courthouse, he passed under a sign that proclaimed in large letters,
“Read Your Bible.” He walked up the rather steep stairs that led to the
second-floor courtroom where Raulston, who liked to refer to himself
as “jist a reg’lar mountin’eer jedge,” was already ensconced behind
his newly painted bench. Darrow pushed his way slowly through the
perspiring crowd that blocked every aisle in the courtroom. As he sank
into the one vacant chair at the defense table, he nodded to Arthur
Garfield Hays, Dudley Field Malone and John Randolph Neal, who were
there to assist him. Across the way, at the prosecution table, sat
Bryan, his son, William, Junior, and five Tennessee lawyers of varying
shapes and sizes. After the Reverend Mr. Cartwright had reminded
everyone to look to God for “that wisdom to so transact the business of
this court in such a way and manner as that Thy name may be honored and
glorified among men,” things were off and running.
But first a little repair work was necessary. The special grand jury
that had originally indicted Scopes had been assembled so hurriedly
that there was some doubt as to its legality. Raulston promptly swore
in a new panel and began to read the Butler Act to it. Then he picked
up his well-thumbed copy of the Bible and, in a voice that would have
delighted Billy Graham, intoned the first twenty-seven sections of
Genesis, pausing significantly at those portions which insisted that
“God created man in His own image.” Three of Scopes’ students then told
the thirteen bumpkins in the jury box that he had taught his classes
all about evolution from George William Hunter’s _Civic Biology_.
In less than an hour, the defendant was properly charged and the
prosecution was back on the rails.
The first order of business was the selection of the jury. There wasn’t
much to choose from since only nineteen talesmen had shown up that
morning. Darrow, who prided himself on his painstaking care in picking
a panel, didn’t waste much time with the bemused farmers who shuffled
into the jury box and waited patiently for the agnostic from Chicago
to question them as to their qualifications. By 1:30 p.m. the jury was
complete. Of its eleven members who attended church regularly, six
were Baptists, four Methodists and one an adherent of the Disciples of
Christ. The single backslider said that he perused the Bible from time
to time, but not “like I ought to.” At least one--a former miner named
Jim Riley--admitted he could not read but, since both sides apparently
considered illiteracy an asset, he was promptly waved into the jury
box. As the twelfth man--S. S. Wright--took his seat, Raulston, who was
obviously in no hurry to rush the trial along, announced that court
would adjourn for the weekend.
On Monday, things began in earnest. After A. T. Stewart, the Attorney
General for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit, had read the indictment
to the jury, Neal immediately moved to dismiss it on the ground that
it violated both the state and federal constitutions. Raulston thought
that the legal arguments on these points might be too heady for his
back country jury--which had not yet been sworn in--and he excused its
members who promptly repaired to the courthouse lawn where they eagerly
listened to the proceedings over the loudspeakers. After the lesser
lights on both sides of the fence had used up the morning in forensic
fireworks, a now coatless Darrow, who had just been dubbed a Tennessee
colonel by Raulston, began his attack on the constitutionality of the
Butler Act.
After assuring the judge that he would “always remember that this Court
is the first one that ever gave me the great title of ‘Colonel,’” he
got down to the business at hand. First of all, he turned to face
Bryan, who was busy cooling himself with a palm fan, and declared that
the Great Commoner was the one “who is responsible for this foolish,
mischievous and wicked act.” Then he spent the rest of the afternoon
ripping into the anti-evolution law which he classified as “as bold an
attempt to destroy learning as was ever made in the Middle Ages.” He
had just gotten up a full head of steam when Raulston interrupted him
to announce that it was “adjourning time.” This pronouncement didn’t
seem to carry much weight with Darrow who swept on to his climax:
Today it is the public-school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next
day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the
newspapers. After a while, your Honor it is the setting of man against
man and creed against creed until, with flying banners, and beating
drums, we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth
century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring
any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.
As he sat down, he noticed for the first time that, in his excitement,
he had ripped one of his shirt sleeves.
