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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. We are coming up on the ninety

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Speaker 1: five anniversary of the verdict in State of Tessee versus

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Speaker 1: John Thomas Scopes, also just the Scopes Monkey Trial, so

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Speaker 1: that seemed like a good time to share our previous

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Speaker 1: episode on the trial, which originally came out on. One

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Speaker 1: correction that we got after this episode originally aired is

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Speaker 1: that the drug store owner and school board president who

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Speaker 1: played a big role in all of this was Frank E. Robinson.

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Speaker 1: We incorrectly said his name was Fred. That is an

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Speaker 1: error that appeared in one of the books Tracy used

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Speaker 1: for research, Edward Larsen's book Summer of the Gods, and

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Speaker 1: it's been reproduced as well in a lot of other places.

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Speaker 1: So thanks to listener Kay for writing to us about

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Speaker 1: that way back in the day so we can fix

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Speaker 1: it here at least in the intro. Yeah, Okay was

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Speaker 1: actually the person that that pointed out that that seems

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Speaker 1: to be the origin of that particular widely reproduced error. Oh.

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Speaker 1: We also mentioned at the end of this episode and

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Speaker 1: any well, Scopes festival organizers had been planning to do

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Speaker 1: a modified festival this year, focusing just on the outdoor

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Speaker 1: events and in including social distancing, but ultimately they have

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Speaker 1: had to cancel due to the ongoing COVID nineteen pandemic.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we

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Speaker 1: are going to talk about the Scopes Trial also known

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Speaker 1: as the Monkey Trial, so known as the Scopes Monkey Trial,

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Speaker 1: which played out in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of

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Speaker 1: I learned last night from a dear friend of mine

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Speaker 1: who grew up in Tennessee that they cover this in

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Speaker 1: Tennessee History Class. Cool. So if you grew up in Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: or maybe if you've studied law, you might already know

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Speaker 1: a lot of these details. But a lot of what

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Speaker 1: most folk know in quotation marks about this trial really

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Speaker 1: comes from Inherit the Wind, which started as a play

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five and was adapted into a film

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. And even if you have never personally

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Speaker 1: seen Inherit the Wind, which was conceived more as an

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Speaker 1: allegory for McCarthy ism than an actual portrayal of the

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Speaker 1: Scopes Trial, it does not even use the same names

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Speaker 1: or location. A lot of conventional wisdom about the trial

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Speaker 1: and its personalities and how it played out really have

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Speaker 1: much deeper roots in inherent the wind than in actual history.

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Speaker 1: I won't out them by name, but I have a

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Speaker 1: friend who I mentioned yesterday that we're doing this, and

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Speaker 1: their reaction was, wait, is that one about slavery? It's like, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: it's super nice. So there's no shame in having you know,

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Speaker 1: blind spots in your historical knowledge. Tickled me. And it's

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Speaker 1: a very smart person. But we all have them, those

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Speaker 1: weird blind spots. Uh and true. So will now clear

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Speaker 1: it up, and that person will know all the things

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Speaker 1: about about slavery at all. No. So. The State of

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Speaker 1: Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes was the United States first

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Speaker 1: major legal battle over the teaching of evolution. Charles Darwin

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Speaker 1: had published On the Origin of Species by Means of

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Speaker 1: Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the

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Speaker 1: Struggle for Life back in eighteen fifty nine, and Darwin

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Speaker 1: did not invent the idea of evolution. The basic idea

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Speaker 1: that species change and shift over time goes back millennia

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Speaker 1: in multiple cultures, but the book itself was hugely influential

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Speaker 1: and very controversial. By the nineteen teens and twenties, though

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Speaker 1: Darwin's writings were well established, they were generally accepted in

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Speaker 1: the field of biology, and as part of a general

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Speaker 1: trend of progressive educational reform, they also started to be

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Speaker 1: incorporated into school curricula and the United States teachers were

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Speaker 1: beginning to unionize, and the National Education Association had recommended

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Speaker 1: that states try to align their standards for education nationally.

