Monkey Trial begins 1925
In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with
John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of
teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.
The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor
punishable by fine 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.” With local
businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with
this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of
this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings
Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a
fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after,
the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the
defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S.
history.
On July 10, the Monkey Trial got underway, and within a few days
hordes of spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton as preachers
set up revival tents along the city’s main street to keep the faithful
stirred up. Inside the Rhea County Courthouse, the defense suffered
early setbacks when Judge John Raulston ruled against their attempt to
prove the law unconstitutional and then refused to end his practice of
opening each day’s proceeding with prayer.
Outside, Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as an exhibit
featuring two chimpanzees and a supposed “missing link” opened in town,
and vendors sold Bibles, toy monkeys, hot dogs, and lemonade. The
missing link was in fact Jo Viens of Burlington, Vermont, a 51-year-old
man who was of short stature and possessed a receding forehead and a
protruding jaw. One of the chimpanzees–named Joe Mendi–wore a plaid
suit, a brown fedora, and white spats, and entertained Dayton’s citizens
by monkeying around on the courthouse lawn.
In the courtroom, Judge Raulston destroyed the defense’s strategy by
ruling that expert scientific testimony on evolution was inadmissible–on
the grounds that it was Scopes who was on trial, not the law he had
violated. The next day, Raulston ordered the trial moved to the
courthouse lawn, fearing that the weight of the crowd inside was in
danger of collapsing the floor.
In front of several thousand spectators in the open air, Darrow
changed his tactics and as his sole witness called Bryan in an attempt
to discredit his literal interpretation of the Bible. In a searching
examination, Bryan was subjected to severe ridicule and forced to make
ignorant and contradictory statements to the amusement of the crowd. On
July 21, in his closing speech, Darrow asked the jury to return a
verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed. Under
Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver the
closing speech he had been preparing for weeks. After eight minutes of
deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, and Raulston
ordered Scopes to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed.
Although Bryan had won the case, he had been publicly humiliated and his
fundamentalist beliefs had been disgraced. Five days later, on July 26,
he lay down for a Sunday afternoon nap and never woke up.
In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey Trial
verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional issues unresolved
until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Arkansas
law on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.
(More Events on This Day in History)
-
American Revolution
- 1777 British General Richard Prescott captured in Rhode Island
-
Automotive
- 1962 U.S. Patent issued for three-point seatbelt
-
Civil War
- 1863 Siege on Battery Wagner begins
-
Cold War
- 1990 Gorbachev re-elected as head of Communist Party
-
Crime
- 1992 The Exxon Valdez captain’s conviction is overturned
-
Disaster
- 1887 Dam collapses in Switzerland, kills 70
-
General Interest
- 1943 Allies land on Sicily
- 1985 The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior
-
Hollywood
- 1995 Hugh Grant appears on Tonight Show after Hollywood arrest
-
Literary
- 1931 Alice Munro is born
-
Music
- 1941 Jazz great Jelly Roll Morton dies
-
Old West
- 1889 “Buckskin” Frank Leslie murders a prostitute
-
Presidential
- 1850 Millard Fillmore sworn in as president
-
Sports
- 1999 U.S. women win World Cup
-
Vietnam War
- 1965 MiGs shot down as bombing of North Vietnam continues
- 1967 Heavy fighting continues near An Loc and the Central Highlands
-
World War I
- 1917 German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg resigns
-
World War II
- 1940 The Battle of Britain begins
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