The next morning--Tuesday, July 14th--he stormed back into the
courtroom and shook Raulston to his back teeth by demanding that the
practice of opening court with a prayer be abandoned. “I don’t object
to the jury or anyone else praying in secret or in private,” he argued,
“but I do object to the turning of this courtroom into a meetinghouse
in the trial of this case. This case is a conflict between science and
religion and no attempt should be made by means of prayer to influence
the deliberation and consideration by the jury of the facts in this
case.” After Raulston had recovered his equilibrium, he informed Darrow
that it had “been my custom since I have been a judge to have prayers
in the courtroom when it was convenient, and I know of no reason why I
should not follow up this custom, so I will overrule the objection.”
As a compromise, he asked New York’s Reverend Charles Francis Potter,
who had come to Dayton as a witness for the defense, to lead the next
day’s prayer.
Raulston spent the rest of the day working on the opinion which would
accompany his decision on the motion to dismiss the indictment.
However, at the very moment he was dictating it to his stenographer,
the International News Service had informed its subscribers that the
defense motion would be denied. The judge, furious at being upstaged,
appointed a committee of newspapermen, headed by Richard Beamish of
the _Philadelphia Inquirer_, to investigate the leak. The committee’s
report was as simple as it was conclusive. It seemed that William K.
Hutchison, an INS reporter, had asked Raulston whether court would be
adjourned to the next day after the opinion was read. When the judge
replied that it would, Hutchison guessed that the motion had been
denied and released a story to that effect. Raulston decided to let the
matter drop with a warning to the newsmen not to “ask me any questions
without putting me on notice what it is about.”
On Wednesday morning, he confirmed Hutchison’s accurate guesswork and
announced that he would not quash the indictment. His reasons were
simple--no one was forced to teach in the public schools and, if any
teacher’s conscience was troubled by having to hew to the letter of the
Butler Act, he could resign and teach in a private institution. Why,
if this law wasn’t constitutional, the Holy Writ itself was suspect!
He raced through his 6000-word opinion in a little more than an hour,
pausing only to wipe the perspiration from his face with a large
scarlet handkerchief. When he had finished, the courthouse clock read
11:13 and he promptly adjourned for lunch.
That afternoon, Foreman Jack R. Thompson, a former United States
Marshal, led his fellow jurors back into the box and, at long last,
they were sworn in. Their first official act was to request, through
their foreman, that the judge “take up the matter of some electric fans
here.” Unfortunately, the depleted state of the county treasury would
not permit such an extravagance, but Raulston graciously consented to
“divide my fan,” and it was placed on an oblique with the jury box. He
also suggested that a foraging squad be sent out to see what could be
done about “borrowing” a fan or two in town.
The first witness for Bryan & Company was Walter White, the county
superintendent of schools, who had signed the second complaint against
Scopes. He said that the defendant had admitted to him back in May
that he had used Hunter’s _Civic Biology_ in class and that it was
absolutely impossible to teach from it without presenting Darwin’s
theory. As for the Butler Act, Scopes had told White that “the law was
unconstitutional anyway.” Yet, despite the threat the text posed to the
impressionable minds of Tennessee’s small fry, it had been used in the
state’s school system since 1909 and had been officially adopted by the
School Book Commission as late as 1924. In fact, it could be purchased
in Dayton from the now celebrated drug store of F. E. Robinson who,
in addition to his pharmaceutical pursuits, was the president of the
county board of education. When Darrow asked the witness if he had ever
warned any teacher about the book’s evil contents, or if anyone had
ever complained to him about them, the answer to the question was a
drawled “No, Sir.”
When White stepped down from glory, he was followed by
fourteen-year-old Howard Morgan, the son of Luke Morgan of the Dayton
Bank & Trust Company, to whose house Darrow and his wife, Ruby, had
fled after one night’s experience with The Mansion’s inactive plumbing.
Young Howard was one of Scopes’ students. According to him, the
defendant had insisted that “the earth was once a hot molten mass, too
hot for plant or animal life to exist upon it; in the sea the earth
cooled off; there was a little germ of one-cell organism formed and
this organism kept on evolving until it got to be a pretty good-sized
animal and then came on to be a land animal, and it kept on evolving,
and from this was man, and that man was just another mammal.”
