The Scopes Trial

The John Scopes Trial of 1925 (The Monkey Trial)

In the summer of 1925 John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in Dayton Tennessee, was charged with teaching the theory of evolution, in violation of a recently passed act by the state of Tennessee, which stated in part:

 That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

William Jennings Bryan headed the prosecution team; Clarence Darrow headed the defense team. Judge John T. Raulston, was the presiding judge.

As the opening of the trial approached in July of 1925 the town of Dayton had a carnival atmosphere. Banners decorated the streets. Lemonade stands were set up. Chimpanzees, said to have been brought to town to testify for the prosecution, performed in a sideshow on Main Street.

A jury of twelve men, including eleven regular church-goers, was quickly selected. Also in attendance were announcers ready to present the first live radio broadcast from a trial. 

Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and 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." 

The prosecution's first witness began with testimony that John Scopes had admitted teaching about evolution from Hunter's Civic Biology. The prosecution then asked seven students in Scope's biology class a series of questions about his teachings. They testified that Scopes told them that man and all other mammals had evolved from one-celled organisms. Darrow cross-examined the students—gently, though with obvious sarcasm—asking freshman Howard Morgan: "Well, did he tell you anything else that was wicked?" "No, not that I can remember," Howard answered.

On July 16 the defense called its first witness, Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from the Johns Hopkins University. The prosecution objected, arguing that the testimony was irrelevant to Scopes' guilt or innocence under the statute. Before ruling the prosecution's evidence, Judge Raulston decided to hear some of Dr. Metcalf's testimony about the theory of evolution. 

The testimony evoked Bryan's only extended speech of the trial. Bryan mocked Metcalf's exposition of the theory of evolution, complaining that the evolutionists had man descending "not even from American monkeys, but Old World monkeys." 

Dudley Malone countered for the defense, arguing in a thundering voice that the prosecution's position was borne of the same ignorance "which made it possible for theologians...to bring Old Galilee [that is, Galileo] to trial." Members of the press gave Malone a standing ovation and most courtroom spectators joined in the sustained applause. 

The next day, Judge Raulston ruled the defense's expert testimony inadmissible.

In the meantime, publicity surrounding the trial had greatly enlarged the number of spectators. Before a crowd that had swelled to about 5,000, the defense read into the record excerpts from the statements of eight scientists and four experts on religion who had been prepared to testify. The statements of the experts were widely reported by the press, helping Darrow and the defense succeed in their efforts to turn the trial into a national biology lesson.

On the seventh day of trial, Judge Raulston asked the defense if it had any more evidence. What followed was what the New York Times described as "the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history." The lead prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Bryan, was himself called to the stand as an “expert on the Bible.” Bryan, dismissing the concerns of his prosecution colleagues, took the stand.

Darrow began his interrogation of Bryan with a quiet question: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?" Bryan replied, "Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." 

Thus began a series of questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of the Bible. 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, who began his testimony calmly, stumbled badly under Darrow's persistent prodding. At one point the exasperated Bryan said, "I do not think about things I don't think about." Darrow then asked, "Do you think about the things you do think about?" Bryan responded, to the derisive laughter of spectators, "Well, sometimes." 

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." 

After that outburst, Judge Raulston ordered the court adjourned. The next day, Raulston ruled that Bryan could not return to the stand and that his testimony the previous day should be stricken from evidence.

The confrontation between Bryan and Darrow was reported by the press as a defeat for Bryan. According to one historian, "As a man and as a legend, Bryan was destroyed by his testimony that day." His performance was described as that of "a pitiable, punch drunk warrior." 

The trial was nearly over. Darrow, though for the defense, asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver a closing speech he had labored over for weeks. The jury complied with Darrow's request, and Judge Raulston fined Scopes $100.

A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a technicality—not the constitutional grounds as Darrow had hoped. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not by Judge Raulston. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the case. The court commented, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."

The Scopes trial by no means ended the debate over the teaching of evolution, but it did represent a significant setback for the anti-evolution forces. Of the fifteen states with anti-evolution legislation pending in 1925, only two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) actually enacted laws restricting teaching of Darwin's theory.

Eighty years later, the teaching of evolution is again controversial. 

Many school systems are requiring the teaching of the argument against evolutionary theory, the so-called Creationism, in science classes. One of the arguments of the creationists is that the theory of evolution is unproven, and so it has the same status as the “theory” of creationism. I will take this point up in a subsequent post.