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Speaker 1: And with this overall trend in standardization, more and more

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Speaker 1: states were making science a mandatory school requirement, and more

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Speaker 1: and more science textbooks were addressing evolution. For example, William

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Speaker 1: Hunter's A Civic Biology Presented in Problems, which was published

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, was the approved biology textbook in the

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Speaker 1: state of Tennessee in nine Like other civic biology texts

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Speaker 1: of the time, it framed biology in terms of its

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Speaker 1: practical applicability to other parts of life, like hygiene and

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Speaker 1: wellness and food safety. Hunter's book included evolution in chapter fourteen,

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Speaker 1: quote division of labor, the various forms of plants and animals,

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Speaker 1: and part of that chapter reads the great English scientists

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Speaker 1: Charles Darwin. From this and other evidence explained the theory

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Speaker 1: of evolution. This is the belief that simple forms of

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Speaker 1: life on Earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those

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Speaker 1: more complex, and that thus ultimately the most complex forms

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Speaker 1: came into existence. Running parallel to this progressive shift and

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Speaker 1: educational standards and the inclusion of evolution in science textbooks,

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Speaker 1: was a rise in religious fundamentalism, particularly Christian fundamentalism. The

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Speaker 1: term fundamentalism itself was coined in the nineteen twenties, signifying

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Speaker 1: a strict adherence to certain fundamental concepts of Christian faith

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Speaker 1: and in some cases interpreting the Bible literally rather than figuratively.

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Speaker 1: And when it came to evolutionary theory, some Christians, particularly

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Speaker 1: fundamentalist Christians, objected to the idea that humans came from

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Speaker 1: monkeys and to the idea that something other than a

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Speaker 1: divine hand could be credited for life on earth, And

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Speaker 1: if the Bible was the literal word of God, then

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Speaker 1: the writings of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary biologists were

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Speaker 1: directly contradictory to the creation story in the book Genesis. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: other religions and other nations had their own views on

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Speaker 1: evolution and whether it should be taught, but Christianity in

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Speaker 1: the United States is what is relevant to the Scopes trial. Also,

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Speaker 1: for the sake of clarity, this whole humans came from

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Speaker 1: Monkey's idea. It's one that a lot of people took

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Speaker 1: away from the Origin of species and from all the

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Speaker 1: conversations that followed its publication. But the Origin of species

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Speaker 1: only very briefly and vaguely alludes to the origins of humankind.

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Speaker 1: There is nothing in its saying humans came from monkeys.

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Speaker 1: Darwin's second book, The Descent of Man, came out in

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, and it is about theories of human origins,

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Speaker 1: and it's basic conclusion is that quote man is descended

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Speaker 1: from some less highly organized form. Darwin describes the less

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Speaker 1: organized form as some ancient, unknown ancestor that does have

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Speaker 1: some monkey like traits, but it is not a modern monkey. Today,

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Speaker 1: the scientific consensus is that both humans and monkeys descended

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Speaker 1: from an ancestor that lived millions of years ago, not

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Speaker 1: that one came from another. Essentially, two branches of a tree, yes,

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Speaker 1: a very large and very complex tree. Yes. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: it's not like they each branch off from one spot.

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Speaker 1: It's there. Yeah, we talked about this in our Pilled

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Speaker 1: Down Man episode if you are looking for a little

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Speaker 1: more of that piece of history. So, in the face

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Speaker 1: of this ongoing conflict between scientific acceptance of evolution and

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Speaker 1: religious rejection of it, multiple states began considering laws to

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Speaker 1: ban its teaching. On its face, this was a religious issue.

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Speaker 1: The idea that children might go to school and come

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Speaker 1: home questioning their faith was frightening and infuriating too many parents,

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Speaker 1: especially given that public schools were funded through taxes they

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Speaker 1: were paying. People were basically like, I want my kid

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Speaker 1: to go to the school I'm paying for and then

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Speaker 1: come home and say they don't believe in God anymore.