Morgan looked disappointed when Stewart looked over at Darrow and
purred, “Your witness, Colonel.” Under the Chicagoan’s gentle
questioning, the boy admitted that Scopes had never said that “a
cat was the same as a man.” On the contrary, “he said that man had
reasoning power; that these animals did not.” After observing that
he wasn’t as sure as Scopes about that, Darrow asked the witness
whether he could remember anything else of a salacious nature that the
defendant had taught him. He could not.
Seventeen-year-old Harry Shelton backed up his classmate’s story.
Yes, Scopes had indeed said that man was descended from a lower order
of animals. But what he had learned hadn’t had any adverse effect on
him. He still went to church regularly, just as he had before he was
told that “all life comes from a single cell.” Darrow, who looked
quite satisfied with the way things were going, asked Harry, “Did Mr.
Scopes teach you that man came from the monkey?” As the boy opened
his mouth to answer the question, there was a horrendous shriek from
the direction of the courthouse lawn. A chimpanzee, which had been
brought from New York as a publicity stunt; had just been struck by a
rock propelled by the elastic band in the slingshot of a small boy who
quite obviously had little respect for his ancestors. Harry Shelton’s
answer to Darrow’s question was never to be recorded by the thoroughly
distracted court stenographer.
It had been in F. E. Robinson’s emporium that what Scopes called “just
a drugstore discussion that got past control” had started all the
hullabaloo. Robinson, who presided over the county school board, had
been present while Rappelyea was trying to convince Scopes to throw
himself in the path of the anti-evolution law. Yes, he had heard the
defendant state that he had been teaching Darwin’s theory to his
biology class. In fact, John Thomas had gone even further and said that
it was impossible to teach the subject from any of the available books
without violating the Butler Act.
But Robinson, whose drugstore sold everything from sassafras to hickory
chips, also purveyed Hunter’s _Civic Biology_. Darrow reminded him that
he might be talking himself into a criminal prosecution but, as Stewart
informed Raulston, “the law says ‘teach’, not sell.” They were still
laughing at that one in the back rows when Robinson proudly admitted
that he had a monopoly on the book in Dayton and that copies were
supplied to him by the county library in Chattanooga. No, he hadn’t
noticed “any signs of moral deterioration in the community” since he’d
been selling them.
This was Tennessee’s case against John Thomas Scopes. After some _pro
forma_ motions to dismiss the indictment had been denied by the judge,
Darrow called his first witness, a bespectacled gentleman who turned to
be Dr. Maynard M. Metcalf, a zoologist from John Hopkins University,
who described himself as an “evolutionist.” He was the first of a band
of scientific witnesses whom Darrow had brought to Dayton with him to
show “what evolution is ... and the interpretation of the Bible that
prevails with men of intelligence who have studied it.” But none of
them were ever to get to say their pieces, because Bryan, in his one
speech of the trial, convinced Raulston, who was ready to meet him more
than halfway, that “the Bible, the record of the Son of God, the Savior
of the World, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified and risen again--that
Bible is not going to be driven out of this court by experts who come
hundreds of miles to testify that they can reconcile evolution with its
ancestor in the jungle, with man made by God in His image and put here
for His purpose as part of a divine plan.” Not very legal, perhaps, but
quite persuasive.
However, Raulston did consent to the submission of affidavits by
Darrow’s experts for the “information of the judge.” When Darrow asked
for the rest of the day to prepare these statements, Raulston indicated
that he wasn’t inclined to grant the request. “I do not understand,”
Darrow barked at him, “why every request of the State and every
suggestion of the prosecution should meet with an endless loss of time;
and a bare suggestion of anything that is perfectly competent on our
part should be immediately overruled.” Raulston, with a bland smile,
expressed the hope that “you do not mean to reflect upon the court?”
DARROW: Well, your Honor has the right to hope.
RAULSTON: I have the right to do something else perhaps.
DARROW: All right, all right.
The next morning, Saturday, the 18th, the _Chattanooga News_
prophesized that Raulston would probably cite Darrow for contempt when
court reconvened after the weekend.
