Labor leaders Eugene V. Debs and William D. Loeb known more commonly as Leopold and Loeb , and Henry Sweet, a Detroit African American accused of murder in a civil rights upheaval, numbered among his most well-known clients.
The trial began on July 10, The atmosphere was circus-like. More than six hundred spectators shoehorned themselves into the courtroom. The presiding judge, John T. Raulston, had proposed holding the trial outdoors in a tent that would accommodate twenty thousand. Reporters assembled from as far away as London and Hong Kong. Mencken chronicled the trial for the Baltimore Sun. Years later, the U. Supreme Court struck down a similar Arkansas law in Epperson v.
Arkansas , finding that it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This article was originally published in From a historical standpoint, the case was anything but simple.
It was highly publicized; in fact, it was literally a media circus…over two hundred reporters descended upon the small town of Dayton and trained monkeys actually performed on the courthouse lawn. Adding to the controversy further was the way in which Scopes violated the Butler Act; he taught the theory of evolution in his classroom. The theory of evolution was, in , very divisive and still is today to a lesser extent.
The State of Tennessee vs. While John T. Scopes was being put on trial in a court of law, the merits of American Fundamentalism were being put on trial in the court of public opinion.
The Monkey Trial, which began as a publicity stunt, resulted in what many consider a serious blow to the American Fundamentalist Movement. Whatever the result, negative or positive, of the Monkey Trial to the American Fundamentalist Movement; it did not disappear. Even after the media circus of the Monkey Trial, the American Fundamentalist movement is alive, though it may not be as well venerated. Business was not good in Dayton in the summer of , but thanks to the Butler Act it was about to get better.
Local mine manager George Rappleyea, a native New Yorker and future member of the First Humanist Society of New York, hatched the idea to bring attention to the small city of Dayton by convincing John Scopes to stand trial for violating the Butler Act. Whatever his motivations were, his scheme worked. The American Civil Liberties Union had already pledged to defend anyone accused of violating the act, thus Scopes who was by all means a willing participant did not have to worry about financing his own defense…and what a defense it would become.
Not to be outdone, the partisans for the prosecution enlisted the help of distinguished orator, former Secretary of State, and champion of Fundamentalism William Jennings Bryant. Typical Fundamentalists Fundamentalist for this work will be understood to refer to Christian Fundamentalism views include: the verbal and inerrant inspiration of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, His substitutionary atonement, the physical or bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the immanent second coming of Jesus Christ, His deity, the depravity or sinful nature of man, the eventual physical or bodily resurrection of believing or regenerate Christians, salvation and justification by faith through the Grace of God, and the Trinitarian nature of God.
That is to say, Fundamentalist beliefs today are much the same as they were in What has changed since is the relationship of Fundamentalist beliefs to more progressive or modernist beliefs such as acceptance of the theory of evolution, the Big Bang Theory of universe origin, or even Theistic Evolution. During the time when the Butler Act was passed, modernist views were an emerging threat to long accepted Fundamentalist standards.
Today, the inclusion of the theory of evolution in a science book is typical and generally accepted by society. The Monkey Trial pitted these opposing perspectives against one another for the entire nation to see. From a factual perspective, the Monkey Trial was an open and shut case. Scopes had all but volunteered himself to stand trial and did not deny violating the Butler Act. The defense, therefore, did not object to the charges but rather the merits of the Butler Act.
The defense argued that the Butler Act gave preference to a religion and thus violated the constitution of Tennessee which forbade doing so. The presiding Judge, John T. Raulston, did not buy the argument. Raulston asserted that the act did not give preference to a particular religion.
Judge Raulston, who was himself very likely partisan to the Fundamentalist viewpoint, struck down any objection to the law on constitutional grounds. In fact, the judge instructed the jury to ignore all defense testimony regarding the merit of the law and focus on the violation of the Act itself.
He was never retried. The Fundamentalist law was persevered. However, the Fundamentalist viewpoint took a beating publically. Darrow and Bryan had been publically feuding over progressive views for some time. At the monkey trial, the feud came to a head. William Jennings Bryan, special prosecutor for the state, took the stand.
In the opinion of many in the media covering the trial, which was broadcast on the radio nationally, Darrow did just that. Darrow never spared him. To see him humbled and humiliated before the vast crowd which had come to adore him, was sheer tragedy, nothing less.
In eulogizing Bryan, Fundamentalist leader W. When it comes to contentious topics, especially ones regarding religious beliefs, an objective opinion is a hard thing to find. Bryan, in later statement, stated that the real threat of evolution was not to Christianity, but to religion itself.
After the trial, Bryan immediately began to prepare his unused closing statement as a speech for his rallies. He never got to use that speech, since he died in his sleep in Dayton the following Sunday. Scopes was offered a new teaching contract but chose to leave Dayton and study geology at the University of Chicago graduate school. He eventually became a petroleum engineer. Supporters of both sides claimed victory following the trial, but the Butler Act was upheld, and the anti-evolution movement continued.
Mississippi passed a similar law months later, and in Texas banned the theory of evolution from high school textbooks. Twenty-two other states made similar efforts but were defeated. The controversy over the teaching of science and evolution has continued into the 21st century. In , the case of Kitzmiller v. The court ruled against intelligent design — now largely discredited as a pseudoscience — as a legitimate topic suitable for education.
Summer For The Gods. Edward J. The Legend of the Scopes Trial. Scientific American. The Scopes Trial. University of Minnesota. State of Tennessee v. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
John T. That law, passed in March , In the scorching summer heat of small-town Dayton, TN, in July of Born into a freethinking family of English physicians in , Charles Darwin suffered from a host of conditions Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln. Both Darwin and Lincoln were born on February 12, , but in much different settings. Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between and The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German Oscar Wilde was a playwright, novelist, poet and celebrity in late nineteenth century London.
His flamboyant dress, cutting wit and eccentric lifestyle often put him at odds with the social norms of Victorian England. Wilde, a homosexual, was put on trial for gross indecency in The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of , after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft.
As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a
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