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Speaker 1: But it was also a general resistance to the overall

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Speaker 1: trend of establishing state and national education standards. Many parents

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Speaker 1: in rural counties didn't like the idea of far away

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Speaker 1: legislatures in their state capitals or Washington, d c. Setting

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Speaker 1: rules about what their children would learn while having no

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Speaker 1: idea what their wishes or needs were. Passing laws against

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Speaker 1: the teaching of evolution was a way to gain a

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Speaker 1: sense of control over what children were being taught. In

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Speaker 1: the face of all these changes to the educational system,

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Speaker 1: Although Florida and Oklahoma passed laws that were connected to

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Speaker 1: this basic issue in nineteen twenty three. It was Tennessee

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Speaker 1: that became the first states who explicitly forbid the teaching

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Speaker 1: of evolution. In nineteen Representative John W. Butler introduced what

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Speaker 1: became known as the Butler Act on January twenty one

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Speaker 1: of that year. He had been interested in introducing similar

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Speaker 1: legislation as far back as nineteen twenty one, after hearing

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Speaker 1: a sermon about a young woman who had gone to

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Speaker 1: college and come home believing in evolution but not in God.

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Speaker 1: Once Butler had introduced the Act, there was some legislative

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Speaker 1: back and forth, but ultimately it passed both the Tennessee

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Speaker 1: House and Senate with overwhelming support. Tennessee's Governor Austin p

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Speaker 1: signed it into law on March twenty one, after putting

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Speaker 1: it off until the last possible day and at one

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Speaker 1: point telling a senator that he thought the bill was absurd. P,

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Speaker 1: who was in his second term as governor, had already

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Speaker 1: instituted a number of progressive reforms within the state. He

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Speaker 1: was at that point trying to pass a massive school

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Speaker 1: reform bill that would do things like build high schools

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Speaker 1: in rural counties that didn't have them length in the

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Speaker 1: school year and make education compulsory. It's possible that p

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Speaker 1: finally signed the Butler Act in exchange for Congressional support

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Speaker 1: for his massive school reform bill, or that he recognized

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Speaker 1: that this bill and the reforms that it was instituting

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Speaker 1: would face some resistance in rural parts of Tennessee, so

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Speaker 1: he felt like the Butler would assuage some people's fears

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Speaker 1: over what he was wanting to do. Even when he

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Speaker 1: signed it, though he said it was mostly symbolic and

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Speaker 1: that he did not expect anyone to be charged with

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Speaker 1: violating it. The Butler Act made it illegal for any

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Speaker 1: teacher in Tennessee funded schools and universities to quote teach

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Speaker 1: any theory that denies the story of the divine creation

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Speaker 1: of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach

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Speaker 1: instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

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Speaker 1: It also established a fine of one hundred to five

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Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and the Act didn't really offer insight on

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Speaker 1: what to do about the fact that the state approved

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Speaker 1: biology textbook laid out the basic concepts of evolution in

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Speaker 1: chapter fourteen. This all brings us to the Scopes trial,

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Speaker 1: in which Tennessee teacher John Thomas Scopes was charged with

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Speaker 1: teaching evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. He was

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Speaker 1: convicted in a highly publicized trial that played out in

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Speaker 1: a pretty circus like atmosphere, and it had a lot

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Speaker 1: of famous names in the legal teams on both sides.

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Speaker 1: But the whole thing came about in a way that's

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Speaker 1: significantly different from what people might imagine. We will have

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Speaker 1: some details after the break. Although local attorneys were also

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Speaker 1: part of it, the Scopes trial involved a hugely high

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Speaker 1: profile cast of characters from out of town. There was

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Speaker 1: defense attorney Clarence Darrow, originally from Ohio, who was one

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Speaker 1: of America's most famous attorneys. He had represented Eugene V.

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Speaker 1: Debs after the massive Pullman strike of eight. He'd also

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Speaker 1: defended Leopold and Loebe and they're highly publicized murder trial.

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Speaker 1: He's usually credited with getting them a life murder sentence

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Speaker 1: instead of being executed. And the team on for the

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Speaker 1: defense also included Arthur Garfield Haze of New York, who

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Speaker 1: was the a c l used General counsel. The man

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Speaker 1: arguing for the prosecution, William Jennings Bryan the Great Commoner

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Speaker 1: was generally from Illinois. He had run for president three

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Speaker 1: times and served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.