But the weather was much too hot for further fireworks and on Monday,
Darrow, after being cited, mollified the ruffled feelings of his Honor
by admitting that “I went further than I should have gone and I want to
apologize to the court for it.” Raulston was more than magnanimous. “I
accept Colonel Darrow’s apology,” he murmured. “I am sure his remarks
were not premeditated. I am sure that if he had time to have thought
and deliberated, he would not have spoken those words ... we forgive
him and we forget it and we command him to go back home and learn in
his heart the words of the Man who said: ‘If you thirst come unto Me
and I will give thee life.’” Pyrrhus would have understood.
That afternoon, as the usual crowd of slightly more than one thousand
people pushed into the courtroom after the noon recess, a worried
bailiff informed Raulston that there was some danger that the
building would collapse. The latter decided to transfer the trial to
the courthouse lawn where an impromptu platform had been built to
accomodate Bryan and the ministers who had been using their free time
to put in a word for the Bible and its copyright owner. But, from
the defense’s point of view, the courtroom _en plein air_ had one
drawback--there was a large sign on the courthouse wall facing the
jurors which importuned them to “Read Your Bible Daily.” When Darrow
suggested that a companion placard stating “Read Your Evolution” be
erected alongside the offending sign, Raulston promptly decided to
remove all signs. _Sic transit gloria mundi._
After the furor had died down, Arthur Garfield Hays finished reading
the statements which had been prepared by the scientists and clergymen
Darrow had brought to Dayton, and whose testimony had been excluded by
Raulston’s ruling. Seven geologists, anthropologists and zoologists as
well as three Protestant ministers and a Jewish rabbi were represented
as Hays, in a tired voice, tried his best to educate an increasingly
exasperated Raulston. When the defense attorney had finished his
readings, he offered into evidence two Bibles and sat down. Darrow
whispered something in his ear, and Hays was back on his feet again.
“The defense desires to call Mr. Bryan as a witness,” he announced.
“We should want to take Mr. Bryan’s testimony for the purposes of our
record, even if your Honor thinks it is not admissable in general, so
we wish to call him now.”
Despite Bryan’s obvious discomfiture at having to take the stand,
there was no escape. He was being called as an expert on the Bible, a
status he had assumed before Chautauquas up and down the land, and he
simply could not refuse to accept Darrow’s challenge. After gaining a
few minutes to collect his thoughts by insisting that the lawyers for
the defense be ordered to take the stand when he was finished, Bryan
perched himself in the spindle-legged chair that passed for a witness
chair. What the _New York Times_ later described as the most amazing
court scene in Anglo-Saxon history was about to be launched.
With the observation that he was sure that the witness would tell the
truth, Darrow waived having him sworn. Then he got down to cases. He
asked Bryan whether he had given considerable study to the Bible, and
the old Democrat assured him that he had, “for about fifty years.” With
slight exceptions, he was convinced that everything in the Scriptures
should be taken literally. “When I read that a big fish swallowed
Jonah,” he bellowed, “I believe it, and I believe in a God who can make
a whale and can make a man and make them both do what he pleases. One
miracle is just as easy to believe as another.”
As Darrow led his perspiring adversary through the Bible from Creation
to the Battle of Jericho, many of the reporters sprawled on the benches
that had been placed under the square’s maple trees remembered that
he had asked many of the same questions in the pages of the _Chicago
Tribune_ two years earlier. Bryan had refused to answer them then, but
he was forced to do so now. When the long day drew to a close, Bryan
was a defeated and humiliated man who had left whatever reputation he
had brought into Dayton among the empty pop bottles and cracker jack
boxes that littered the courthouse lawn. As Will Rogers put it, “He
might make Tennessee the side show of America, but he can’t make a
street carnival of the whole United States.”
With Bryan committed to defending the literalness of every incredible
occurrence in the Bible, Darrow’s task was a comparatively simple
one. A man who believed that Joshua made the sun stand still, or that
Eve was created out of Adam’s rib, or that a giant flood destroyed
all life on earth, was a sitting duck for an experienced and shrewd
cross-examiner. As the day wore on, it was quite apparent that Bryan’s
answers were destroying him in the eyes of even his friends, and that
Darrow had succeeded in turning a rout into what had all the earmarks
of a shattering victory.
