Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. We are coming up on the ninety
Speaker 1: five anniversary of the verdict in State of Tessee versus
Speaker 1: John Thomas Scopes, also just the Scopes Monkey Trial, so
Speaker 1: that seemed like a good time to share our previous
Speaker 1: episode on the trial, which originally came out on. One
Speaker 1: correction that we got after this episode originally aired is
Speaker 1: that the drug store owner and school board president who
Speaker 1: played a big role in all of this was Frank E. Robinson.
Speaker 1: We incorrectly said his name was Fred. That is an
Speaker 1: error that appeared in one of the books Tracy used
Speaker 1: for research, Edward Larsen's book Summer of the Gods, and
Speaker 1: it's been reproduced as well in a lot of other places.
Speaker 1: So thanks to listener Kay for writing to us about
Speaker 1: that way back in the day so we can fix
Speaker 1: it here at least in the intro. Yeah, Okay was
Speaker 1: actually the person that that pointed out that that seems
Speaker 1: to be the origin of that particular widely reproduced error. Oh.
Speaker 1: We also mentioned at the end of this episode and
Speaker 1: any well, Scopes festival organizers had been planning to do
Speaker 1: a modified festival this year, focusing just on the outdoor
Speaker 1: events and in including social distancing, but ultimately they have
Speaker 1: had to cancel due to the ongoing COVID nineteen pandemic.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the Scopes Trial also known
Speaker 1: as the Monkey Trial, so known as the Scopes Monkey Trial,
Speaker 1: which played out in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of
Speaker 1: I learned last night from a dear friend of mine
Speaker 1: who grew up in Tennessee that they cover this in
Speaker 1: Tennessee History Class. Cool. So if you grew up in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: or maybe if you've studied law, you might already know
Speaker 1: a lot of these details. But a lot of what
Speaker 1: most folk know in quotation marks about this trial really
Speaker 1: comes from Inherit the Wind, which started as a play
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five and was adapted into a film
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. And even if you have never personally
Speaker 1: seen Inherit the Wind, which was conceived more as an
Speaker 1: allegory for McCarthy ism than an actual portrayal of the
Speaker 1: Scopes Trial, it does not even use the same names
Speaker 1: or location. A lot of conventional wisdom about the trial
Speaker 1: and its personalities and how it played out really have
Speaker 1: much deeper roots in inherent the wind than in actual history.
Speaker 1: I won't out them by name, but I have a
Speaker 1: friend who I mentioned yesterday that we're doing this, and
Speaker 1: their reaction was, wait, is that one about slavery? It's like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: it's super nice. So there's no shame in having you know,
Speaker 1: blind spots in your historical knowledge. Tickled me. And it's
Speaker 1: a very smart person. But we all have them, those
Speaker 1: weird blind spots. Uh and true. So will now clear
Speaker 1: it up, and that person will know all the things
Speaker 1: about about slavery at all. No. So. The State of
Speaker 1: Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes was the United States first
Speaker 1: major legal battle over the teaching of evolution. Charles Darwin
Speaker 1: had published On the Origin of Species by Means of
Speaker 1: Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the
Speaker 1: Struggle for Life back in eighteen fifty nine, and Darwin
Speaker 1: did not invent the idea of evolution. The basic idea
Speaker 1: that species change and shift over time goes back millennia
Speaker 1: in multiple cultures, but the book itself was hugely influential
Speaker 1: and very controversial. By the nineteen teens and twenties, though
Speaker 1: Darwin's writings were well established, they were generally accepted in
Speaker 1: the field of biology, and as part of a general
Speaker 1: trend of progressive educational reform, they also started to be
Speaker 1: incorporated into school curricula and the United States teachers were
Speaker 1: beginning to unionize, and the National Education Association had recommended
Speaker 1: that states try to align their standards for education nationally.