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Speaker 1: In the years leading up to the trial, he had

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Speaker 1: also become one of the most prominent anti evolution figures

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Speaker 1: in the nation, giving speeches with names like the Bible

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Speaker 1: and its Enemies and the Menace of Darwinism. Hl Mankin,

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Speaker 1: who wrote some of the most famous and most memorable

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Speaker 1: coverage of the trial, was from Baltimore, Maryland, and his

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Speaker 1: coverage ran in the Baltimore Sun. Meanwhile, Dayton, Tennessee, originally

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Speaker 1: founded as Smith's Crossroads, was a town of less than

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundred people situated roughly between Chattanooga and Knoxville and

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Speaker 1: the Tennessee River Valley. In the late nineteenth century, it

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Speaker 1: had become home to the Dayton Iron and Coal Company, which,

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Speaker 1: along with the railroad, had become the town's major employer.

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Speaker 1: But by the nineteen teams the blast furnace had shut down,

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Speaker 1: leaving farming as the now struggling town's major industry. So

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Speaker 1: between all the big names and the struggling small town,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to imagine that this was a case of

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Speaker 1: a bunch of high salutant city folk blustering in uninvited

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Speaker 1: to run rough shot over everybody and basically have a giant, public,

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Speaker 1: unwanted fight. But this was not the case at all,

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Speaker 1: as still happens today when a newly passed law seems

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Speaker 1: to run contrary to the Constitution or civil liberties. The

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Speaker 1: Butler Act immediately caught the attention of the American Civil

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Speaker 1: Liberties Union. The a c l U publicly offered to

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Speaker 1: defend any teacher charged with its violation. An advertisement announcing

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Speaker 1: that the a c l U was seeking a test

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Speaker 1: case ran in a Chattanooga newspaper on May four. This

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Speaker 1: advertisement came to the attention of a group of Dayton's

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Speaker 1: community and civic leaders. Fred E. Robinson's drug store had

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Speaker 1: become the site of regular meetings that included school superintendent

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Speaker 1: Walter White, attorneys Herbert and Sue Hicks, Cumberland Cole and

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Speaker 1: Iron Company manager George Washington Rapilier, and Robinson himself, who

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Speaker 1: was also the school board president. Some of them did

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Speaker 1: care about the teaching of evolution as a matter of principle,

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Speaker 1: but they were far more interested in the community of Dayton.

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Speaker 1: They thought a great, big trial would bring a lot

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Speaker 1: of much needed attention and tourism dollars to the town

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Speaker 1: rapil A, which may also have been rapili A. Documents

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Speaker 1: spell his name too different ways. Is usually the person

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Speaker 1: who's credited with convincing them all to go along with

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Speaker 1: this plan. To get the ball rolling, they just needed

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Speaker 1: a teacher, and the teacher in question was John Thomas Scopes,

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Speaker 1: who was then twenty four. Scopes had graduated from the

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Speaker 1: University of Kentucky the year before, and he was working

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Speaker 1: at the newly opened Ray County High School teaching algebra

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Speaker 1: and physics, coaching football, and sometimes substituting in biology. Dayton's

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Speaker 1: civic leaders thought Scopes would be a good candidate for

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Speaker 1: this scheme because he was well liked around town, he

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Speaker 1: was not viewed as some kind of radical, and he

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Speaker 1: didn't have a family whose livelihood would be threatened if

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Speaker 1: he did lose his job. Although they hoped it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: come to that. Scopes wasn't particularly eager to be arrested,

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Speaker 1: but he agreed to go along with this. He did

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Speaker 1: not agree with the Butler Act. He did not think

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Speaker 1: it was possible to teach biology without also teaching evolution.

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Speaker 1: And he didn't think that evolution was incompatible with religious faith.

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Speaker 1: Scopes had even already at least supposedly done the necessary

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Speaker 1: teaching of evolution. The prior April, he had done an

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Speaker 1: exam review out of the state approved biology textbook. Although

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Speaker 1: he couldn't remember specifically, he thought probably he'd gone over

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Speaker 1: the chapter that included evolution. According to some accounts, he

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Speaker 1: later said that he had not, but in any case,

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Speaker 1: he was arrested for violating the Butler Act on May seven,

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Speaker 1: and he was indicted on May twenty five. The town

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Speaker 1: of Dayton then began to prepare for what it hoped

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Speaker 1: would be an onslaught of visitors from late May until

