THE SCOPES "MONKEY" TRIAL AND THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Teaching Evolution

In January 1925 the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a law that forbade the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to public-school students in that state. Devout Christians considered Darwin's scientific conclusions on human origins "ungodly." Two months later several opponents of the law met in Robinson's Drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee. They were aware that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was prepared to fund an antievolution "test case," and the group agreed that John T. Scopes, the science teacher in the local high school, would deliberately defy the law in the near future. On 24 April Scopes gave a classroom lecture on Darwin's theory, he was arrested two weeks later.

The Last Great Heresy Trial

As promised, the ACLU assumed all of Scopes's legal costs, as well as furnishing him legal counsel. Initially, his primary attorneys were Arthur Garfield Hays and Dudley Field Ma-lone. At Malone's insistence the famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow, well known for his masterful courtroom presentations, was added to the defense team, and by late May state prosecutors had invited the equally renowned William Jennings Bryan, one of the most prominent national spokesmen for the antievolution movement, to assist them. By 1925 the political career of the "Great Commoner" was over. Bryan was still a formidable orator, but he had not actively practiced law since the late 1890s. Darrow described the pending contest in Dayton as the "last great heresy trial." By early July representatives from many national newspapers, including H. L. Mencken of the Baltimore Suny were on hand to observe the proceedings. Certainly Mencken and his associates relished the upcoming confrontation between Bryan and Darrow. Scopes had become a bystander at his own trial.

THE QUIET MR. SCOPES

During all the excitement surrounding the Scopes "Monkey" Trial in July 1925, public attention was focused on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. Little notice was taken of the defendant, John T. Scopes. The mild-mannered science teacher preferred it that way. Although he had been willing to be the defendant in a case that challenged the Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution, Scopes had not anticipated the huge amount of publicity his trial would generate.

Since graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1923, Scopes had been teaching physics and coaching the football team at Dayton High School in Tennessee. During the spring 1925 term, when he gave the lecture on evolution for which he was arrested, he was also substituting for the regular biology teacher, who was on a leave of absence. Local school officials never directly disciplined him for his lecture, and Scopes never claimed that they had in any manner violated his academic freedom. In fact, after the trial they offered to rehire him for the next academic year.

At the trial Scopes was surprised to discover that Bryan still remembered an incident that had taken place in 1919. While speaking at Scopes's highschool commencement in Salem, Illinois, the noted orator had badly mangled a phrase, and Scopes had snickered openly; Bryan had periodically glared at Scopes for the remainder of his address. As for Darrow, Scopes thought him quite personable when "off-stage." Following the trial Scopes decided to pursue graduate studies in geology at the University of Chicago. He was later employed as a field geologist for major corporations such as Standard Oil of New Jersey. Until his death in 1970 Scopes never managed to escape completely the notoriety he had achieved at the "Monkey" Trial.

Source:

John T. Scopes and James Presley, Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes (New York Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967).

INTERROGATING BRYAN

From the beginning of the "Monkey" Trial, John T. Scopes's lawyers hoped to get William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand as a "biblical expert." According to Scopes, Clarence Darrow arrived in Dayton, Tennessee, with a set of "loaded" questions to direct at the "Great Commoner." Darrow and his colleagues were both delighted and surprised when Bryan agreed to testify. During such exchanges as the following, Darrow was able to expose Bryan's intellectual shortcomings to the public:

Darrow: Do you claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?

Bryan: I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there.

Darrow: But when you read that Jonah swallowed the whale—or the whale swallowed Jonah—excuse me, please, how do you literally interpret it? You believe that God made such a fish, and that it was big enough to swallow old Jonah?

Bryan: Yes sir, I do!

Darrow: Perfectly easy to believe that Jonah could have swallowed the whale?

Bryan: If the Bible says so.

Source:

Charles Van Doren and Robert McHenry, eds., Webster's Guide to American History (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1971), p. 423.

A Contest of Legal Giants

The trial began on 10 July in the Rhea County Courthouse, with Judge John Ralston presiding. By all accounts he made a "gallant effort," at first, to preserve order "amidst all the buncombe." Because of the sweltering heat most participants discarded their suit jackets. Darrow openly displayed his suspenders, and Bryan incessantly waved a fan supplied by a local undertaker. All twelve male jurors resided in rural Rhea County. The two-week trial featured a series of impassioned exchanges between Bryan and Darrow. Eventually, Ralston made little effort to control the commotion from the spectators, who often disrupted the proceedings. Scopes never took the stand in his own defense. Doubtless, the strangest event of the trial occurred when Darrow summoned Bryan as a defense witness on the grounds he was a "biblical expert." To the dismay of state attorney general A. Thomas Stewart, Bryan accepted the challenge.

Bryan's Testimony

Most insiders, including Scopes, later stated that Darrow's gambit had been planned in advance. Contrary to popular belief Bryan held his own through much of the cross-examination, but in the end Darrow's subtle questions exposed Bryan's intellectual shortcomings. Many onlookers openly snickered at Bryan's befuddled answers to some of Darrow's queries.

A Guilty Verdict

On 21 July the jury found Scopes guilty, and the judge imposed the minimum fine of $100, which the ACLU promptly paid. Nonetheless, the publicity surrounding the trial contributed to public acceptance of Darwin's theory, as Darrow clearly won the case in the court of public opinion. Bryan, who had become the butt of media ridicule, died of a heart attack five days later. The antievolution statute remained on the books in Tennessee, unenforced, until the 1970s.

Sources:

Ray Ginger, Six Days or Forever? Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (Boston: Beacon, 1958);

John T. Scopes and James Presley, Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T Scopes (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967).