Speaker 1: And with this overall trend in standardization, more and more
Speaker 1: states were making science a mandatory school requirement, and more
Speaker 1: and more science textbooks were addressing evolution. For example, William
Speaker 1: Hunter's A Civic Biology Presented in Problems, which was published
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, was the approved biology textbook in the
Speaker 1: state of Tennessee in nine Like other civic biology texts
Speaker 1: of the time, it framed biology in terms of its
Speaker 1: practical applicability to other parts of life, like hygiene and
Speaker 1: wellness and food safety. Hunter's book included evolution in chapter fourteen,
Speaker 1: quote division of labor, the various forms of plants and animals,
Speaker 1: and part of that chapter reads the great English scientists
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin. From this and other evidence explained the theory
Speaker 1: of evolution. This is the belief that simple forms of
Speaker 1: life on Earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those
Speaker 1: more complex, and that thus ultimately the most complex forms
Speaker 1: came into existence. Running parallel to this progressive shift and
Speaker 1: educational standards and the inclusion of evolution in science textbooks,
Speaker 1: was a rise in religious fundamentalism, particularly Christian fundamentalism. The
Speaker 1: term fundamentalism itself was coined in the nineteen twenties, signifying
Speaker 1: a strict adherence to certain fundamental concepts of Christian faith
Speaker 1: and in some cases interpreting the Bible literally rather than figuratively.
Speaker 1: And when it came to evolutionary theory, some Christians, particularly
Speaker 1: fundamentalist Christians, objected to the idea that humans came from
Speaker 1: monkeys and to the idea that something other than a
Speaker 1: divine hand could be credited for life on earth, And
Speaker 1: if the Bible was the literal word of God, then
Speaker 1: the writings of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary biologists were
Speaker 1: directly contradictory to the creation story in the book Genesis. Obviously,
Speaker 1: other religions and other nations had their own views on
Speaker 1: evolution and whether it should be taught, but Christianity in
Speaker 1: the United States is what is relevant to the Scopes trial. Also,
Speaker 1: for the sake of clarity, this whole humans came from
Speaker 1: Monkey's idea. It's one that a lot of people took
Speaker 1: away from the Origin of species and from all the
Speaker 1: conversations that followed its publication. But the Origin of species
Speaker 1: only very briefly and vaguely alludes to the origins of humankind.
Speaker 1: There is nothing in its saying humans came from monkeys.
Speaker 1: Darwin's second book, The Descent of Man, came out in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, and it is about theories of human origins,
Speaker 1: and it's basic conclusion is that quote man is descended
Speaker 1: from some less highly organized form. Darwin describes the less
Speaker 1: organized form as some ancient, unknown ancestor that does have
Speaker 1: some monkey like traits, but it is not a modern monkey. Today,
Speaker 1: the scientific consensus is that both humans and monkeys descended
Speaker 1: from an ancestor that lived millions of years ago, not
Speaker 1: that one came from another. Essentially, two branches of a tree, yes,
Speaker 1: a very large and very complex tree. Yes. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's not like they each branch off from one spot.
Speaker 1: It's there. Yeah, we talked about this in our Pilled
Speaker 1: Down Man episode if you are looking for a little
Speaker 1: more of that piece of history. So, in the face
Speaker 1: of this ongoing conflict between scientific acceptance of evolution and
Speaker 1: religious rejection of it, multiple states began considering laws to
Speaker 1: ban its teaching. On its face, this was a religious issue.
Speaker 1: The idea that children might go to school and come
Speaker 1: home questioning their faith was frightening and infuriating too many parents,
Speaker 1: especially given that public schools were funded through taxes they
Speaker 1: were paying. People were basically like, I want my kid
Speaker 1: to go to the school I'm paying for and then
Speaker 1: come home and say they don't believe in God anymore.
Speaker 1: But it was also a general resistance to the overall
Speaker 1: trend of establishing state and national education standards. Many parents
Speaker 1: in rural counties didn't like the idea of far away
Speaker 1: legislatures in their state capitals or Washington, d c. Setting
Speaker 1: rules about what their children would learn while having no
Speaker 1: idea what their wishes or needs were. Passing laws against
Speaker 1: the teaching of evolution was a way to gain a
Speaker 1: sense of control over what children were being taught. In
Speaker 1: the face of all these changes to the educational system,
Speaker 1: Although Florida and Oklahoma passed laws that were connected to
Speaker 1: this basic issue in nineteen twenty three. It was Tennessee
Speaker 1: that became the first states who explicitly forbid the teaching
Speaker 1: of evolution. In nineteen Representative John W. Butler introduced what
Speaker 1: became known as the Butler Act on January twenty one
Speaker 1: of that year. He had been interested in introducing similar
Speaker 1: legislation as far back as nineteen twenty one, after hearing
Speaker 1: a sermon about a young woman who had gone to
Speaker 1: college and come home believing in evolution but not in God.
Speaker 1: Once Butler had introduced the Act, there was some legislative
Speaker 1: back and forth, but ultimately it passed both the Tennessee
Speaker 1: House and Senate with overwhelming support. Tennessee's Governor Austin p
Speaker 1: signed it into law on March twenty one, after putting
Speaker 1: it off until the last possible day and at one
Speaker 1: point telling a senator that he thought the bill was absurd. P,
Speaker 1: who was in his second term as governor, had already
Speaker 1: instituted a number of progressive reforms within the state. He
Speaker 1: was at that point trying to pass a massive school
Speaker 1: reform bill that would do things like build high schools
Speaker 1: in rural counties that didn't have them length in the
Speaker 1: school year and make education compulsory. It's possible that p
Speaker 1: finally signed the Butler Act in exchange for Congressional support
Speaker 1: for his massive school reform bill, or that he recognized
Speaker 1: that this bill and the reforms that it was instituting
Speaker 1: would face some resistance in rural parts of Tennessee, so
Speaker 1: he felt like the Butler would assuage some people's fears
Speaker 1: over what he was wanting to do. Even when he
Speaker 1: signed it, though he said it was mostly symbolic and
Speaker 1: that he did not expect anyone to be charged with
Speaker 1: violating it. The Butler Act made it illegal for any
Speaker 1: teacher in Tennessee funded schools and universities to quote teach
Speaker 1: any theory that denies the story of the divine creation
Speaker 1: of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach
Speaker 1: instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.
Speaker 1: It also established a fine of one hundred to five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and the Act didn't really offer insight on
Speaker 1: what to do about the fact that the state approved
Speaker 1: biology textbook laid out the basic concepts of evolution in
Speaker 1: chapter fourteen. This all brings us to the Scopes trial,
Speaker 1: in which Tennessee teacher John Thomas Scopes was charged with
Speaker 1: teaching evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. He was
Speaker 1: convicted in a highly publicized trial that played out in
Speaker 1: a pretty circus like atmosphere, and it had a lot
Speaker 1: of famous names in the legal teams on both sides.
Speaker 1: But the whole thing came about in a way that's
Speaker 1: significantly different from what people might imagine. We will have
Speaker 1: some details after the break. Although local attorneys were also
Speaker 1: part of it, the Scopes trial involved a hugely high
Speaker 1: profile cast of characters from out of town. There was
Speaker 1: defense attorney Clarence Darrow, originally from Ohio, who was one
Speaker 1: of America's most famous attorneys. He had represented Eugene V.
Speaker 1: Debs after the massive Pullman strike of eight. He'd also
Speaker 1: defended Leopold and Loebe and they're highly publicized murder trial.
Speaker 1: He's usually credited with getting them a life murder sentence
Speaker 1: instead of being executed. And the team on for the
Speaker 1: defense also included Arthur Garfield Haze of New York, who
Speaker 1: was the a c l used General counsel. The man
Speaker 1: arguing for the prosecution, William Jennings Bryan the Great Commoner
Speaker 1: was generally from Illinois. He had run for president three
Speaker 1: times and served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.
Speaker 1: In the years leading up to the trial, he had
Speaker 1: also become one of the most prominent anti evolution figures
Speaker 1: in the nation, giving speeches with names like the Bible
Speaker 1: and its Enemies and the Menace of Darwinism. Hl Mankin,
Speaker 1: who wrote some of the most famous and most memorable
Speaker 1: coverage of the trial, was from Baltimore, Maryland, and his
Speaker 1: coverage ran in the Baltimore Sun. Meanwhile, Dayton, Tennessee, originally
Speaker 1: founded as Smith's Crossroads, was a town of less than
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred people situated roughly between Chattanooga and Knoxville and
Speaker 1: the Tennessee River Valley. In the late nineteenth century, it
Speaker 1: had become home to the Dayton Iron and Coal Company, which,
Speaker 1: along with the railroad, had become the town's major employer.
