Read Trials of the Monkey Online
Authors: Matthew Chapman
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Nonfiction, #Retail
Trials of the Monkey (26 page)
When I mention Kurt Wise, Joe is full of admiration.
‘I think he committed academic suicide. If you talk to some of the evolutionists, they will tell you—I’m not going to say any names but one of them did tell me this—he said that in his opinion Kurt did do just that.’
Suicide … It keeps coming up. I mention this to Joe and wonder
out loud what kind of despair might have lead to the most recent death on the tracks. He tells me there’s been a general rise in teen suicide in the area. Why does he think this is, I ask.
out loud what kind of despair might have lead to the most recent death on the tracks. He tells me there’s been a general rise in teen suicide in the area. Why does he think this is, I ask.
‘It’s because they don’t know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour,’ states Joe the Baptist with absolute certainty. ‘They don’t have anything to look forward to, they don’t have inner peace. Living like that, of course you’d look at the world and say, “What’s the use?” That’s my personal take on it, and I guess you would think I would have that personal take because I am a Christian and I believe that Jesus Christ is … He is the difference. He is the difference.’
I thank him for talking to me and then depart, leaving the two of them at their table, staring after me.
Where Did Cain Get His Wife?
I came down here to see if anything has changed in seventy-five years and the longer I’m here, the more apparent it becomes that little has. There must be Daytonians who believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, but I’ve yet to meet one. There must be people here who don’t believe in God, but I haven’t met one of them either. In fact, it seems to me that the religious and political mood of the town is worse now than it was then. In Dayton in 1925, as well as the unchanging Fluffs and Mikes and preachers and literalists, you also had George Rappleyea and John Scopes, and even those who disagreed with them did so with a certain regard for good manners and fair play. Scopes went swimming with William Jennings Bryan Jr., one of his prosecutors; Darrow stayed at the house of one of the witnesses against his client; and the whole event was cooked up in an amiable, exploratory fashion. Now such a thing would be unthinkable. There’s been a narrowing of views and a widening of the division between them. On afternoon television shows designed to provoke violence, people howl at each other about personal matters as the audience goads them on, but in bars and restaurants, even in homes, it is considered impolite to discuss any matter of importance, and politics and religion are taboo. The colourful habit of friendly debate has been bleached out by the incessant, unifying glare of television, and in consequence people are ill-equipped to deal with dissent.
If something like the Scopes Trial was staged now, people would be afraid for their lives.
Perhaps to describe the trial as taking place under conditions
of ‘fair play’ is overstating it. Judge Raulston ruled against Darrow’s expert witnesses. Having come all the way down to Dayton, they would not be allowed to testify before the jury. This was a disaster. If the testimony of Darrow’s expert witnesses was not in the trial record, it could not become part of an appeal, which would thus become much narrower and less capable of bringing about change. The defence argued vociferously and finally won the right to read some scientific testimony into the record, but not with the jury present. It was Friday and Darrow asked for the day off so his expert witnesses could prepare their statements. After further argument it was agreed the defence could have until Monday to prepare and court adjourned for the weekend.
of ‘fair play’ is overstating it. Judge Raulston ruled against Darrow’s expert witnesses. Having come all the way down to Dayton, they would not be allowed to testify before the jury. This was a disaster. If the testimony of Darrow’s expert witnesses was not in the trial record, it could not become part of an appeal, which would thus become much narrower and less capable of bringing about change. The defence argued vociferously and finally won the right to read some scientific testimony into the record, but not with the jury present. It was Friday and Darrow asked for the day off so his expert witnesses could prepare their statements. After further argument it was agreed the defence could have until Monday to prepare and court adjourned for the weekend.
Mencken, whose scathing remarks about the ‘primitives,’ ‘yokels,’ and ‘Neanderthals,’ as he referred to the locals, had so angered Dayton there was talk of running him out of town, now decided to leave voluntarily. ‘All that remains,’ he wrote, in his final despatch, ‘of the great cause of the State of Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is the final business of bumping off the defendant.’
The next morning, he caught a train back to Baltimore and so missed one of the great dramas of legal history. He had underestimated Darrow.
Although Tom Stewart was claiming a ‘glorious victory’ for having excluded the defence witnesses from appearing before the jury, Darrow guessed that
personally
William Jennings Bryan did not feel victorious at all. His pride had been hurt by Malone’s great speech, and in his sense of failure, in his perceived humiliation, lay the possibility of a comeback for the defence. Bryan wanted an opportunity to redeem himself and Darrow would provide one.
personally
William Jennings Bryan did not feel victorious at all. His pride had been hurt by Malone’s great speech, and in his sense of failure, in his perceived humiliation, lay the possibility of a comeback for the defence. Bryan wanted an opportunity to redeem himself and Darrow would provide one.
He issued a press statement taunting Bryan for not wanting the jury to hear the defence’s expert witnesses. ‘Bryan has not dared to test his views in open court under oath … Bryan, who blew the loud trumpet calling for a “battle to the death,” has fled from the field, his forces disorganized and his pretensions exposed.’ Bryan shot back with a statement that included the
remark that ‘jungle ancestry’ struck at the root not only of Christianity but of civilisation itself. The stakes were raised back up again, from legal detail to philosophical war.
remark that ‘jungle ancestry’ struck at the root not only of Christianity but of civilisation itself. The stakes were raised back up again, from legal detail to philosophical war.
