Scopes

My first brush with the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial was the 1960 film Inherit the Wind which starred Spencer Tracy (nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor, but lost to Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry), Frederick March, Dick York and Harry Morgan.  It tells the true story of John Scopes, a high school science teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who on this date in 1925 was accused of violating a state law which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in public schools.

The state brought in William Jennings Bryan (March), three times a candidate for president of the United States, to assist the prosecution.  Scopes (York) hired Clarence Darrow (Tracy), a noted civil libertarian lawyer from Chicago.  

The trial judge, John Raulston (Morgan), "warned the jury not to judge the merit of the law, but on the violation of the Act."  However, both sides seemed to focus on law's merits or lack thereof.  The prosecution emphasized that "the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge."  The defense argued that teachers should be free to teach science to their students.

The law in question was introduced into the Tennessee House of Representatives also in 1925 by Representative John Butler.  The bill stated that "it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any... schools...which are supported...by the State (of Tennessee) to teach any theory that denies the Story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals (monkeys?)."  The punishment for a violation of the law carried a fine of between $100 and $500.

In an unorthodox move, Darrow called Bryan as a witness for the defense as an expert on the Bible.  Bryan accepted the challenge.  Darrow asked him questions from Genesis suggesting that stories therein could not be scientific and should not be used in the teaching of science.

Darrow was quoted as telling Bryan that "You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion."  Bryan retorted that Darrow's purpose was "to cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible."  Darrow claimed that his purpose was "preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."

After the trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to return a guilty verdict.  Judge Raulston fined Scopes $100.  Darrow appealed the verdict all the way to the State Supreme Court.

Scopes himself said, "I feel I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute.  I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can.  Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom-that is, to teach the truth."    

The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional, but reversed the conviction of Scopes on the grounds that it was the responsibility of the jury, not the judge, to fix the fine.  The case was not retried.  The law remained on the books until 1967 when the state legislature voted to repeal it.  Governor Buford Ellington signed the legislation into law.