Speaker 1: But by the nineteen teams the blast furnace had shut down,
Speaker 1: leaving farming as the now struggling town's major industry. So
Speaker 1: between all the big names and the struggling small town,
Speaker 1: it's easy to imagine that this was a case of
Speaker 1: a bunch of high salutant city folk blustering in uninvited
Speaker 1: to run rough shot over everybody and basically have a giant, public,
Speaker 1: unwanted fight. But this was not the case at all,
Speaker 1: as still happens today when a newly passed law seems
Speaker 1: to run contrary to the Constitution or civil liberties. The
Speaker 1: Butler Act immediately caught the attention of the American Civil
Speaker 1: Liberties Union. The a c l U publicly offered to
Speaker 1: defend any teacher charged with its violation. An advertisement announcing
Speaker 1: that the a c l U was seeking a test
Speaker 1: case ran in a Chattanooga newspaper on May four. This
Speaker 1: advertisement came to the attention of a group of Dayton's
Speaker 1: community and civic leaders. Fred E. Robinson's drug store had
Speaker 1: become the site of regular meetings that included school superintendent
Speaker 1: Walter White, attorneys Herbert and Sue Hicks, Cumberland Cole and
Speaker 1: Iron Company manager George Washington Rapilier, and Robinson himself, who
Speaker 1: was also the school board president. Some of them did
Speaker 1: care about the teaching of evolution as a matter of principle,
Speaker 1: but they were far more interested in the community of Dayton.
Speaker 1: They thought a great, big trial would bring a lot
Speaker 1: of much needed attention and tourism dollars to the town
Speaker 1: rapil A, which may also have been rapili A. Documents
Speaker 1: spell his name too different ways. Is usually the person
Speaker 1: who's credited with convincing them all to go along with
Speaker 1: this plan. To get the ball rolling, they just needed
Speaker 1: a teacher, and the teacher in question was John Thomas Scopes,
Speaker 1: who was then twenty four. Scopes had graduated from the
Speaker 1: University of Kentucky the year before, and he was working
Speaker 1: at the newly opened Ray County High School teaching algebra
Speaker 1: and physics, coaching football, and sometimes substituting in biology. Dayton's
Speaker 1: civic leaders thought Scopes would be a good candidate for
Speaker 1: this scheme because he was well liked around town, he
Speaker 1: was not viewed as some kind of radical, and he
Speaker 1: didn't have a family whose livelihood would be threatened if
Speaker 1: he did lose his job. Although they hoped it wouldn't
Speaker 1: come to that. Scopes wasn't particularly eager to be arrested,
Speaker 1: but he agreed to go along with this. He did
Speaker 1: not agree with the Butler Act. He did not think
Speaker 1: it was possible to teach biology without also teaching evolution.
Speaker 1: And he didn't think that evolution was incompatible with religious faith.
Speaker 1: Scopes had even already at least supposedly done the necessary
Speaker 1: teaching of evolution. The prior April, he had done an
Speaker 1: exam review out of the state approved biology textbook. Although
Speaker 1: he couldn't remember specifically, he thought probably he'd gone over
Speaker 1: the chapter that included evolution. According to some accounts, he
Speaker 1: later said that he had not, but in any case,
Speaker 1: he was arrested for violating the Butler Act on May seven,
Speaker 1: and he was indicted on May twenty five. The town
Speaker 1: of Dayton then began to prepare for what it hoped
Speaker 1: would be an onslaught of visitors from late May until
Speaker 1: early July. The town built a tourist camp to provide
Speaker 1: additional housing. It also added a number of improvements to
Speaker 1: the courthouse, including an outdoor speakers platform with benches and
Speaker 1: loud speakers to handle an overflow crowd. To make the
Speaker 1: courtroom more hospitable to reporters and their work. It also
Speaker 1: added camera platforms, radio microphones, and telephone and telegraph lines.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just about accommodating lots of visitors or
Speaker 1: making the courthouse more accessible to the news media. Dayton
Speaker 1: also essentially turned part of its main road into a
Speaker 1: festival grounds, complete with vendors and stalls. A scopes trial
Speaker 1: Entertainment committee was formed. The Constable's motorcycle got a new label. Monkeyville.
