WEBVTT - The Scopes Trial 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.120 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:13.680 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.360 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.720 are going to talk about the Scopes Trial also known 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.800 as the Monkey Trial, so known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.600 which played out in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.320 I learned last night from a dear friend of mine 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.280 who grew up in Tennessee that they cover this in 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.920 Tennessee History class. Cool. So if you grew up in Tennessee, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.440 or maybe if you've studied law, you might already know 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.599 a lot of these details. But a lot of what 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.440 most folks know in quotation marks about this trial really 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.800 comes from Inherit the Wind, which started as a play 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.440 in nineteen fifty five and was adapted into a film 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.440 in nineteen sixty. And even if you have never personally 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.200 seen Inherit the Wind, which was conceived more as an 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.640 allegory for McCarthy ism than an actual portrayal of the 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.080 Scopes Trial, it does not even use the same names 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.600 or location. A lot of conventional wisdom about the trial 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:14.480 and its personalities and how it played out really have 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.480 much deeper roots in inherent the wind than in actual history. 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.480 I won't out them by name, but I have a 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.679 friend who I mentioned yesterday that we were doing this, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.560 and their reaction was, wait, is that one about slavery? 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:35.000 It's like, oh, no, not, so there's no shame in 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.679 having you know, blind spots in your historical knowledge tickled me. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.280 And it's a very smart person, but we all have them, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.920 those weird blind spots. Uh, and Tracey will now clear 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.200 it up, and that person will know all the things 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:53.559 about anything about slavery at all. No. So The State 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.080 of Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes was the United States 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.640 first major legal battle over the teaching of evolution. Charles 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.560 Darwin had published On the Origin of Species by Means 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.680 of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.440 the Struggle for Life back in eighteen fifty nine, and 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.880 Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution. The basic 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.760 idea that species change and shift over time goes back 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.760 millennia in multiple cultures, but the book itself was hugely 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.840 influential and very controversial by the nineteen teens and twenties. 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.720 Though Darwin's writings were well established, they were generally accepted 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.200 in the field of biology, and as part of a 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.920 general trend of progressive educational reform, they also started to 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:41.200 be incorporated into school curricula. In the United States, teachers 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.120 were beginning to unionize and the National Education Association had 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.919 recommended that states try to align their standards for education nationally. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.040 And with this overall trend in standardization, more and more 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.440 states were making science a mandatory school requirement, and more 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:03.760 and more science textbook were addressing evolution. For example, William 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.720 Hunter's A Civic Biology Presented in Problems, which was published 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.400 in nineteen fourteen, was the approved biology textbook in the 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.600 state of Tennessee in nineteen Like other civic biology texts 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.120 of the time, it framed biology in terms of its 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.040 practical applicability to other parts of life, like hygiene and 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:28.200 wellness and food safety. Hunter's book included evolution in chapter fourteen, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.160 quote Division of labor, the various forms of Plants and animals, 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.200 and part of that chapter reads the great English scientists 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.760 Charles Darwin, from this and other evidence, explained the theory 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.120 of evolution. This is the belief that simple forms of 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.360 life on Earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.560 more complex, and that thus ultimately the most complex forms 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.920 came into existence. Running parallel to this progressive shift and 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.000 educational standards and the inclusion of evolution in science textbook 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:06.240 was a rise in religious fundamentalism, particularly Christian fundamentalism. The 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:11.120 term fundamentalism itself was coined in the nineteen twenties, signifying 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.920 a strict adherence to certain fundamental concepts of Christian faith 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.640 and in some cases interpreting the Bible literally rather than figuratively. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.280 And when it came to evolutionary theory, some Christians, particularly 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.520 fundamentalist Christians, objected to the idea that humans came from 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.320 monkeys and to the idea that something other than a 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.359 divine hand could be credited for life on earth. And 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.280 if the Bible was the literal word of God, then 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.040 the writings of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary biologists were 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:47.240 directly contradictory to the creation story in the Book of Genesis. Obviously, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.839 other religions and other nations had their own views on 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.560 evolution and whether it should be taught, but Christianity in 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.479 the United States is what is relevant to the Scopes trial. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.360 Also for the sake of clarity. This whole human came 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.080 from monkey's idea. It's one that a lot of people 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.600 took away from the Origin of species and from all 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.760 the conversations that followed its publication. But the Origin of 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.320 Species only very briefly and vaguely alludes to the origins 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.200 of humankind. There is nothing in its saying humans came 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.960 from monkeys. Darwin's second book, The Descent of Man, came 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.720 out in eighteen seventy one, and it is about theories 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.480 of human origins, and it's basic conclusion is that quote 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.280 man is descended from some less highly organized form. Darwin 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.000 describes the less organized form as some ancient, unknown ancestor 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.040 that does have some monkey like traits, but it is 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.320 not a modern monkey. Today, the scientific consensus is that 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.880 both humans and monkeys descended from an ancestor that lived 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.760 millions of years ago, not that one came from another. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.960 Essentially two branches of a tree, yes, a very large 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.640 and very complex tree. Yes, yes, yes, it's not like 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:02.520 they each branch off from one spot. It's there. Yeah. 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.640 We talked about this in our Pilled Down Man episode. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.000 If you are looking for a little more of that 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.080 piece of history. So in the face of this ongoing 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:17.840 conflict between scientific acceptance of evolution and religious rejection of it, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:23.320 multiple states began considering laws to ban its teaching. On 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.599 its face, this was a religious issue. The idea that 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.560 children might go to school and come home questioning their 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.479 faith was frightening and infuriating too many parents, especially given 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.279 that public schools were funded through taxes they were paying. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.560 People were basically like, I want my kid to go 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.080 to the school I'm paying for and then come home 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.159 and say they don't believe in God anymore. But it 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.120 was also a general resistance to the overall trend of 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:53.000 establishing state and national education standards. Many parents in rural 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.000 counties didn't like the idea of far away legislatures in 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.679 their state capitals or Washington, d c. Setting rules about 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.359 what they're children would learn while having no idea what 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.000 their wishes or needs were. Passing laws against the teaching 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.960 of evolution was a way to gain a sense of 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.040 control over what children were being taught in the face 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:15.120 of all these changes to the educational system. Although Florida 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.120 and Oklahoma passed laws that were connected to this basic 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.800 issue in nineteen twenty three, it was Tennessee that became 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.680 the first state who explicitly forbid the teaching of evolution 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:32.320 in nineteen Representative John W. Butler introduced what became known 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.520 as the Butler Act on January twenty one of that year. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.440 He had been interested in introducing similar legislation as far 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.119 back as nineteen twenty one, after hearing a sermon about 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.400 a young woman who had gone to college and come 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.640 home believing in evolution but not in God. Once Butler 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.120 had introduced the Act, there was some legislative back and forth, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.640 but ultimately it passed both the Tennessee House and Senate 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.840 with overwhelming support. Tennessee's got owner, Austin p signed it 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.480 into law on March twenty one, after putting it off 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.960 until the last possible day and at one point telling 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.160 a senator that he thought the bill was absurd. P, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:13.880 who was in his second term as governor, had already 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.680 instituted a number of progressive reforms within the state. He 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.960 was at that point trying to pass a massive school 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.400 reform bill that would do things like build high schools 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.200 in rural counties that didn't have them, length in the 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.520 school year, and make education compulsory. It's possible that P. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.480 Finally signed the Butler Act in exchange for Congressional support 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.559 for his massive school reform bill, or that he recognized 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.400 that this bill and the reforms that it was instituting 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.800 would face some resistance in rural parts of Tennessee, so 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.920 he felt like the Butler Act would assuage some people's 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.120 fears over what he was wanting to do. Even when 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.199 he signed it, though he said it was mostly symbolic 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.160 and that he did not expect anyone to be charged 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.240 with violating it. The Butler Act made it illegal for 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.760 any teacher in Tennessee funded schools and universities to quote 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.959 teach any theory that denies the story of the divine 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.640 creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.480 teach instead that man has descended from a lower order 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.920 of animals. It also established a fine of one hundred 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.880 to five hundred dollars, and the Act didn't really offer 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.080 insight on what to do about the fact that the 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.800 state approved biology textbook laid out the basic concepts of 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.240 evolution in chapter fourteen. This all brings us to the 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.640 Scopes trial, in which Tennessee teacher John Thomas Scopes was 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.720 charged with teaching evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.240 He was convicted in a highly publicized trial that played 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.679 out in a pretty circus like atmosphere, and it had 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.120 a lot of famous names in the legal teams on 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.600 both sides. But the whole thing came about in a 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.719 way that's significantly different from what people might imagine. We 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:59.560 will have some details after the break. Although local attorneys 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.640 were also part of it, the Scopes trial involved a 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.280 hugely high profile cast of characters from out of town. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.880 There was defense attorney Clarence Darrow, originally from Ohio, who 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.600 was one of America's most famous attorneys. He had represented 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.320 Eugene V. Debs after the massive Pullman strike of eighteen 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.040 ninety four. He had also defended Leopold and Loebe and 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.880 they're highly publicized murder trial. He's usually credited with getting 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.280 them a life murder sentence instead of being executed. And 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.040 the team on for the defense also included Arthur Garfield 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:34.959 Haze of New York, who was the a c l 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.160 Used General Council. The man arguing for the prosecution, William 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.920 Jennings Bryan the Great Commoner was originally from Illinois. He 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.880 had run for president three Times and served as Secretary 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.200 of State under Woodrow Wilson. In the years leading up 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:50.920 to the trial, he had also become one of the 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.760 most prominent anti evolution figures in the nation, giving speeches 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.720 with names like the Bible and its Enemies and the 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.240 Menace of Darwinism. H. L. Mankin, who wrote some of 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.920 the most famous and most memorable coverage of the trial, 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.920 was from Baltimore, Maryland, and his coverage ran in the 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:12.520 Baltimore Sun. Meanwhile, Dayton, Tennessee, originally founded as Smith's Crossroads, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.479 was a town of less than eighteen hundred people situated 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.120 roughly between Chattanooga and Knoxville and the Tennessee River Valley. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.160 In the late nineteenth century, it had become home to 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.560 the Dayton Iron and Coal Company, which, along with the railroad, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.080 had become the town's major employer. But by the nineteen 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.920 teams the blast furnace had shut down, leaving farming as 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:37.320 the now struggling town's major industry. So between all the 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.520 big names and the struggling small town, it's easy to 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.319 imagine that this was a case of a bunch of 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.920 high falutant city folk blustering in uninvited to run rough 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.840 shot over everybody and basically have a giant, public unwanted fight. 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:53.959 But this was not the case at all, as still 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.560 happens today when a newly passed law seems to run 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.800 contrary to the Constitution or civil liberties. The butler immediately 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.800 caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union. The 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.680 a c l U publicly offered to defend any teacher 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.480 charged with its violation. An advertisement announcing that the a 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.240 c l U was seeking a test case ran in 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:19.640 a Chattanooga newspaper on May four. This advertisement came to 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.040 the attention of a group of Dayton's community and civic leaders. 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:27.120 Fred E. Robinson's drug store had become site of regular 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:32.200 meetings that included school superintendent Walter White, attorneys Herbert and 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:37.360 Sue Hicks, Cumberland Cole and Iron Company manager George Washington Rapilier, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.120 and Robinson himself, who was also the school board president. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.959 Some of them did care about the teaching of evolution 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.400 as a matter of principle, but they were far more 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.120 interested in the community of Dayton. They thought a great, 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.080 big trial would bring a lot of much needed attention 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.800 and tourism dollars to the town. Rapilier, which may also 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.000 have been Rapilier. Documents spell his name too different ways. 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.360 Is usually the person who's credited with convincing them all 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.960 to go along with this plan. To get the ball rolling, 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.080 they just needed a teacher, and the teacher in question 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.319 was John Thomas Scopes, who was then twenty four. Scopes 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.120 had graduated from the University of Kentucky the year before, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.679 and he was working at the newly opened Ray County 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.640 High School, teaching algebra and physics, coaching football, and sometimes 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.920 substituting in biology. Dayton's civic leaders thought Scopes would be 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.640 a good candidate for this scheme because he was well 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.240 liked around town, he was not viewed as some kind 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.480 of radical, and he didn't have a family whose livelihood 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.040 would be threatened if he did lose his job. Although 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.560 they hoped it wouldn't come to that, Scopes wasn't particularly 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.400 eager to be arrested, but he agreed to go along 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.040 with this. He did not agree with the Butler Act. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.880 He did not think it was possible to teach biology 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.240 without also teaching evolution, and he didn't think that evolution 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.960 was incompatible with religious faith. Scopes had even already at 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:08.160 least supposedly done the necessary teaching of evolution. The prior April, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.199 he had done an exam review out of the state 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.959 approved biology textbook. Although he couldn't remember specifically, he thought 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.680 probably he'd gone over the chapter that included evolution. According 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.800 to some accounts, he later said that he had not, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.800 but in any case, he was arrested for violating the 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:29.240 Butler Act on May seven, and he was indicted on May. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.800 The town of Dayton then began to prepare for what 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.120 it hoped would be an onslaught of visitors from late 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.240 May until early July. The town built a tourist camp 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.560 to provide additional housing. It also added a number of 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.360 improvements to the court house, including an outdoor speakers platform 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.360 with benches and loud speakers to handle an overflow crowd. 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.520 To make the courtroom more hospitable to reporters and their work. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.640 It also added camera platforms, radio microphones, and telephone and 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:02.000 telegraph lines. But it wasn't about accommodating lots of visitors. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.360 Are making the courthouse more accessible to the news media. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.720 Dayton also essentially turned part of its main road into 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:13.080 a festival grounds, complete with vendors and stalls, a scopes 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.600 trial Entertainment committee was formed. The Constable's motorcycle got a 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.400 new label. Monkeyville. Police businesses hung pictures of apes and 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.240 monkeys in their windows. A clothier who happened to be 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.000 named j R. Darwin made the most of it with 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.120 signs like Darwin is right inside and Darwin's Big Sale. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.200 A whole lot of store suddenly started stocking plush monkeys. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.960 Fred Robinson, whose uh drug store had been the site 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.480 of the first conversation about hatching this plot, Fred Robinson 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.280 started serving Semion sodas at the drug store. He strung 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.920 a giant banner across the street reading Robinson's drug Store 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.360 with where it started in smaller letters. Underneath. There were 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.240 also photo ops at the table where that an show 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:05.080 conversation had taken place. A chimpanzee named Joe Mendy, dressed 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.320 in a plaid suit and bow tie, who was one 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.280 of multiple chimpanzees brought into town for this was there 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.920 to greet his customers when they came into the store. 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.440 And in addition to all the business involvement in the 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.440 overall carnival atmosphere, where a tinerant evangelists who came to 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.120 town to preach about the evils of evolution and the 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.800 rightness of banning it from school. Another banner was strung 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.640 outside the courthouse that read, read your Bible, Bible in 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.400 all caps. Of course in theory, all of this big 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.200 monkey festival was going on because of a trial like 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.400 in court, which we were going to talk about. After 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:51.680 another quick sponsor break, jury's selection in the Scopes trial 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:56.280 began on July. On that same day, the judge John T. 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.160 Ralston took the precaution of impaneling a second r and 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.359 jury to reindicte John Scopes. People had been so worried 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.600 that some other town was going to have this same 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.240 idea and hatch the same plan that the first indictment 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.679 had been rushed through, and the judge was worried that 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.280 it was invalid. Actual trial proceedings were put off until 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.520 the following Monday to allow time for the radio hookups 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.199 that had been installed in the courtroom to actually be 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:28.080 connected for broadcasts. The Scopes trial would be the first 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.200 trial to be publicly broadcast nationwide, and it was also 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.000 filmed for newsreels that were distributed to movie theaters. The 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.600 defense and the prosecution each had a completely different focus 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.240 for this trial. From the prosecution's point of view, it 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.600 was really simple. They would establish that John Thomas Scopes 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.800 violated the Butler Act, which was state law, by teaching 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.960 evolution in a public school, and they would establish that 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.000 the state of Tennessee had the right to set its 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.200 own standards for the public school curriculum. The defenses most 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.480 practical folk us was whether the Act itself was enforceable, 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.200 whether it's definition of evolution was precise enough, and whether 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.280 a teacher had to both deny the story of divine 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.760 creation and teach that man had descended from lower animals 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.840 to be in violation of the law. But beyond that, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.640 it was looking at much broader issues than the defense 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.520 was like establishing whether the Butler Act was religiously motivated 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.800 and that evolution was scientifically sound. Let's focus on religion, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.480 and this angle of religion versus science was really coming 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.560 from Clarence Darrow, who was a very vocal agnostic. The 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.560 a c. L U, which was reluctant to have Darrow 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.040 involved in this at all, viewed the Butler Act primarily 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.560 as an act on the freedom of speech, not on 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.760 the freedom of religion. This was in part because the 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.240 Supreme Court had previously ruled that the free speech clauses 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.480 of the First Amendment applied to state governments as well 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.800 as to the federal government, it had not yet made 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.159 such a ruling related to the freedom of religion, and 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.480 that wouldn't happen for several more decades. So basically, the 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.159 a c. L U was really looking at this as 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.440 a speech issue, and Clarence Darrow was in his own 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:14.240 little world focusing on the religious aspect. Once the trial began, 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.280 about a thousand people tried to cram into the courtroom, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.400 which could hold about six hundred, and that happened every day. 