Bryan’s observation that he was “more interested in the Rock of Ages
than the age of rocks” set the tone of the entire interrogation. For
example, when Darrow took up the subject of Eve’s temptation, the
witness was certain that labor pains had originated with God’s wrath at
apple larceny.
Q. And for that reason, every woman born of woman who has to carry on
the race, has childbirth pains because Eve tempted Adam in the Garden
of Eden?
A. I will believe just what the Bible says. I ask you to put that in
the language of the Bible, for I prefer that to your language. Read
the Bible and I will answer.
Q. All right, I will do that: “‘And I will put enmity between thee and
the woman’”--that is referring to the serpent?
A. The serpent.
Q. “‘... and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ Unto the woman he said, ‘I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt
bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he
shall rule over thee.’” That is right, is it?
A. I accept it as it is.
Q. And you believe that came about because Eve tempted Adam to eat the
fruit?
A. Just as it says.
As for the serpent, he had to “crawl upon his belly” for his nefarious
part in the episode.
Q. Do you think that is why the serpent is compelled to crawl on his
belly?
A. I believe that.
Q. Have you any idea how the snake went before that time?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you know whether he walked on his tail or not?
A. No, sir. I have no way to know.
The laughter that accompanied Darrow’s last question about the
earthbound snake marked the beginning of the end. A few minutes earlier
Bryan had admitted that the six days of Creation did not amount to “six
days of twenty-four hours.” His impression was that “they were periods”
but he had no idea as to their length. The defender of the Word, who
had refused to question Joshua’s sun-stopping maneuver or Jonah’s
sojourn in the alimentary canal of a whale, knew that it took more
than a week to build a makeshift barn, and somehow couldn’t swallow a
six-day Creation. But as far as the fundamentalists on the courthouse
lawn were concerned, he had betrayed them all. When he walked home
later that afternoon, only one man accompanied him. The rest of the
crowd followed Darrow all the way to the Morgan house.
The next morning dawned cool and rainy, and Raulston ordered the circus
back into the courthouse, cracks or not. After expunging Bryan’s
testimony, because he felt it could “shed no light upon any issues
that will be pending before the higher courts,” he ordered the jury,
which had been cooling its collective heels for more than a week just
inside loudspeaker range, to get back to work. Darrow said that he
thought it would save a great deal of time if the judge would instruct
it to bring back a verdict of guilty so that the case could “get to a
higher court.” At 11:14 on the morning of Wednesday, July 22nd, Captain
Thompson led his colleagues down the stairs to the courthouse lawn
where, after some eight minutes of palavar and one ballot, they found
Scopes guilty of violating the Butler Act. As to the fine, they were
willing to leave that to Raulston, who had told them in advance that
he intended to fix it at one hundred dollars, the minimum under the
statute.
The judge was as good as his word. He asked Scopes to stand up and
informed him that he was indebted to the State of Tennessee in
the sum of one hundred singles. When Neal reminded Raulston that
he had forgotten to ask the defendant whether he had anything to
say before being sentenced, the judge was all apologies. The thin,
balding teacher, who had been silent for twelve sweltering days,
didn’t take very long to say what he had to say. “Your Honor, I feel
that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will
continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose the 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--as guaranteed in our
constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is
unjust.”
Not to be outdone, his Honor, after imposing the fine again, told
Scopes that “it sometimes takes courage to search diligently for
a truth that may destroy our preconceived notions and ideas. It
sometimes takes courage to declare a truth or stand for an act that
is in contravention to the public sentiment. A man who is big enough
to search for the truth and find it and declare it in the face of all
opposition is a big man.” While Darrow, Hays and Malone were digesting
that one, the _Baltimore Sun_ posted the five-hundred-dollar bond
required as a condition of appeal and everyone began to congratulate
everyone else. After Hays had promised to send the judge a copy of
the _Origin of Species_, Raulston said, “We will adjourn and Brother
Jones will pronounce the benediction.” The first stage of the State of
Tennessee _versus_ John Thomas Scopes was over.