The "Monkey Trial"

During the 1920s, many social patterns were disrupted, often with passionate backlash. Traditionalists were worried that core values were ending. Modernist intellectuals often experimented with new methods and styles, while revivalism of the old ways developed, specifically in the South. Journalists knew that the traditionalists and modernists would soon clash spectacularly over something, and they finally found that great showdown, during the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.

Dayton was a small town with a dropping population, from 3,000 people in the 1890s to 1,800 people in 1925. The people of Dayton, including school superintendent Walter White, wanted publicity brought to their town to increase their population. When William Jennings Bryan, the former populist presidential candidate in the 1890s, went on a Fundamentalist "crusade" to ban teaching evolution from schools, George Rappalyea, a modern Methodist and Dayton resident, approached 24-year old general science high school teacher John Scopes in Fred Robinson's drugstore. Rappalyea, with the town's desire for publicity in mind, asked Scopes about his evolutionist teachings from the Hunter's Civic Biology textbook, which was state-approved. Rappalyea told Scopes that his teachings were against the law, and asked if Scopes were willing to stand trial for a "test case." Scopes consented.

Rappalyea set out on finding people to head the defense team. He requested that famous science fiction writer H. G. Wells head the defense, but Wells turned down the offer. When William Jennings Bryan joined the prosecution team, 70-year old agnostic Clarence Darrow jumped to join the defense. John Neal, Arthur Garfield Hays, and Dudley Field Malone joined the defense as well, while Bryan Jr (Bryan's son), Ben B. McKenzie and A. T. Stewart joined the prosecution. Darrow and Bryan are the most remembered people in the case, but Hays and Stewart were equally important in the case. The judge was Judge Raulston, a flamboyant conservative Christian.

During the opening of the trial in July of 1925, the town had a festive air, with lemonade stands, banners, and chimpanzees brought into town as sideshows. Almost a thousand spectators showed up in the courthouse. In addition, live radio broadcast was set up.

The overall goal of the defense was not to acquit John Scopes, but to bring the case into the higher courts, ultimately the Supreme Court, in order to make anti-evolution laws unconstitutional

The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes started off with opening statements portraying the struggle as good vs evil or truth vs ignorance. Bryan claimed that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued, "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." The prosecution, Darrow contended, was "opening the doors for a reign of bigotry equal to anything in the Middle Ages." To the gasps of spectators, Darrow said Bryan was responsible for the "foolish, mischievous and wicked act." Darrow said that the anti-evolution law made the Bible "the yardstick to measure every man's intellect, to measure every man's intelligence, to measure every man's learning." Darrow then cross-examined--gently, though with obvious sarcasm--the students, asking freshman Howard Morgan: "Well, did he tell you anything else that was wicked?" "No, not that I can remember," Howard answered.

 That Thursday, Johns Hopkins zoologist Dr. Maynard Metacalf countered Bryan with a speech that detailed evolution. The speech was met with standing ovation, but the judged ruled it as inadmissible, which angered Darrow. The case had to be moved out into the lawn, as there was fear that the packed courtroom floor was going to collapse. The crowd had swelled to 5,000.

Darrow continued the defense, using 8 scientists and 4 religious experts to testify, with an intent to educate the nation on evolution. On the 7th day of the trial, Hays called on Bryan to be an expert on the Bible, which Bryan accepted. Darrow asked Bryan if he took everything in the Bible literally. Bryan was asked about a whale swallowing Jonah, Joshua making the sun stand still, Noah and the great flood, the temptation of Adam in the garden of Eden, and the creation according to Genesis. After initially contending that "everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there," Bryan finally conceded that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. In response to Darrow's relentless questions as to whether the six days of creation, as described in Genesis, were twenty-four hour days, Bryan said "My impression is that they were periods." Bryan accused Darrow of attempting to "slur at the Bible." He said that he would continue to answer Darrow's impertinent questions because "I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee--." Darrow interrupted his witness by saying, "I object to your statement" and to "your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes." The judge then ordered the court adjourned.

Bryan was reported by the press as failure during his performance in the Darrow interrogation. In their eyes, Bryan had lost.

Near the end of the trial, Darrows requested the verdict to be guilty to move the case up into higher courts. The judge complied, fining Scopes $100. This case was finally brought to the Supreme Court in Epperson vs. Arkansas, but not for another 43 years.

Source:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm