Mr. Scopes, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Darrow, Mr. Darwin, and the monkey

 It certainly is most absurd, the fact can never be!
 My great granddaddy never was, a monkey up a tree!

                        Grace Carleton,  "Too Thin, or, Darwin's Little Joke"

As America emerged from World War I, a collective nostalgia swept the country for the relative simplicity and "normalcy" of prewar society . In rural areas, particularly in the South and Midwest, Americans turned to their faith for comfort and stability, and fundamentalist religion soared in popularity.

Fundamentalists, who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible, locked into Darwin and the theory of evolution as "the most present threat to the truth they were sure they alone possessed".

With evolution as the enemy, they set out to eradicate it from their society, beginning with the education system.

By 1925, states across the South had passed laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the classroom. Oklahoma, Florida and Mississippi had such laws, and narrow margins determined those in North Carolina and Kentucky. In Tennessee the Butler Law passed in early 1925, for although the governor was not a fundamentalist, many of his constituents were. As he said, "Nobody believes that it is going to be an active statute".

No one that is, but the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, which was becoming increasingly more wary of what they saw as an infringement on their constitutional rights. With an eye on Tennessee, the ACLU set out to initiate a court case to test the constitutionality of the Butler Law.

On May 5, 1925, high school science teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in one of Tennessee's public schools. Scopes had agreed to act as defendant in a case intended to test Tennessee's new law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in its public schools.

On May 4, the day before Scopes's arrest, the Chattanooga Times had run an ad in which the American Civil Liberties Union offered to pay the legal fees of a Tennessee teacher who was willing to act as a defendant in a test case. Several Dayton residents hatched a plot at a local drugstore. They hoped that a trial of this type would bring much needed publicity to the tiny town of Dayton.

The men enlisted several local attorneys and one easy-going teacher who believed in academic freedom and in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution which states that all organisms developed from earlier forms through a process of natural selection. While volumes of scientific evidence support the theory of evolution, many felt that it contradicted the story of creation as described in the Bible and thus did not want evolution taught in schools.

The trial pitted famous labor and criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow against former senator and secretary of state William Jennings Bryan, who worked for the prosecution.

The trial was such a media circus that, on the seventh day in the courtroom, the judge felt compelled to move the proceedings outdoors under a tent due to the unbearable heat and for fear that the weight of all the spectators and reporters would cause the floor to cave in.

As Judge John T. Raulston incrementally disallowed the use of the trial as a forum on the merits or validity of Darwin's theory, the trial swiftly drew to a close. The jury took only nine minutes to return a verdict of guilty. After all, Scopes had admitted all along that he had, in fact, taught evolution. As the trial came to a close, reporter and critic H.L. Mencken explained to readers of the Baltimore Sun and the American Mercury:

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.

When the defense appealed the verdict, the Tennessee State Supreme Court acquitted Scopes on a technicality but upheld the constitutionality of the state law.

Not until 1967 did Tennessee lawmakers overturn the law, finally allowing teachers to teach evolution. The trial did bring Dayton, Tennessee a great deal of publicity, mostly comprised of reinforcements of a stereotype of the south as an intellectual backwater, certainly not the type Daytonians had hoped to attract.

Judge John T. Raulston, the judge in the Scopes trial, was "a popular local attorney of no special competence." Although his rulings more often favored the prosecution and his deference to Bryan was especially obvious, Raulston was credited with "acting according to his lights as well as his prejudices." The attention that came with the Scopes trial pleased Raulston, and he seemed to have a near obsession with having his picture taken.

Raulston was a deeply religious man. During the trial he quoted scripture. It was also his practice to open proceedings with a prayer whenever a clergyman was present.

William Jennings Bryan, as a young man, "looked into evolution," and finding it wanting, "resolved to have nothing to do with it." But he would have a lot to do with it. Bryan became the nation's most prominent figure in the fundamentalist crusade against the theory of evolution. In Chautauqua addresses and published writing, Bryan attacked what he called "ape-ism."

Geological evidence tending to support the theory was often dismissed by Bryan with the remark, "The Rock of Ages is more important than the age of rocks." Bryan offered $100 in cash to anyone who signed an affidavit declaring that he personally was descended from an ape.

Bryan, the Great Commoner, arrived in Dayton amid considerable celebration. The three-time loser on the Democratic presidential ticket remained popular in the rural south, and a banquet was held in his honor. John Scopes described Bryan as "sympathetic, kind and understanding," and noted that Bryan made a point of seeing him to exchange pleasantries.

