nostalgia
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Inherit the Wind & the Scopes Monkey Trial
for a consensus that never existed is one of the differences between, say, Arthur Miller and Henrik
Ibsen."
Link to More Information and Photos Concerning Inherit the Wind
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Impressions of the Scopes Trial by W. C. Curtis, Defense Expert
A Defense Expert's Impressions of the Scopes Trial
from D-Days at Dayton: Fundamentalism vs Evolution at Dayton, Tennessee
by W.C. Curtis (1956)
Note: Winterton C. Curtis, a zoologist at the University of Missouri, was one of the defense experts
brought to Dayton to testify. Although blocked from testifying by Judge Raulston's ruling that the expert
testimony would be irrelevant, Curtis said in his affidavit that evolution should be defined as the doctrine
of how things have changed in the past, and how they are changing in the present. Curtis claimed that
the doctrine of evolution could be divided into three categories: cosmic, geologic, and organic and that
evolution is a necessary instrument in the search for answers to important cosmological, geological, and
biological questions....In his autobiographical notes, Curtis reflected on the days he spent in Dayton for
the Scopes trial:
With my background of participations in the controversy it was natural that I should be called in 1925 as
one of the expert witnesses in the famous trial of John T. Scopes as a violator of the Tennessee law
prohibiting the teaching of Evolution. In response to a telegram from the American Civil Liberties
Union, I reached Dayton in time for my evening meal of Monday, July 13. The trial had opened the
preceding Friday, after which the court had adjourned for the weekend.
I was met at the station by one of my fellow scientists and driven through the town to the house where
we were to be quartered. The business section surrounding the courthouse was alive with people, natives
and visitors, and ablaze with banners or orthodoxy, such as: “Read Your Bible” –“Prepare to meet Thy
God” –“Repent or Be Damned.” Dayton was more like a town prepared for a Billy Sunday revival than
for a court trail. Above all, the town was overflowing with “Foreigners: come to see the show, every
room for rent was taken and vacant second floors of store buildings were filled with cots. I recall being
in one of these lofts occupied by newspapermen. A cold-water faucet over a sink at the back near the
outside stairs and a privy in the backyard were the only toilet facilities for the 25 or 30 reporters who
slept on the close-packed cots.
Quarters for the visiting scientists and for a few of the privileged newspapermen had been provided in a
large house at the edge of town that had been the home of a local magnate but had stood unoccupied for
years. Acting for the American Civil Liberties Union, Dr. George Rappleyea, the Datyon citizen who
had been most active in promoting the trial, had got the plumbing working again, had assembled
furniture, dishes, and linen, and had employed servants so that we were comfortably housed and fed,
even through the plumbing failed us more than once.
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Impressions of the Scopes Trial by W. C. Curtis, Defense Expert
After breakfast each morning we were driven to the courthouse; at noon we
returned for lunch at the “Mansion”, as we called it, and were driven again
to the town for the afternoon court. At night the lawyers dined with us and
we would sit about the table, after it was cleared, talking over the events of
the day and discussing the plans for the day following. It was here that I
got my close-ups of the lawyers for the defense.
Clarence Darrow was, of course, the “front” for our side; but it was evident
that Arthur Garfield Hayes was the manager. Dudley Field Malone
impressed me as more of a politician than a lawyer, although he made some
very effective speeches. John Randolph Neal, the Tennessee lawyer, was
evidently a man of caliber and principle. For the prosecution William
Jennings Bryan and his son were the only “foreign” lawyers in attendance.
Among the local defense lawyers I remember vividly one “General” Ben
McKenzie who professed love at first sight for Darrow, and whose words
“We have done crossed the Rubicon,” made newspaper headlines.
Here, there, and everywhere was the ubiquitous Dr. Rappleyea, who with
Scopes had initiated the test case at Dayton. He was a whole entertainment
committee in one man and seemed a very competent fellow, whether the
problem was one of meeting the press, finding one more sleeping room in
town, or getting the sewer working again at the “Mansion.” I’ve often
wondered what became of him and his charming young wife, who like to
ride horseback with her husband through the hills surrounding Dayton.
The judge John T. Raulston, seemed to enjoy himself tremendously as the
commanding figure in a trial which was attracting world-wide interest. His
deference to Mr. Bryan was obvious, and we felt that his decisions day by
day were too much in favor of the prosecution; but now 30 years later, as I read the stenographic record
of the trial, it seems to me that he was not so partial as we thought. He was acting according to his lights
as well as his prejudices. If it was for him the greatest responsibility of his legal career, who can blame
him for being pleased to have his photograph taken repeatedly. On one occasion, he stopped court until a
camera man who had fallen from a stepladder could get himself perched again for his shot.
John T. Scopes might well have seemed more than pleased with himself as the center, of attraction;
instead he was the acme of modesty. No man could have conducted himself better under the limelight.
He impressed us as modest and without conceit thought always ready to do his part. I thought of Scopes,
when, in 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh stopped from his plane at the airport of Paris, and, not realizing that
a crowd awaited him, introduced himself by saying, “I am Charles Lindbergh and I have flown the
Atlantic. John T. Scopes at Dayton was that kind of man.
Reporters were present in such numbers that I could well believe the statement they numbered more than
200 and that never before had there been so many reporters present at any trial. Notable among them
was H. L. Mencken, who had made himself so odious to the orthodox by his scathing criticisms of the
Fundamentalist Crusade and its Crusaders. As no seats were reserved for the expert witnesses we sat in
the press chairs. Many times I sat next to Mencken. He resisted my attempts at conversation, but I got
the flavor of the man from listening to his talk with other reporters.
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Impressions of the Scopes Trial by W. C. Curtis, Defense Expert
The courtroom audience impressed me as honest country folk in jeans and calico. “Boobs" perhaps, as
judged by Mencken, and holding all the prejudices of backwoods Christian orthodoxy, but nevertheless a
significant section of the backbone of democracy in the U.S.A. They came to see their idol “the Great
Commoner” and champion of the people meet the challenge to their faith. They left bewildered but with
their beliefs unchanged despite the manhandling of their idol by the “Infidel” from Chicago....
Scopes Trial Homepage
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