"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
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"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
Dr. Carole B. Shmurak is Professor Emeritus at Central Connecticut State University, where she still teaches a course in the history and philosophy of education. Born and raised in New York City, she was a chemistry and biology teacher for 20 years prior to coming to CCSU. She is the author of eight books, including the newly released mystery Deadmistress, featuring professor/sleuth Susan Lombardi, and she has just completed the second Lombardi mystery, Death by Committee. Under the pseudonym Carroll Thomas, she is the co-author of the Matty Trescott young adult novels, one of which (Ring Out Wild Bells) was nominated for the Agatha for best young adult mystery of 2001. |
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Her website is http://www.mattytrescott.com. Direct correspondence to Carole Shmurak or to editor@lifeloom.com |
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| The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes: The "Monkey Trial" and the Movie |
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Why was the Scopes trial important enough to be considered The Trial of the Century? Because it exposed many Americans to the deep cultural divide between science and faith, modernism and traditionalism, the city and the country. And it revealed these conflicting facets of America to unprecedented numbers of Americans in the form of a mesmerizing drama that entered their living rooms through the new miracle of radio. The Scopes Trial also produced what the New York Times called "the most amazing courtroom scene in Anglo-American history," the calling of prosecutor William Jennings Bryan to the stand by defense attorney Clarence Darrow for examination on the question whether every story in the Bible was literally true.
Yet fundamentalist attacks on evolution in the biology curriculum continue to this day, so what exactly did the Scopes Trial accomplish? And what really happened in that courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee? There are many ironies connected with the Scopes trial, most of which are ignored by the textbooks. If, like me, you first learned about the Scopes trial from a typical history textbook or from the movie Inherit the Wind (1960), you may be surprised by some of the actual facts.
The Standard Textbook Story
Most textbook accounts read something like this: In 1925, John Scopes, a 24 year old biology teacher, broke Tennessee's law that prohibited teaching evolutionary theory in the public schools, and the state arrested him and brought him to trial. The American Civil Liberties Union hired Clarence Darrow, perhaps the country's most famous defense lawyer, to defend Scopes; the prosecution brought in William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State to assist. In an unusual move, Darrow called Bryan to testify and showed that Bryan was at a total loss to explain much of the Bible. For example, he could not explain how Eve was created from Adam's rib or where Cain found a woman to become his wife. Nonetheless, the jury declared Scopes guilty, for he had clearly broken the law.
Reporters from all over the country covered the trial, upholding modern scientific thought and academic freedom. Journalists, like H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Evening Sun, had a field day poking fun at Bryan and the fundamentalists.
The Rest of the Story
First of all, Dayton, Tennessee, where the trial was held, was not a hotbed of fundamentalism. George Rappalyea, a thirty-one year old transplanted New Yorker and chemical engineer, convinced town pharmacist Fred Robinson (who was also president of the school board) that having the trial in Dayton would bring much-needed publicity to the town. Rappalyea had read an article in the newspaper that the American Civil Liberties Union was looking for a teacher willing to test the newly passed law against teaching evolution in Tennessee's schools.
Second, John Scopes, whom Robinson and Rappalyea quickly recruited to their cause, wasn't a biology teacher. A novice teacher of general science and a football coach just a year out of the University of Kentucky, Scopes had occasionally substituted for the regular biology teacher. He had assigned the chapter on evolution in the textbook to the class and reviewed it the next day; he had also led a short discussion of evolution in his general science class. Close enough. He was arrested for violating the law.
Third, Clarence Darrow, usually thought of as the hero of the trial, was not the first choice of the leaders of the ACLU. They were afraid that Darrow's well-known agnosticism, and his controversial defense of the young murderers Leopold and Loeb the year before, would make him a poor choice. But when they asked Scopes, he indicated that having a headline-maker like Darrow would be a good balance to the publicity-grabbing Bryan, who had already signed on for the prosecution.
Nor did Darrow work alone. The overall strategy of the defense, according to Scopes' own account, was devised by Arthur Garfield Hays. Hays was a lawyer from New York City and a longtime defender of unpopular causes for the ACLU. He had played a key role in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The defense rebuttal to Bryan was given by Hays' law partner, Dudley Malone, described by Scopes as a "great dramatic actor, a master at playing upon the emotions and at communicating bitter sarcasm." At the conclusion of Malone's speech, members of the press gave him a standing ovation and most of the courtroom spectators joined in the applause. The judge, realizing he could not restore order to the court, ordered the room cleared. When Bryan, Malone and Scopes were the only ones left, Bryan said, "Dudley, that was the greatest speech I have ever heard." Malone who had served as Undersecretary of State during Bryan's term as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, replied, "I am terribly sorry that I was the one that had to do it."