It was Darrow's examination of Bryan that provided the most dramatic highpoint of the Scopes Trial. According to one writer, "As a man and a legend, Bryan was destroyed by his testimony that day." The press saw him as a "pitiable punch-drunk warrior" who was clearly no intellectual match for Darrow. Five days after the trial, Bryan died in his sleep.

H. L. Mencken said of Bryan, "One quality in Bryan's character was dominant...his native simplicity. He was probably the least sophisticated of American public men. He saw life as uncomplicated, for he ignored its complications. Anything that was not clear to him he treated as untrue."

Clarence Darrow, the son of an Ohio furniture maker, was at the time of the Scopes trial America's most famous defense lawyer. Darrow was "a sophisticated attorney with the mannerisms of a country lawyer." His jury arguments show Darrow to be well-read in the fields of literature, poetry, psychology, and philosophy. His speeches and writings show him to have been an iconoclast and gadfly of the first order. His clients, after giving up at age 37 a corporate practice for the Chicago and North Western Railway, included murderers, communists, socialists, and anarchists.

John Scopes was the only client that Darrow ever volunteered to represent - doing so at no charge.

Around Dayton, Darrow was known as "the infidel." Although banqueted and treated with respect by most Daytonians, H. L. Mencken reported "there is ample space around him when he negotiates the streets. The other day a newspaper woman was warned by her landlady to keep out of the courtroom when he was on his legs. All the local sorcerers predict that a bolt from heaven will fetch him in the end."

John Scopes was the Rhea County science teacher and athletic coach who willingly became a defendant in the trial. Scopes had accepted his first teaching position in Dayton after graduating in 1924 from the University of Kentucky, where he was taught evolution.

Scopes was only twenty-four at the time of the trial. He had boyish looks, reddish hair, and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was described as modest, friendly, helpful and shy. He never testified in the trial, as it was conceded that he had taught the theory of evolution in his general science class. His only courtroom statement was made at the time of sentencing.

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England in 1809. His father was a physician, but Charles' interest inclined to natural history. Upon graduating from Cambridge in 1831, Darwin was recommended for a scientific expedition to study geology and biology in the Pacific and South America.

While on a stopover in the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observed different species of finches habituated different islands. This observation led him to suppose the finches were adapting to their distinct environments. Darwin collected samples of different species and concluded that each descended, or evolved, from a pre-existing animal with slight variations in size, color, or anatomy. Natural selection is the name that he chose to give to this process.

In 1856, Darwin began work on his famous Origin of Species, which represented a refinement of his earlier thinking on the subject of evolution. After publication of Origin of Species, Darwin continued to write and research in the fields of botany, geology, and biology. Darwin died 43 years before the Scopes trial.

Examination of W.J. Bryan by Clarence Darrow, of counsel for the defense:

Q--You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?
A--Yes, sir, I have tried to.
Q--Then you have made a general study of it?
A--Yes, I have; I have studied the Bible for about fifty years, or sometime more than that, but, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was but a boy.
Q--You claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?
A--I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there: some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: "Ye are the salt of the earth." I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people.
Q--But when you read that Jonah swallowed the whale--or that the whale swallowed Jonah-- excuse me please--how do you literally interpret that?
A--When I read that a big fish swallowed Jonah--it does not say whale....That is my recollection of it. A big fish, and I believe it, and I believe in a God who can make a whale and can make a man and make both what He pleases.
Q--Now, you say, the big fish swallowed Jonah, and he there remained how long--three days-- and then he spewed him upon the land. You believe that the big fish was made to swallow Jonah?
A--I am not prepared to say that; the Bible merely says it was done.
Q--You don't know whether it was the ordinary run of fish, or made for that purpose?
A--You may guess; you evolutionists guess.....
Q--You are not prepared to say whether that fish was made especially to swallow a man or not?
A--The Bible doesn't say, so I am not prepared to say.
Q--But do you believe He made them--that He made such a fish and that it was big enough to swallow Jonah?
A--Yes, sir. Let me add: One miracle is just as easy to believe as another
Q--Just as hard?
A--It is hard to believe for you, but easy for me. A miracle is a thing performed beyond what man can perform. When you get within the realm of miracles; and it is just as easy to believe the miracle of Jonah as any other miracle in the Bible.
Q--Perfectly easy to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale?
A--If the Bible said so; the Bible doesn't make as extreme statements as evolutionists do....
Q--The Bible says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still for the purpose of lengthening the day, doesn't it, and you believe it?
A--I do.
Q--Do you believe at that time the entire sun went around the earth?
A--No, I believe that the earth goes around the sun.
Q--Do you believe that the men who wrote it thought that the day could be lengthened or that the sun could be stopped?
A--I don't know what they thought.
Q--You don't know?
A--I think they wrote the fact without expressing their own thoughts.
Q--Have you an opinion as to whether or not the men who wrote that thought
Gen. Stewart--I want to object, your honor; it has gone beyond the pale of any issue that could possibly be injected into this lawsuit, expect by imagination. I do not think the defendant has a right to conduct the examination any further and I ask your honor to exclude it.
The Witness--It seems to me it would be too exacting to confine the defense to the facts; if they are not allowed to get away from the facts, what have they to deal with?
The Court--Mr. Bryan is willing to be examined. Go ahead.
Mr. Darrow--I read that years ago. Can you answer my question directly? If the day was lengthened by stopping either the earth or the sun, it must have been the earth?
A--Well, I should say so.
Q-- Now, Mr. Bryan, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the earth if it had stood still?
A--No.
Q--You have not?
A-- No; the God I believe in could have taken care of that, Mr. Darrow.
Q-- I see. Have you ever pondered what would naturally happen to the earth if it stood still suddenly?
A-- No.
Q--Don't you know it would have been converted into molten mass of matter?
A--You testify to that when you get on the stand, I will give you a chance.
Q--Don't you believe it?
A--I would want to hear expert testimony on that.
Q--You have never investigated that subject?
A--I don't think I have ever had the question asked.
Q--Or ever thought of it?
A--I have been too busy on thinks that I thought were of more importance than that.
Q--You believe the story of the flood to be a literal interpretation?
A--Yes, sir.
Q--When was that Flood?
A--I would not attempt to fix the date. The date is fixed, as suggested this morning.
Q--About 4004 B.C.?
A--That has been the estimate of a man that is accepted today. I would not say it is accurate.
Q--That estimate is printed in the Bible?
A--Everybody knows, at least, I think most of the people know, that was the estimate given.
Q--But what do you think that the Bible, itself says? Don't you know how it was arrived at?
A--I never made a calculation.
Q--A calculation from what?
A--I could not say.
Q--From the generations of man?
A--I would not want to say that.
Q--What do you think?
A--I do not think about things I don't think about.
Q--Do you think about things you do think about?
A--Well, sometimes.
(Laughter in the courtyard.)
Policeman--Let us have order....
Stewart--Your honor, he is perfectly able to take care of this, but we are attaining no evidence. This is not competent evidence.
Witness--These gentlemen have not had much chance--they did not come here to try this case. They came here to try revealed religion. I am here to defend it and they can ask me any question they please.
The Court--All right.
(Applause from the court yard.)
Darrow--Great applause from the bleachers.
Witness--From those whom you call "Yokels."
Darrow--I have never called them yokels.
Witness--That is the ignorance of Tennessee, the bigotry.
Darrow--You mean who are applauding you? (Applause.)
Witness--Those are the people whom you insult.
Darrow--You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does believe in your fool religion.
The Court--I will not stand for that.
Darrow--For what he is doing?
The Court--I am talking to both of you....
Q--Wait until you get to me. Do you know anything about how many people there were in Egypt 3,500 years ago, or how many people there were in China 5,000 years ago?
A--No.
Q--Have you ever tried to find out?
A--No, sir. You are the first man I ever heard of who has been in interested in it. (Laughter.)
Q--Mr. Bryan, am I the first man you ever heard of who has been interested in the age of human societies and primitive man?
A--You are the first man I ever heard speak of the number of people at those different periods.
Q--Where have you lived all your life?
A--Not near you. (Laughter and applause.)
Q--Nor near anybody of learning?
A--Oh, don't assume you know it all.
Q--Do you know there are thousands of books in our libraries on all those subjects I have been asking you about?
A--I couldn't say, but I will take your word for it....
Q--Have you any idea how old the earth is?
A--No.
Q--The Book you have introduced in evidence tells you, doesn't it?
A--I don't think it does, Mr. Darrow.