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Speaker 1: early July. The town built a tourist camp to provide

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Speaker 1: additional housing. It also added a number of improvements to

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Speaker 1: the courthouse, including an outdoor speakers platform with benches and

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Speaker 1: loud speakers to handle an overflow crowd. To make the

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Speaker 1: courtroom more hospitable to reporters and their work. It also

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Speaker 1: added camera platforms, radio microphones, and telephone and telegraph lines.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't just about accommodating lots of visitors or

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Speaker 1: making the courthouse more accessible to the news media. Dayton

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Speaker 1: also essentially turned part of its main road into a

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Speaker 1: festival grounds, complete with vendors and stalls. A scopes trial

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Speaker 1: Entertainment committee was formed. The Constable's motorcycle got a new label. Monkeyville.

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Speaker 1: Police businesses hung pictures of apes and monkeys in their windows.

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Speaker 1: A clothier who happened to be named j. R. Darwin

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Speaker 1: made the most of it with signs like Darwin is

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Speaker 1: right inside and Darwin's Big Sale. A whole lot of

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Speaker 1: store suddenly started stocking plush monkeys. Fred Robinson, who's uh

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Speaker 1: drug store had been the site of the first conversation

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Speaker 1: about hatching this plot, Fred Robinson started serving Simion SODA's

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Speaker 1: at the drug store. He strung a giant banner across

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Speaker 1: the street reading Robinson's drug Store with where it started

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Speaker 1: in smaller letters. Underneath. There were also photo ops at

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Speaker 1: the table where that initial conversation had taken place. A

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Speaker 1: chimpanzee named Joe Mendy, dressed in a plaid suit and

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Speaker 1: bow tie, who was one of multiple chimpanzees brought into

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Speaker 1: town for this was there to greet his customers when

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Speaker 1: they came into the store. And in addition to all

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Speaker 1: the business involvement in the overall carnival atmosphere where a

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Speaker 1: tinerant evangelists who came to town to preach about the

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Speaker 1: evils of evolution and the rightness of banning it from school.

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Speaker 1: Another banner was strung outside the courthouse that read, read

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Speaker 1: your Bible, Bible in all caps. Of course, in theory,

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Speaker 1: all of this big monkey festival was going on because

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Speaker 1: of a trial li in court, which we were going

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Speaker 1: to talk about after another quick sponsor break. Jury's selection

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Speaker 1: in the Scopes trial began on July. On that same day,

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Speaker 1: the Judge John T. Ralston took the precaution of impaneling

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Speaker 1: a second grand jury to reindicte John Scopes. People had

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Speaker 1: been so worried that some other town was going to

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Speaker 1: have this same idea and hatch the same plan that

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Speaker 1: the first indictment had been rushed through, and the judge

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Speaker 1: was worried that it was invalid. Actual trial proceedings were

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Speaker 1: put off until the following Monday to allow time for

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Speaker 1: the radio hookups that had been installed in the courtroom

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Speaker 1: to actually be connected for broadcasts. The Scopes trial would

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Speaker 1: be the first trial to be publicly broadcast nationwide, and

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Speaker 1: it was also filmed for newsreels that were distributed to

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Speaker 1: movie theaters. The defense and the prosecution each had a

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Speaker 1: completely different focus for this trial. From the prosecution's point

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Speaker 1: of view, it was really simple. They would establish that

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Speaker 1: John Thomas Scopes violated the Butler Act, which was state law,

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Speaker 1: by teaching evolution in a public school, and they would

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Speaker 1: establish that the state of Tennessee had the right to

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Speaker 1: set its own standards for the public school curriculum. The

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Speaker 1: defense's most practical focus was whether the Act itself was enforceable,

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Speaker 1: whether it's definition of evolution was precise enough, and whether

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Speaker 1: a teacher had to both deny the story of divine

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Speaker 1: creation and teach that man had descended from lower animals

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Speaker 1: to be in violation of the law. But beyond that,

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Speaker 1: it was looking at much broader issues than the defense

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Speaker 1: was like establishing whether the Butler Act was religiously motivated

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Speaker 1: and the evolution was scientifically sound. Let's focus on religion,