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.639 The rest listened from benches outside the courthouse. The courtroom 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.240 was incredibly tight and incredibly hot, since the giant crush 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.719 of people blocked the courtroom's windows, and at least at 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.520 the start of the trial, it had no electric fans 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.640 to circulate air. Apart from reporters representing more than one 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.920 hundred newspapers, most of those trying to watch were locals 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.840 and not visitors. So even though Dayton had turned the 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.159 town into a sort of Scopes trial fair, it hadn't 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.520 had the hoped for rush of tourists. The trial began 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.359 with some fairly straightforward questioning of students and other witnesses 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:02.119 who's testified about scopes discussions of evolution. But when Darrow 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.760 started trying to bring in expert witnesses to discuss the 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.359 science of evolution, Judge Rawlston refused to allow it. He 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.800 said that the matter at hand was not whether evolution 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:18.080 was scientifically valid, but whether Scopes had broken the law. Indeed, 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.040 that would seem to be the point of the trial. Purportedly, 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.160 with a key part of his defense strategy effectively torpedoed, 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.080 Clarence Darrow took another tack. Instead of calling scientists to 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.879 the stand testify as to the validity of the theory 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.359 of evolution, he took the highly unusual step of calling 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.760 William Jennings Bryan, the opposing counsel, to the stand on 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.879 July twenty, to act as an expert witness on the 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.440 validity of the Bible. At this point, the proceedings had 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.040 been moved outdoors due to the oppressive heat in the 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.600 courtroom and cracks developing in the ceiling under the weight 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:56.680 of the newly installed fans. I just want to say again, 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:02.760 the defense counsel calling to the stand the prosecutor to 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.200 answer questions about something really not related to the issue. Hand, 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.560 that's weird. That's it feels a little showbody like it's 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.960 a big like yeah, drama move yeah. So, when Darrow 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.159 asked if Brian claimed that everything in the Bible should 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.560 be literally interpreted William Jennings, Bryan answered, quote, I believe 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.520 everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:31.919 given there some of the Bible is given illustratively. Following 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.680 that answer, Darrow asked him a bunch of questions about 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.800 particular passages from the Bible, like Jonah being swallowed by 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.400 a whale and spit out a whole after three days, 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.800 and Joshua commanding the sun to sand still and the 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.159 Great Flood, and whether the six day creation in Genesis 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.160 was six actual twenty four hour days, and whether Eve 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:57.359 was literally made from Adam's rib. Basically every Internet conversation 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.280 of people of like atheist people asking people of faith 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:08.000 questions about the Bible, Bryant's answers, in many cases sounded 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.760 imprecise or contradictory, and at the end he accused Darrow 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.080 of trying to use the court to slur the Bible. 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.800 How this was received really depends on who you ask. 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.560 Many religious faithful felt as though William Jennings Bryan had 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.840 conducted himself admirably in the face of someone who was 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.240 clearly trying to humiliate and trap him. Although some Biblical 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.640 literalists were disappointed at his description of the six days 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.760 of Creation as periods, not literal days. Others thought the 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.879 whole exchange was an absurd waste of time unrelated to 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:43.080 the case. But a lot of the news media, like 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.080 we said, there were a hundred papers represented their portrayed 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.800 Brian in an incredibly negative light, and the Baltimore Evening 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.239 Sun H. L. Menkin wrote quote, Thus he fought his 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.840 last fight, eager only for blood. It quickly became frenzy 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:05.080 and preposterous, and after that pathetic all sense departed from him. 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:08.560 He bit right and left like a dog with rabies. 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:14.480 He descended to demagogi, so dreadful that his very associates blushed. 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.400 His one yearning was to keep his yokels. Heated up 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.960 to lead his forlorn mob against the foe. That foe 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.119 alas refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:32.000 battle as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:36.680 yielded to the prevailing spirit. Finally, he lured poor Brian 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:41.960 into a folly almost incredible. The next day, July one, 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.920 the judge ruled that Brian could not return to the stand. 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.240 Darrow then asked for the jury to begin deliberations, recommending 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.720 that they find the defendant guilty. The jury returned with 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.880 a verdict less than ten minutes later. Scopes, who had 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.440 never taken the stand himself, was guilty. He was fined 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:02.920 one dollars. The a c o used goal at this point, 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:05.960 and the reason that Darrow, who was the defense attorney, 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.399 recommend that the jury find his client guilty, was to 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.880 appeal this verdict, ideally to appeal it all the way 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.200 to the Supreme Court in a case that would find 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:18.520 laws like the Butler Act unconstitutional nationwide. But that did 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:22.960 not happen. At scopes appeal before the Tennessee Supreme Court, 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:26.560 the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and the original 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.199 trial judge Rawlson had specified that hundred dollar penalty, but 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:33.280 because the penalty was greater than fifty dollars under the 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.480 Tennessee Constitution, it should have been levied by the jury 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:39.919