Speaker 1: Police businesses hung pictures of apes and monkeys in their windows.
Speaker 1: A clothier who happened to be named j. R. Darwin
Speaker 1: made the most of it with signs like Darwin is
Speaker 1: right inside and Darwin's Big Sale. A whole lot of
Speaker 1: store suddenly started stocking plush monkeys. Fred Robinson, who's uh
Speaker 1: drug store had been the site of the first conversation
Speaker 1: about hatching this plot, Fred Robinson started serving Simion SODA's
Speaker 1: at the drug store. He strung a giant banner across
Speaker 1: the street reading Robinson's drug Store with where it started
Speaker 1: in smaller letters. Underneath. There were also photo ops at
Speaker 1: the table where that initial conversation had taken place. A
Speaker 1: chimpanzee named Joe Mendy, dressed in a plaid suit and
Speaker 1: bow tie, who was one of multiple chimpanzees brought into
Speaker 1: town for this was there to greet his customers when
Speaker 1: they came into the store. And in addition to all
Speaker 1: the business involvement in the overall carnival atmosphere where a
Speaker 1: tinerant evangelists who came to town to preach about the
Speaker 1: evils of evolution and the rightness of banning it from school.
Speaker 1: Another banner was strung outside the courthouse that read, read
Speaker 1: your Bible, Bible in all caps. Of course, in theory,
Speaker 1: all of this big monkey festival was going on because
Speaker 1: of a trial li in court, which we were going
Speaker 1: to talk about after another quick sponsor break. Jury's selection
Speaker 1: in the Scopes trial began on July. On that same day,
Speaker 1: the Judge John T. Ralston took the precaution of impaneling
Speaker 1: a second grand jury to reindicte John Scopes. People had
Speaker 1: been so worried that some other town was going to
Speaker 1: have this same idea and hatch the same plan that
Speaker 1: the first indictment had been rushed through, and the judge
Speaker 1: was worried that it was invalid. Actual trial proceedings were
Speaker 1: put off until the following Monday to allow time for
Speaker 1: the radio hookups that had been installed in the courtroom
Speaker 1: to actually be connected for broadcasts. The Scopes trial would
Speaker 1: be the first trial to be publicly broadcast nationwide, and
Speaker 1: it was also filmed for newsreels that were distributed to
Speaker 1: movie theaters. The defense and the prosecution each had a
Speaker 1: completely different focus for this trial. From the prosecution's point
Speaker 1: of view, it was really simple. They would establish that
Speaker 1: John Thomas Scopes violated the Butler Act, which was state law,
Speaker 1: by teaching evolution in a public school, and they would
Speaker 1: establish that the state of Tennessee had the right to
Speaker 1: set its own standards for the public school curriculum. The
Speaker 1: defense's most practical focus was whether the Act itself was enforceable,
Speaker 1: whether it's definition of evolution was precise enough, and whether
Speaker 1: a teacher had to both deny the story of divine
Speaker 1: creation and teach that man had descended from lower animals
Speaker 1: to be in violation of the law. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: it was looking at much broader issues than the defense
Speaker 1: was like establishing whether the Butler Act was religiously motivated
Speaker 1: and the evolution was scientifically sound. Let's focus on religion,
Speaker 1: and this angle of religion versus science was really coming
Speaker 1: from Clarence Darrow, who was a very vocal agnostic. The
Speaker 1: A c. L U would was reluctant to have Darrow
Speaker 1: involved in this at all. Viewed the Butler Act primarily
Speaker 1: as an act on the freedom of speech, not on
Speaker 1: the freedom of religion. This was in part because the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had previously ruled that the free speech clauses
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment applied to state governments as well
Speaker 1: as to the federal government. It had not yet made
Speaker 1: such a ruling related to the freedom of religion, and
Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen for several more decades. So basically, the
Speaker 1: a c. L U was really looking at this as
Speaker 1: a speech issue, and Clarence Darrow was in his own
Speaker 1: little world focusing on the religious aspect. Once the trial began,
Speaker 1: about a thousand people tried to cram into the courtroom,
Speaker 1: which could hold about six hundred, and that happened every day.