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Speaker 1: and this angle of religion versus science was really coming

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Speaker 1: from Clarence Darrow, who was a very vocal agnostic. The

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Speaker 1: A c. L U would was reluctant to have Darrow

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Speaker 1: involved in this at all. Viewed the Butler Act primarily

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Speaker 1: as an act on the freedom of speech, not on

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Speaker 1: the freedom of religion. This was in part because the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court had previously ruled that the free speech clauses

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Speaker 1: of the First Amendment applied to state governments as well

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Speaker 1: as to the federal government. It had not yet made

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Speaker 1: such a ruling related to the freedom of religion, and

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Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen for several more decades. So basically, the

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Speaker 1: a c. L U was really looking at this as

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Speaker 1: a speech issue, and Clarence Darrow was in his own

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Speaker 1: little world focusing on the religious aspect. Once the trial began,

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Speaker 1: about a thousand people tried to cram into the courtroom,

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Speaker 1: which could hold about six hundred, and that happened every day.

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Speaker 1: The rest listened from benches outside the courthouse. The courtroom

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Speaker 1: was incredibly tight and incredibly hot, since the giant crush

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Speaker 1: of people blocked the courtrooms windows, and at least at

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Speaker 1: the start of the trial, it had no electric fans

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Speaker 1: to sculate air. Apart from reporters representing more than one newspapers,

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Speaker 1: most of those trying to watch were locals and not visitors.

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Speaker 1: So even though Dayton had turned the town into a

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Speaker 1: sort of Scopes trial fair it hadn't had the hoped

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Speaker 1: for rush of tourists. The trial began with some fairly

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Speaker 1: straightforward questioning of students and other witnesses who's testified about

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Speaker 1: scopes discussions of evolution. But when Darrow started trying to

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Speaker 1: bring in expert witnesses to discuss the science of evolution,

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Speaker 1: Judge Rawlston refused to allow it. He said that the

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Speaker 1: matter at hand was not whether evolution was scientifically valid,

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Speaker 1: but whether Scopes had broken the law. Indeed, that would

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Speaker 1: seem to be the point of the trial. Purportedly, with

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Speaker 1: a key part of his defense strategy effectively torpedoed, Clarence

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Speaker 1: Darrow took another tack. Instead of calling scientists to the

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Speaker 1: stand to testify as to the validity of the theory

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Speaker 1: of evolution, he took the highly unusual step of calling

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Speaker 1: William Jennings Bryan, the opposing counsel, to the stand on

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Speaker 1: July to act as an expert witness on the validity

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Speaker 1: of the Bible. At this point, the proceedings had been

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Speaker 1: moved outdoors due to the oppressive heat in the courtroom

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Speaker 1: and cracks developing in the ceiling under the weight of

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Speaker 1: the newly installed fans. I just want to say again,

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Speaker 1: the defense counsel calling to the stand the prosecutor to

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Speaker 1: answer questions about something really not related to the issue

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Speaker 1: at hand. That's weird that it feels a little showbody

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Speaker 1: like it's a big like yeah, drama move yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: when Darrow asked if Brian claimed that everything in the

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Speaker 1: Bible should be literally interpreted William Jennings, Bryan answered, quote,

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Speaker 1: I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as

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Speaker 1: it is given there some of the Bible is given illustratively.

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Speaker 1: Following that answer, Darrow asked him a bunch of questions

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Speaker 1: about particular passages from the Bible, like Jonah being swallowed

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Speaker 1: by a whale and spit out a whole after three days,

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Speaker 1: and Joshua commanding the sun to sand still and the

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Speaker 1: Great Flood, and whether the sixth day creation in Genesis

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00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: was six actual twenty four hour days, and whether Eve

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00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: was literally made from Adam's rib. Basically every Internet conversation

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Speaker 1: of people of like atheist people asking people of faith

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00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 1: questions about the Bible, Bryant's answers, in many cases sounded

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Speaker 1: imprecise or contradictory, and at the end, he accused Darrow

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Speaker 1: of trying to use the court to slur the Bible.

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Speaker 1: How this was received really depends on who you ask.