Q--Let's see whether it does; is this the one?
A--That is the one, I think.
Q--It says B.C. 4004?
A--That is Bishop Usher's calculation.
Q--That is printed in the Bible you introduced?
A--Yes, sir....
Q--Would you say that the earth was only 4,000 years old?
A--Oh, no; I think it is much older than that.
Q--How much?
A--I couldn't say.
Q--Do you say whether the Bible itself says it is older than that?
A--I don't think it is older or not.
Q--Do you think the earth was made in six days?
A--Not six days of twenty-four hours.
Q--Doesn't it say so?
A--No, sir....
The Court--Are you about through, Mr. Darrow?
Darrow--I want to ask a few more questions about the creation.
The Court--I know. We are going to adjourn when Mr. Bryan comes off the stand for the day. Be very brief, Mr. Darrow. Of course, I believe I will make myself clearer. Of course, it is incompetent testimony before the
jury. The only reason I am allowing this to go in at all is that they may have it in the appellate court as showing what the affidavit would be.
Bryan--The reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever, can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him.
Darrow--I want to take an exception to this conduct of this witness. He may be very popular down here in the hills....
Bryan--Your honor, they have not asked a question legally and the only reason they have asked any question is for the purpose, as the question about Jonah was asked, for a chance to give this agnostic an opportunity to criticize a believer in the world of God; and I answered the question in order to shut his mouth so that he cannot go out and tell his atheistic friends that I would not answer his questions. That is the only reason, no more reason in the world.
Malone--Your honor on this very subject, I would like to say that I would have asked Mr. Bryan--and I consider myself as good a Christian as he is--every question that Mr. Darrow has asked him for the purpose of bring out whether or not there is to be taken in this court a literal interpretation of the Bible, or whether, obviously, as these questions indicate, if a general and literal construction cannot be put upon the parts of the Bible which have been covered by Mr. Darrow's questions. I hope for the last time no further attempt will be made by counsel on the other side of the case, or Mr. Bryan, to say the defense is concerned at all with Mr. Darrow's particular religious views or lack of religious views. We are here as lawyers with the same right to our views. I have the same right to mine as a Christian as Mr. Bryan has to his, and we do not intend to have this case charged by Mr. Darrow's agnosticism or Mr. Bryan's brand of Christianity. (A great applause.)
Mr. Darrow:
Q--Mr. Bryan, do you believe that the first woman was Eve?
A--Yes.
Q--Do you believe she was literally made out of Adams's rib?
A--I do.
Q--Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?
A--No, sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.
Q--You have never found out?
A--I have never tried to find
Q--You have never tried to find?
A--No.
Q--The Bible says he got one, doesn't it? Were there other people on the earth at that time?
A--I cannot say.
Q--You cannot say. Did that ever enter your consideration?
A--Never bothered me.
Q--There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife.
A--That is what the Bible says.
Q--Where she came from you do not know. All right. Does the statement, "The morning and the evening were the first day," and "The morning and the evening were the second day," mean anything to you?
A-- I do not think it necessarily means a twenty-four-hour day.
Q--You do not?
A--No.
Q--What do you consider it to be?
A--I have not attempted to explain it. If you will take the second chapter--let me have the book. (Examining Bible.) The fourth verse of the second chapter says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," the word "day" there in the very next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is any necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning," as meaning necessarily a twenty-four-hour day, "in the day when the Lord made the heaven and the earth."
Q--Then, when the Bible said, for instance, "and God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day," that does not necessarily mean twenty-four hours?
A--I do not think it necessarily does.
Q--Do you think it does or does not?
A--I know a great many think so.
Q--What do you think?
A--I do not think it does.
Q--You think those were not literal days?
A--I do not think they were twenty-four-hour days.
Q--What do you think about it?
A--That is my opinion--I do not know that my opinion is better on that subject than those who think it does.
Q--You do not think that ?
A--No. But I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6,000,000 years or in 600,000,000 years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other.
Q--Do you think those were literal days?
A--My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue as against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.
Q--I will read it to you from the Bible: "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Do you think that is why the serpent is compelled to crawl upon its belly?
A--I believe that.
Q--Have you any idea how the snake went before that time?
A--No, sir.
Q--Do you know whether he walked on his tail or not?
A--No, sir. I have no way to know. (Laughter in audience).
Q--Now, you refer to the cloud that was put in heaven after the flood, the rainbow. Do you believe in that?
A--Read it.
Q--All right, Mr. Bryan, I will read it for you.
Bryan--Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world, 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--(Continuing) to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.
Darrow--I object to your statement. I am exempting you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.
The Court--Court is adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

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.
"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."

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

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 participation's 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 Dayton 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.

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.

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....

"Too Thin, Or, Darwin's Little Joke. A humorous Song."

Words by Grace Carleton. Music by O'Rangoutang.  Published by Wm. A Pond & Co., New York.

H.L.Mencken's Account  of   "THE MONKEY TRIAL":

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 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, 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 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.