Speaker 1: The rest listened from benches outside the courthouse. The courtroom
Speaker 1: was incredibly tight and incredibly hot, since the giant crush
Speaker 1: of people blocked the courtrooms windows, and at least at
Speaker 1: the start of the trial, it had no electric fans
Speaker 1: to sculate air. Apart from reporters representing more than one newspapers,
Speaker 1: most of those trying to watch were locals and not visitors.
Speaker 1: So even though Dayton had turned the town into a
Speaker 1: sort of Scopes trial fair it hadn't had the hoped
Speaker 1: for rush of tourists. The trial began with some fairly
Speaker 1: straightforward questioning of students and other witnesses who's testified about
Speaker 1: scopes discussions of evolution. But when Darrow started trying to
Speaker 1: bring in expert witnesses to discuss the science of evolution,
Speaker 1: Judge Rawlston refused to allow it. He said that the
Speaker 1: matter at hand was not whether evolution was scientifically valid,
Speaker 1: but whether Scopes had broken the law. Indeed, that would
Speaker 1: seem to be the point of the trial. Purportedly, with
Speaker 1: a key part of his defense strategy effectively torpedoed, Clarence
Speaker 1: Darrow took another tack. Instead of calling scientists to the
Speaker 1: stand to testify as to the validity of the theory
Speaker 1: of evolution, he took the highly unusual step of calling
Speaker 1: William Jennings Bryan, the opposing counsel, to the stand on
Speaker 1: July to act as an expert witness on the validity
Speaker 1: of the Bible. At this point, the proceedings had been
Speaker 1: moved outdoors due to the oppressive heat in the courtroom
Speaker 1: and cracks developing in the ceiling under the weight of
Speaker 1: the newly installed fans. I just want to say again,
Speaker 1: the defense counsel calling to the stand the prosecutor to
Speaker 1: answer questions about something really not related to the issue
Speaker 1: at hand. That's weird that it feels a little showbody
Speaker 1: like it's a big like yeah, drama move yeah. So,
Speaker 1: when Darrow asked if Brian claimed that everything in the
Speaker 1: Bible should be literally interpreted William Jennings, Bryan answered, quote,
Speaker 1: I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as
Speaker 1: it is given there some of the Bible is given illustratively.
Speaker 1: Following that answer, Darrow asked him a bunch of questions
Speaker 1: about particular passages from the Bible, like Jonah being swallowed
Speaker 1: by a whale and spit out a whole after three days,
Speaker 1: and Joshua commanding the sun to sand still and the
Speaker 1: Great Flood, and whether the sixth day creation in Genesis
Speaker 1: was six actual twenty four hour days, and whether Eve
Speaker 1: was literally made from Adam's rib. Basically every Internet conversation
Speaker 1: of people of like atheist people asking people of faith
Speaker 1: questions about the Bible, Bryant's answers, in many cases sounded
Speaker 1: imprecise or contradictory, and at the end, he accused Darrow
Speaker 1: of trying to use the court to slur the Bible.
Speaker 1: How this was received really depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1: Many religious faithful felt as though William Jennings Bryan had
Speaker 1: conducted himself admirably in the face of someone who was
Speaker 1: clearly trying to humiliate and trap him. Although some Biblical
Speaker 1: literalists were disappointed at his description of the six days
Speaker 1: of Creation as periods, not literal days. Others thought the
Speaker 1: whole exchange was an absurd waste of time unrelated to
Speaker 1: the case. But a lot of the news media, like
Speaker 1: we said, there were a hundred papers represented their portrayed
Speaker 1: Brian in an incredibly negative light. In the Baltimore Evening Sun, H. L.