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Speaker 1: Many religious faithful felt as though William Jennings Bryan had

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Speaker 1: conducted himself admirably in the face of someone who was

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00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: clearly trying to humiliate and trap him. Although some Biblical

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00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: literalists were disappointed at his description of the six days

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Speaker 1: of Creation as periods, not literal days. Others thought the

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00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: whole exchange was an absurd waste of time unrelated to

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Speaker 1: the case. But a lot of the news media, like

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Speaker 1: we said, there were a hundred papers represented their portrayed

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Speaker 1: Brian in an incredibly negative light. In the Baltimore Evening Sun, H. L.

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Speaker 1: Menkin wrote, quote, Thus he fought his last fight, eager

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Speaker 1: only for blood. It quickly became frenzied and preposterous, and

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00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: after that pathetic all sense departed from him. He bit

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Speaker 1: right and left like a dog with rabies. He descended

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00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:38,919
Speaker 1: to demagogi, so dreadful that his very associates blushed. His

399
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: one yearning was to keep his yokels. Heated up to

400
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: lead his forlorn mob against the foe. That foe Alas

401
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the battle

402
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 1: as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally yielded

403
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 1: to the prevailing spirit. Finally he lured poor Brian into

404
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: a folly almost incredible. The next day, July on, the

405
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: judge ruled that Brian could not return to the stand.

406
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 1: Darrow then asked for the jury to begin deliberations, recommending

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Speaker 1: that they find the defendant guilty. The jury returned with

408
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: a verdict less than ten minutes later. Scopes, who had

409
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: never taken the stand himself, was guilty. He was fined

410
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. The a c o used goal at

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Speaker 1: this point, and the reason that Darrow, who was the

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Speaker 1: defense attorney, recommended that the jury find his client guilty,

413
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Speaker 1: was to appeal this verdict, ideally to appeal it all

414
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 1: the way to the Supreme Court in a case that

415
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: would find laws like the Butler Act unconstitutional nationwide. But

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00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 1: that did not happen. At scopes appeal before the Tennessee

417
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and

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Speaker 1: the original trial judge Rawlston had specified that hundred dollar penalty,

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Speaker 1: but because the penalty was greater than fifty dollars under

420
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Constitution, it should have been levied by the jury,

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00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 1: not by a judge. With the verdict overturned and the

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00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,439
Speaker 1: Tennessee Supreme Court also issuing an opinion that the Butler

423
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: Act was constitutional because it didn't mandate or establish any

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00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: religious belief or practice, the a c. L U had

425
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: nothing left to pursue related to the Butler Act in Tennessee.

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00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: Five days after the end of the Scopes trial, William

427
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: Jennings Bryan died in his sleep during an afternoon nap.

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00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with the words

429
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: he kept the Faith on his tombstone, and the romanticized

430
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: version of this story is that he died of humiliation

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00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: after Darrow's questioning, or that he died of heartbreak after

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00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: being denied the opportunity to give his closing statement at

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00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: the trial. The two leading candidates for the actual cause

434
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: of death are untreated diabetes and stroke. Whatever the cause,

435
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: it was almost certainly exacerbated by the stress and physically

436
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: grueling heat in the trial. From that point, Brian was

437
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: viewed as a martyr within the anti evolution movement. Five

438
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,439
Speaker 1: years later Brian College, originally called William Jennings Bryan University,

439
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: opened in Dayton as a Christian liberal arts college. The

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00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: Scopes Trial had a somewhat contradictory aftermath. Tennessee in general

441
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: and Dayton specifically were roundly laughed at in the news media,

442
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 1: which was also particularly unkind to both religious fundamentalism and

443
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: two laws forbidding the teaching of evolution, and yet similar

444
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: laws were introduced, although unsuccessfully, in the legislatures of California, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Minnesota,

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00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia, and the

446
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: years following the Scopes Trial, Arkansas and Mississippi each past

447
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: laws banning the teaching of evolution. Not long after. Even

448
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: though only three states explicitly outlawed the teaching of evolution,

449
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: many textbook publishers quietly removed references to it from their

450
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: biology textbooks. This included a new Civic Biology whose edition

451
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:03,360
Speaker 1: never specifically references evolution and tiptoes around the basic concepts.

