Monkey trial
Famed court proceedings started 93 years ago today
These days you here a lot of talke about “fake news.” The idea is usually that the media blows up stories of little real importance or doesn’t tell the whole story.
One can debate the merits of those claims all day long. But one thing that’s certain is sometimes the media and the public don’t have access to the whole story. At least not until later—sometimes years later.
Back in March 1925, a Tennessee state representative and fundamentalist Christian activist named John W. Butler succeeded in having a law passed prohibiting the state’s public schools from teaching the theory of evolution or even questioning the Biblical account of creation. The law was popular in many circles but controversial in others. The governor signed the line for political reasons, but was reportedly certain it would never be enforced. But others decided to take a more proactive stance. And so a couple of months later some prominent citizens of a small Tennessee town called Dayton, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, decided to put the law to the test.
They recruited a young teacher named John T. Scopes to violate the ban and go to trial. He did and on May 5 was arrested. And that’s when things got interesting. While the Dayton provocateurs no doubt expected a little publicity, they could not have foreseen the circus to come.
The arrest made headlines around the country. By the time the trial got under way on July 10—93 years ago today—thousands had crowded into town. There were the devout, the profane, the media and just the curious. And of course there were plenty of hucksters offering all sorts of lotions, potions and shows to separate the suckers from their shillings.
America’s most famous attorney, Clarence Darrow, appeared for the defense. The “Great Commoner” and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution. It was a great show of a trial, later fictionalized and immortalized in the play and film “Inherit the Wind.”
The case ended the same way on film and in real life—the jury voted guilty and the teacher was fined $100. The verdict was later overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court on a technicality. But the court did not strike down the Butler Act and it remained state law for decades.
For years the public perception of the Scopes trial—heavily influenced by the film version—was of a crusading young teacher fighting a angry town full of religious fanatics. It wasn’t until the book “Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes,” which was co-written by Texarkana author Dr. James Presley, appeared in 1967 that the truth came out. The whole thing was a set-up by community leaders, working with the ACLU, to test what they considered an unconstitutional law.
And that, as the late Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.