Speaker 1: Menkin wrote, quote, Thus he fought his last fight, eager
Speaker 1: only for blood. It quickly became frenzied and preposterous, and
Speaker 1: after that pathetic all sense departed from him. He bit
Speaker 1: right and left like a dog with rabies. He descended
Speaker 1: to demagogi, so dreadful that his very associates blushed. His
Speaker 1: one yearning was to keep his yokels. Heated up to
Speaker 1: lead his forlorn mob against the foe. That foe Alas
Speaker 1: refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the battle
Speaker 1: as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally yielded
Speaker 1: to the prevailing spirit. Finally he lured poor Brian into
Speaker 1: a folly almost incredible. The next day, July on, the
Speaker 1: judge ruled that Brian could not return to the stand.
Speaker 1: Darrow then asked for the jury to begin deliberations, recommending
Speaker 1: that they find the defendant guilty. The jury returned with
Speaker 1: a verdict less than ten minutes later. Scopes, who had
Speaker 1: never taken the stand himself, was guilty. He was fined
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. The a c o used goal at
Speaker 1: this point, and the reason that Darrow, who was the
Speaker 1: defense attorney, recommended that the jury find his client guilty,
Speaker 1: was to appeal this verdict, ideally to appeal it all
Speaker 1: the way to the Supreme Court in a case that
Speaker 1: would find laws like the Butler Act unconstitutional nationwide. But
Speaker 1: that did not happen. At scopes appeal before the Tennessee
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and
Speaker 1: the original trial judge Rawlston had specified that hundred dollar penalty,
Speaker 1: but because the penalty was greater than fifty dollars under
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Constitution, it should have been levied by the jury,
Speaker 1: not by a judge. With the verdict overturned and the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Supreme Court also issuing an opinion that the Butler
Speaker 1: Act was constitutional because it didn't mandate or establish any
Speaker 1: religious belief or practice, the a c. L U had
Speaker 1: nothing left to pursue related to the Butler Act in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Five days after the end of the Scopes trial, William
Speaker 1: Jennings Bryan died in his sleep during an afternoon nap.
Speaker 1: He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with the words
Speaker 1: he kept the Faith on his tombstone, and the romanticized
Speaker 1: version of this story is that he died of humiliation
Speaker 1: after Darrow's questioning, or that he died of heartbreak after
Speaker 1: being denied the opportunity to give his closing statement at
Speaker 1: the trial. The two leading candidates for the actual cause
Speaker 1: of death are untreated diabetes and stroke. Whatever the cause,
Speaker 1: it was almost certainly exacerbated by the stress and physically
Speaker 1: grueling heat in the trial. From that point, Brian was
Speaker 1: viewed as a martyr within the anti evolution movement. Five
Speaker 1: years later Brian College, originally called William Jennings Bryan University,
Speaker 1: opened in Dayton as a Christian liberal arts college. The
Speaker 1: Scopes Trial had a somewhat contradictory aftermath. Tennessee in general
Speaker 1: and Dayton specifically were roundly laughed at in the news media,
Speaker 1: which was also particularly unkind to both religious fundamentalism and
Speaker 1: two laws forbidding the teaching of evolution, and yet similar
Speaker 1: laws were introduced, although unsuccessfully, in the legislatures of California, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia, and the
Speaker 1: years following the Scopes Trial, Arkansas and Mississippi each past
Speaker 1: laws banning the teaching of evolution. Not long after. Even
Speaker 1: though only three states explicitly outlawed the teaching of evolution,
Speaker 1: many textbook publishers quietly removed references to it from their
Speaker 1: biology textbooks. This included a new Civic Biology whose edition
Speaker 1: never specifically references evolution and tiptoes around the basic concepts.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the coverage of the trial and
Speaker 1: of William Jennings Bryant's death helped coalesce the anti evolution movement.
Speaker 1: From sort of a scattered collection of various denominations to
Speaker 1: a solid social movement, and Darrow's relentless framing of evolution
Speaker 1: and religion as this either or proposition cemented the standard
Speaker 1: for how the issue would be discussed for years to come.