452
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 1: At the same time, the coverage of the trial and

453
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: of William Jennings Bryant's death helped coalesce the anti evolution movement.

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00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: From sort of a scattered collection of various denominations to

455
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: a solid social movement, and Darrow's relentless framing of evolution

456
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: and religion as this either or proposition cemented the standard

457
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: for how the issue would be discussed for years to come.

458
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: Attempts to repeal the Butler Act began in nineteen five,

459
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: but failed. It stayed on the books until nineteen sixty seven.

460
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: Governor Austin P died in nineteen seven, and his signature

461
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: on the Butler Act largely overshadowed the rest of his

462
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: legacy for decades. It would also take decades for a

463
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: case relating to the teaching of evolution to make it

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00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court. In nineteen sixty eight,

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00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court heard the case of Susan Epperson, an

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00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: Arkansas zoology teacher who had been found guilty of breaking

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00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: that state's law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The Supreme

468
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: Court unanimously ruled in Epperson versus Arkansas that laws prohibiting

469
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: the teaching of evolution violated the First Amendment, and in

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00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: this case, Epperson faced the same dilemma that Scopes did

471
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: back in ninety five, Arkansas law had made it illegal

472
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: quote to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended

473
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: or descended from a lower order of animals end quote,

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00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: but the textbook that the state had adopted in nineteen

475
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: sixty five had a chapter on that very thing. After

476
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: Epperson versus Arkansas, most states that had previously banned the

477
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: teaching of evolution instead mandated that equal time be spent

478
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: on teaching creationism. This includes Tennessee, which passed the nation's

479
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: first law requiring equal time for the Biblical account of creation.

480
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three. A federal appeals court ruled this

481
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: law on constitutional. Two years later, that ruling applied only

482
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: to Tennessee, but in in eight seven, the Supreme Court

483
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: ruled that a Louisiana law entitled quote, the Balanced Treatment

484
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: for Creation Science and Evolution Science and Public School Instruction

485
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: Act was unconstitutional. That case, known as Edward versus Aguiard,

486
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: applied nationally. From there, most states that had passed equal

487
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: time laws instead began to frame the conversation as one

488
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: of intelligent design, or began mandating disclaimers that evolution is

489
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: just a theory. In two thousand five, a U S

490
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: District Court found that teaching intelligent design in public schools

491
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: was unconstitutional in a case known as kits Miller versus

492
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: Dover because intelligent design quote cannot uncouple itself from its

493
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: creationist and thus religious antecedents. The same year and Salman

494
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: versus Cobb County School District, a federal judge examined the

495
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: question of whether stickers reading quote evolution is a theory

496
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: not a fact concerning the origin of living things end quote,

497
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: which the school was putting onto textbooks that had information

498
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: about evolution, whether that violated the Constitution, And after going

499
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: back and forth through several levels of the courts, that

500
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: case was ultimately settled out of court in favor of

501
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: the plaintiffs, who were the ones who had objected to

502
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: the use of the stickers. So clearly, as states find

503
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: new ways to work around this issue, it's probably one

504
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: that will continue to come up in the courts. And

505
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: in the meantime, Dayton, Tennessee, actually holds an annual Scopes

506
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: Trial festival. If you want to get in on that.

507
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: If if you yeah, it's uh. It's an interesting phenomenon

508
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: because it's partially because I mean, Dayton was really lampooned

509
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: a lot after this, uh and and Tennessee also got

510
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: a lot of just terrible press afterward. Um. So some

511
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: of the Scopes festival is meant to try to reclaim

512
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: some of like the less like let's make complete fun

513
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: of you side to more like own this is the

514
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: thing that happened in our town that was historically important

515
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: and not like the way that the media portrayed us

516
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: was totally accurate, Like not like that at all. Um,

517
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 1: But it's definitely like there's a play and there's a

518
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: festival happens every year. Are there both monkeys and chimpanzees?

519
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: I do not know. Um. Thanks so much for joining

520
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of

521
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a

522
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar over the course

523
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current

524
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at I heart radio dot com.

525
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: Our old house stuff works email address no longer works,

526
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at

527
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show

528
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,

529
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: and wherever else listen to podcasts stuff you missed in

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00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For

531
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart

532
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

533
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H