Fourth, Darrow and the ACLU wanted Scopes to be declared guilty. Their purpose was to get a guilty verdict which they would then appeal and appeal until it came before the US Supreme Court. Darrow asked the judge to bring in the jury and instruct them to find the defendant guilty, so as not to waste the court's time, when this would be the inevitable result anyway. Under state law, when the defense waived its right to give a closing speech, the prosecution was barred from offering a summation of its own. This greatly disappointed Bryan, who had been preparing his summation for weeks.
The ACLU did get their guilty verdict in Dayton (Scopes was fined $100 by the judge and Mencken's paper, the Evening Sun, paid the fine) but then the state supreme court of Tennessee overturned the guilty verdict on a technicality (the jury, not the judge, should have imposed the fine) and the case never reached the Supreme Court. So the ACLU and Darrow did not achieve their intended goal. The Tennessee court did, however, direct state prosecutors not to indict anyone else under the law. The law was not repealed by the Tennessee legislature until 1967.
Fifth, Mencken was not always on Scopes' side. Just a week before the trial started, Mencken had written in The Nation that "No principle is at stake in Dayton save the principle that school teachers, like plumbers, should stick to the job that is set before them." Calling the issue of free speech irrelevant, he maintained that the states had the right to make curricular choices based on what had the greatest utility for students. As soon as the trial started, however, Mencken's tone changed. He wrote glowingly of Darrow's speeches and ridiculed Bryan, saying "it is tragedy indeed to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon." Mencken left Dayton the weekend before Darrow's examination of Bryan, feeling nothing of interest was likely to happen on the final day or two of the trial. Back in Baltimore, Mencken declared the Scopes trial a great victory. His public statement at Bryan's death was "God aimed for Darrow, missed, and hit Bryan instead."
The Hollywood Story
In 1950, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee turned the Scopes trial into Inherit the Wind, intending it as a commentary on the closed-mindedness of the McCarthy era. The play did not open until 1955. It was later adapted for the screen, becoming one of the best courtroom dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Inherit the Wind has been filmed four times, the original version in 1960, and then three made-for-TV versions in 1965, 1988, and 1999. There was also a recent revival of the play on Broadway in 1996.
In all versions, Darrow has become Henry Drummond, Bryan is Matthew Harrison Brady, Mencken is E.K. Hornbeck, and Scopes is Bertram Cates. The juicy roles of Drummond and Brady have been eagerly undertaken by many great character actors over the years. Paul Muni (Drummond) and Ed Begley (Brady) each won the Tony Award for their parts in the original stage play. Drummond has also been played on the screen by Spencer Tracy (1960), Melvyn Douglas (1965), Jason Robards (1988), and Jack Lemmon (1999). George C. Scott played Drummond on Broadway in 1996 and took the role of Brady in the 1999 TV version, one of his last roles. Other Bradys have been Frederic March (1960), Ed Begley (1965), Kirk Douglas (1988) and Charles Durning (1996). The two best known Hornbecks were Tony Randall, in the original play, and Gene Kelly, in the 1960 film.
The 1960 film version begins with a scene that would remind many in the audience of the classic 1952 Western, High Noon. An empty street is shown and then a band of men are seen walking down it, as a single voice sings "Give me that old time religion," (instead of "Do not forsake me, oh my darling"). This band of men are not outlaws, however; they are a small group of townspeople, led by a fundamentalist minister, who march into the biology classroom to arrest the teacher, Bertram Cates. The song is repeated throughout the film, usually sung by a chorus of strait-laced, thin-lipped old women.
Although it was not intended to be historically accurate, the screenplay, like the play, does draw heavily from the Scopes trial, with many of the statements by Darrow and Bryan taken verbatim from the trial transcript. For dramatic purposes, some fictional characters were added, particularly the fundamentalist minister and his daughter Rachel, who is engaged to Bertram Cates; Rachel must make the choice between standing with her fiancee or her father. The townspeople of Hillsboro (the name Lawrence and Lee gave to Dayton) are far more mean-spirited and fanatical than the real townspeople of Dayton, of whom Mencken wrote, "nor is there any evidence in the town of that poisonous spirit which usually shows itself when Christian men gather to defend the great doctrine of their faith...On the contrary, the Evolutionists and the Anti-Evolutionists seem to be on the best of terms." Bertram Cates is shown as being held in the town jail (albeit playing cards with the friendly sheriff), whereas John Scopes was a free man throughout the trial, going off to swim with William Jennings Bryan Jr. in the afternoons.
Bryan/Brady is shown as the chief prosecutor aided only by one local attorney; in truth, he was aided by his son (a federal prosecutor), as well as by two Tennessee state's attorneys and two Dayton attorneys, Sue and Herbert Hicks (who were actually friends of Scopes). Darrow/Drummond acts as the sole defense lawyer with no mention of the parts played by Hays or Malone.
The carnival atmosphere in the town seems a bit overplayed, but in fact, there were banners decorating the streets and lemonade stands on the sidewalks, and the chimpanzee shown in the film does depict an actual chimp brought to town to perform on Main Street. The radio announcer shown is also accurate; this was the first live radio broadcast of an actual trial.
In the film, Bertram Cates is revealed as having quit the fundamentalist church after the death of "the little Stebbins boy," who the minister says will go to Hell because he wasn't baptized. In fact, Scopes was a member of the rather liberal Methodist church in Dayton and the minister there was a good friend. However, George Rappalyea did trace his motive to challenge the law to the funeral of a six-year-old boy who was similarly condemned to Hell for that same reason. It was a few days later that Rappalyea read the ACLU's appeal in the newspaper and resolved to :"show this same bunch, the Fundamentalists, to the world."
In the film, the defense calls a scientist from the University of Chicago to the stand, but the court rules zoology irrelevant to the case. Geology and archeology are likewise ruled out, so the panel of scientists never gets to testify. In reality, Judge Raulston did allow the first witness, Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from Johns Hopkins University to testify before ruling the testimony inadmissible. What the film doesn't show is that Darrow did get to read into the record excerpts from the prepared statements of the other scientists which were then widely reported by the press.
Darrow's calling of Bryan to the stand was not a spur of the moment decision as the film seems to imply, but had been under discussion for several days. The film shows Bryan's testimony taking place within the courtroom, when actually it occurred on the courthouse lawn before a crowd of almost 5000, after the judge expressed concern that the courtroom floor might cave in because of the weight of the spectators. Moving the trial to the courthouse lawn might have worked well in the movie; one can only assume that, since the stage play kept the trial indoors, the screenwriters simply followed the original script here.
The film also shows Brady dying of a heart attack right at the end of the trial. Again, this is done for dramatic purposes. In fact, Bryan stayed in Dayton and, six days after the trial, lay down for an after-dinner nap and died in his sleep. While Inherit the Wind may not be perfect history, it is a gripping film, with outstanding performances from Spencer Tracy, Frederic March (made up to look exactly like Bryan), and Gene Kelly.
The outcome
The Scopes case did not reach its intended legal goal. It was not until 1968 that the US Supreme Court ruled on the matter. In Epperson v. Arkansas, the court ruled that evolution can be taught in public schools because it is science, but creationism cannot, because it is a religious view; and the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion by the state. The issue again reached the Supreme Court in 1987 in a case from Louisiana (Edwards v. Aguilar) in which the state-mandated teaching of evolution and creationism side by side was determined to be unconstitutional on the same grounds.
What happened to the key figures after the trial? Hays offered to send Judge Raulston a copy of The Origin of Species and the judge laughingly agreed to accept it. A year later Mencken and Hays went to Massachusetts to sell banned books in Boston, in defiance of local law. Hays went on to write two novels (Let Freedom Ring and Trial by Prejudice) as well as his autobiography. Malone went back to his law practice but as business declined, perhaps as a result of his drinking problem, he started a career as a dramatic actor, playing Winston Churchill in the 1943 film, Mission to Moscow. Darrow continued to defend "lost causes," taking up the defense of Henry Sweet just a few months after the Scopes trial (and getting the black defendant acquitted of murder by an all-white jury). He retired from active practice in 1928.
What became of John Scopes? One of the scientists who had come to town asked him if he were interested in attending graduate school; he replied that he would like to study geology at the University of Chicago. A committee, headed by former Stanford university president (and zoologist) David Starr Jordan, raised the funds for Scopes to do so, and Scopes left Tennessee. In 1960, when Inherit the Wind opened, producer Stanley Kramer asked Scopes, then a petroleum engineer, to travel to Dayton to promote the film on the 35th anniversary of the trial. Scopes returned for the first time in over 30 years and was presented with the key to the city of Dayton by the mayor who proclaimed it "Scopes Trial Day."
In his memoirs, Scopes said, "I furnished the body that was needed to sit in the defendant's chair." He concluded, "A man's fate is often stranger than anything the imagination may produce."
Standard Textbook References:
Maier, P., Smith, M.S., Keyssar, A., and Kevles, D.J. (2003). Inventing America: A history of the United States. New York: W.W. Norton.
Nash, G.B., Jeffrey, J.R, Howe, J.R.. Frederick. P.J., Davis, A.F., and Winkler, A.M. (2004). The American people: Creating a nation and a society. New York: Longman.
Website References
This site by Douglas Linder for the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School is a wonderful resource: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm
A news story on the 75th anniversary of the Scopes trial: http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/07/13/scopes.monkey.trial/
Copyright 2004 by Carole B. Shmurak
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"Oh what
a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
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