John T. Scopes volunteered to test the law. |
On May 25, 1925 John T. Scopes, a high
school biology teacher in Dayton,
Tennessee was indicted on charges of
violating the state’s Butler Act which
made it a crime to teach that humans
descend from apes or other “lower forms,” a key element in the theory of
evolution. Scopes had been recruited
by the American Civil Liberties Union to
allow himself to be used as a test case for the recently enacted law. He was arrested and charged on May 5 for
teaching from a state approved text book
with a chart illustrating “the
descent of Man” on April 7. Scopes was
released on bail of $100 paid for by
the publisher of the Baltimore Sun.
At
his request some of his own students testified against him in front of the Grand Jury which returned
the indictment.
Things got out of hand when local
attorneys Herbert E. and Sue K. Hicks, brothers
friendly to Scopes, were replaced
as lead prosecutors by the politically ambitious Tom Stewart who would ride his role in the case all the way
to the U. S. Senate. Still not satisfied, William Bell Riley, the founder
and President of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, the leading voice
of the still fledgling Fundamentalist
movement, recruited three time Presidential
nominee William Jennings Bryan to join the team. That insured,
as Scopes himself later acknowledged, that the controversy could never be
contained “within the
bounds of constitutionality.”
Brian was a
leading Democratic Party liberal who
had most recently served as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State
before resigning in protest to
Wilson’s increasing moves to enter the First
World War. But the Great Commoner was also intensely religious and a known believer in the “inerrancy of the Bible.” He was also a very rusty lawyer, having not
tried a case in 36 years.
Once political allies in the Democratic Party, the confrontation between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan riveted the nation. |
John R. Neal, a law school
professor from Knoxville was nominally the lead for the defense, but
was upstaged when Clarence Darrow, the nation’s most famous trial lawyer and most notorious Freethinker volunteered his
services. ACLU attorney Arthur
Garfield Hays and New York society divorce lawyer Dudley Field Malone rounded out the defense team.
When Darrow
arrived he pushed aside the original
ACLU plan to attack the case as a violation
of teacher’s individual free speech rights and academic freedom and was therefore unconstitutional. Darrow
preferred to try to show that there was no
conflict between the Bible and
the theory of evolution. He planned a
defense that relied on expert testimony
by both scientists and non-fundamentalist religious scholars.
By the time the
trial was underway on July 10, Dayton had become a three ring circus of Evangelical
tent crusades, book peddlers, advocates on both sides, and a press frenzy led by H. L. Menken, the acid penned columnist for the Baltimore
Sun, which was underwriting the defense.
Menken dubbed the case the Monkey
Trial. There were also newsreel
cameras and the microphone of WGN Radio from Chicago inside the courtroom,
making it the most documented court
case in history.
After two hours
of questioning in an open air session
on the court house lawn—moved there
because of crowding and oppressive heat in the courtroom—Judge
Raulston refused to allow it to continue
the next day and then ruled the
whole thing inadmissible and expunged from the record. Darrow asked that the jury be called in because the judge’s
conduct of the trial made it a waste
of time to conduct a defense.
He expected a guilty verdict, but rested his case after telling the jury:
We came down here to offer evidence in
this case and the court has held under the law that the evidence we had is not
admissible, so all we can do is to take an exception and carry it to a higher
court to see whether the evidence is admissible or not. . . . we cannot even
explain to you that we think you should return a verdict of not guilty. We do
not see how you could. We do not ask it.
On July 21,
1925 it took the jury 9 minutes to
reach a guilty verdict. Judge Raulston imposed a $100 fine before
even allowing Scopes to speak. Upon
objection he let Scopes have his only say of the trial, “…I have been convicted
of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the
past, to oppose this law in any way I can…”
It was generally believed that despite the outcome, Darrow and the Theory of Evolution won the case in the
court of public opinion. Dayton and the Bible Belt were widely
mocked. Exhausted and demoralized
the Bryan died of a heart attack in
Dayton at the age of 65 just five days after the trial ended.
The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scope’s conviction on a technicality and did not rule on the
Butler Law’s Constitutionality. The ACLU
was unable to find another teacher willing to be a test case and the law remained on the books until the
1970s.
Frightened publishers stripped evolution from almost
all text books issued for the next
ten years. Evolution was only slowly
re-introduced. By the 1950’s, however,
the tide had turned and evolution was
back almost unchallenged, even where local laws forbad it, across the
country.
After seeing productions of the still
popular play Inherit the Wind or
catching the wonderful movie version
starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March one might conclude that the victory of the Theory of Evolution was complete. And indeed, for decades it seemed so. Educated
people accepted it in general terms
even if they were fuzzy on the details. It was not only taught in schools, it was the
foundation of much science and all biology instruction. By in large it was uncontroversial.
Of course a religious minority refused
to accept it, but for the most part did not attempt again to remove instruction about it from schools
or at most conducted a futile, low grade guerilla campaign against it.
But with the rise of the religious right to real political power
through the Republican Party in some
states, anti-evolution has come roaring
back with a vengeance, sometimes under
the guise of something called intelligent
design and sometime by advancing the
reasonable sounding argument that public schools should offer students the
opportunity to examine “all theories” of
the origin of life and humanity
side-by-side. They do this by twisting the meaning of the word theory beyond
all scientific understanding.
Texas, which because of the large number of texts sold in that
state which much conform to a curriculum approved by the state Board of Education influences text
books sold throughout the nation, has eliminated most references to
evolution. Kansas and other states have passed draconian laws about what can and cannot be taught about it. Out of fear
of controversy, school districts across the country quietly remove it or down
play it.
The Creation museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living side by side. A full scale replica of Noah's Arc just opened and another anti-science tourist attraction. |
Meanwhile tourists flock to a Tennessee
theme park that depicts dinosaurs and
cavemen living side by side. Surveys show that close to half of all adults
now reject Darwinian evolutionary
theory. Scientists fret that a dark age of ignorance and superstition
may be descending on the nation and even some thinking conservatives worry—very quietly—about how modern business dependent on science and technology can thrive when science itself is denied and even vilified.
On a final
personal note, back in 1967 I played Mathew
Harrison Brady, the character based
on Bryan, in a production of Inherit the
Wind at Niles West High School
in the Chicago suburbs. It is doubtful that few public schools in
America would dare present that play
today.
No comments:
Post a Comment