Speaker 1: Attempts to repeal the Butler Act began in nineteen five,
Speaker 1: but failed. It stayed on the books until nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Governor Austin P died in nineteen seven, and his signature
Speaker 1: on the Butler Act largely overshadowed the rest of his
Speaker 1: legacy for decades. It would also take decades for a
Speaker 1: case relating to the teaching of evolution to make it
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court. In nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court heard the case of Susan Epperson, an
Speaker 1: Arkansas zoology teacher who had been found guilty of breaking
Speaker 1: that state's law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The Supreme
Speaker 1: Court unanimously ruled in Epperson versus Arkansas that laws prohibiting
Speaker 1: the teaching of evolution violated the First Amendment, and in
Speaker 1: this case, Epperson faced the same dilemma that Scopes did
Speaker 1: back in ninety five, Arkansas law had made it illegal
Speaker 1: quote to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended
Speaker 1: or descended from a lower order of animals end quote,
Speaker 1: but the textbook that the state had adopted in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five had a chapter on that very thing. After
Speaker 1: Epperson versus Arkansas, most states that had previously banned the
Speaker 1: teaching of evolution instead mandated that equal time be spent
Speaker 1: on teaching creationism. This includes Tennessee, which passed the nation's
Speaker 1: first law requiring equal time for the Biblical account of creation.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three. A federal appeals court ruled this
Speaker 1: law on constitutional. Two years later, that ruling applied only
Speaker 1: to Tennessee, but in in eight seven, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruled that a Louisiana law entitled quote, the Balanced Treatment
Speaker 1: for Creation Science and Evolution Science and Public School Instruction
Speaker 1: Act was unconstitutional. That case, known as Edward versus Aguiard,
Speaker 1: applied nationally. From there, most states that had passed equal
Speaker 1: time laws instead began to frame the conversation as one
Speaker 1: of intelligent design, or began mandating disclaimers that evolution is
Speaker 1: just a theory. In two thousand five, a U S
Speaker 1: District Court found that teaching intelligent design in public schools
Speaker 1: was unconstitutional in a case known as kits Miller versus
Speaker 1: Dover because intelligent design quote cannot uncouple itself from its
Speaker 1: creationist and thus religious antecedents. The same year and Salman
Speaker 1: versus Cobb County School District, a federal judge examined the
Speaker 1: question of whether stickers reading quote evolution is a theory
Speaker 1: not a fact concerning the origin of living things end quote,
Speaker 1: which the school was putting onto textbooks that had information
Speaker 1: about evolution, whether that violated the Constitution, And after going
Speaker 1: back and forth through several levels of the courts, that
Speaker 1: case was ultimately settled out of court in favor of
Speaker 1: the plaintiffs, who were the ones who had objected to
Speaker 1: the use of the stickers. So clearly, as states find
Speaker 1: new ways to work around this issue, it's probably one
Speaker 1: that will continue to come up in the courts. And
Speaker 1: in the meantime, Dayton, Tennessee, actually holds an annual Scopes
Speaker 1: Trial festival. If you want to get in on that.
Speaker 1: If if you yeah, it's uh. It's an interesting phenomenon
Speaker 1: because it's partially because I mean, Dayton was really lampooned
Speaker 1: a lot after this, uh and and Tennessee also got
Speaker 1: a lot of just terrible press afterward. Um. So some
Speaker 1: of the Scopes festival is meant to try to reclaim
Speaker 1: some of like the less like let's make complete fun
Speaker 1: of you side to more like own this is the
Speaker 1: thing that happened in our town that was historically important
Speaker 1: and not like the way that the media portrayed us
Speaker 1: was totally accurate, Like not like that at all. Um,
Speaker 1: But it's definitely like there's a play and there's a
Speaker 1: festival happens every year. Are there both monkeys and chimpanzees?
Speaker 1: I do not know. Um. Thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of
Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a
Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar over the course
Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current
Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at I heart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Our old house stuff works email address no longer works,
Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at
Speaker 1: missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: and wherever else listen to podcasts stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H