Other factors were putting pressure on Bryan to make a good showing down here. A few days earlier, he had spoken to friends about founding a Christian college for young men on the hill above Dayton. Now a philanthropist in Florida had come through with a pledge of $10,000. Bryan College might actually become a reality, and if it was to carry his name, he’d surely like that name to be associated in the minds of the locals with grand oratory and rousing victory. He was ripe for what was to follow.
On Monday, Hays was allowed an hour to read excerpts from the scientific and religious scholars into the trial record. He actually read for over two hours in the overwhelming heat of this the hottest day. In their statements, an anthropologist, a psychologist, three zoologists, an agronomist, and two geologists, all eminent in their fields, described in detail how evolution occurred, how it had been proved, and how it was almost universally accepted in the academic world.
Professor Newman, a zoologist from the University of Chicago, tried in his statement to explain not only evolution but the nature and methods of science itself. ‘When we admit that the evidences of past evolution are indirect and circumstantial, we should hasten to add that the same is true of all other great scientific generalizations. The evidences upon which the law of gravity are based are no less indirect than those supporting the principle of evolution … The law of gravity has acquired its validity through its ability to explain, unify and rationalize many observable facts of physical nature. If certain facts entirely out of accord with the law of gravity were to come to light, physicists would be forced either to modify the statement of the law so as to bring it into harmony with the newly discovered facts, or else to substitute a new law capable of meeting the situation.’
In other words, science, unlike religion, is fluid, and in teaching it you can only teach what is best understood at the time.
By midday the heat was intolerable and many of the reporters who had stayed on in Dayton left court and did not come back for the afternoon session, a fact they would regret for the rest of their lives.
After lunch, when court reconvened, the air was so hot and the courtoom so stuffy and overcrowded that Judge Raulston suggested they all move down onto the courthouse lawn beneath the shade trees. As soon as they were down there, Darrow got into a fight with the court about a sign under which the jury would now sit, saying
READ YOUR BIBLE
in large letters. It was clearly prejudicial and Darrow wanted it removed.
READ YOUR BIBLE
in large letters. It was clearly prejudicial and Darrow wanted it removed.
J. G. McKenzie accused the defence of being ‘aligned with the Devil and his satellites,’ but Darrow won the battle and the sign was taken down.
And now came the high point of the trial, the moment which has made it famous to this day. As Hays stood up to make a request, Malone leaned in to Scopes and whispered, ‘Hell is going to pop now!’
‘The defence,’ said Hays, ‘desires to call Mr. Bryan as a witness.’
After the babble of surprised voices died down, Hays explained that if the defence was to be prevented from presenting their experts on science, then they wanted to call Bryan as an expert on the Bible.
Calling a lawyer from the other side to be your own witness was so unusual that all the prosecution lawyers immediately jumped to their feet. All around the world people listening to the trial on their radios moved closer. There were so many people talking in court that the court reporter could not transcribe every word.
According to Scopes, General Stewart was the most vociferous in objecting to Bryan’s being called, but Ben McKenzie appears more in the record. For a moment it looked as if the judge might sustain their objections, but Darrow’s brilliant assessment of Bryan’s state of mind proved entirely correct. The Great Commoner got to his feet. Here was his chance and he wasn’t going to let it go. Raising his arms for quiet, he declared himself more
than willing to take the stand, so long as he had the right to call Darrow, Hays and Malone as witnesses when his turn came.
than willing to take the stand, so long as he had the right to call Darrow, Hays and Malone as witnesses when his turn came.
‘Call anybody you desire,’ said Raulston, ‘ask them any questions you wish.’
‘Then we will call all three of them,’ Bryan stated.
‘Not at once?’ mocked Darrow.
‘Where do you want me to sit?’ Bryan snapped back.
News that Darrow was putting Bryan on the stand radiated out from the courthouse. Five hundred people had left the courtroom and taken their chairs down onto the lawn. Within an hour, there was a crowd of three thousand, standing and sitting wherever they could.
Throughout what followed, Tom Stewart constantly raised objections to Bryan’s testifying, but the more he did so, the more it looked like the great man required protection, and Bryan himself would wave him off with a plucky speech about his courage and how determined he was to face down the infidel, Darrow.
Darrow began by asking questions designed to establish Bryan as an expert on the Bible. Yes, Bryan admitted, he had studied the Bible for over fifty years and written and spoken about it widely.
‘Do you claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?’
‘I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there. Some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” I would not insist that man was actually salt …’
‘But when you read that the whale swallowed Jonah—how do you literally interpret that?’
‘I believe in a God who can make a whale and can make a man and make both do what He pleases …’
‘The Bible says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still for the purpose of lengthening the day, doesn’t it, and you believe it?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you believe that at that time the sun went around the earth?’
‘No, I believe that the earth goes around the sun.’
‘Have you an opinion as to whether whoever wrote the book—I believe it is Joshua, the Book of Joshua—thought the sun went around the earth or not?’
‘I believe he was inspired.’
‘Can you answer my question?’
‘I believe that the Bible is inspired, an inspired author. Whether one who wrote as he was directed to write understood the things he was writing about, I don’t know … I believe it was inspired by the Almighty, and He may have used language that could be understood at that time instead of using language that could not be understood until Darrow was born.’
He got a good laugh here, and some applause, but Darrow pressed on. If the day was to be lengthened, wouldn’t it in fact be necessary for the
earth
to stay still? Bryan used an old chestnut to illustrate his belief in the power of God. If he, William Jennings Bryan, a mere mortal, could pick up a glass of water, thus defying the laws of gravity, imagine what God could do.
earth
to stay still? Bryan used an old chestnut to illustrate his belief in the power of God. If he, William Jennings Bryan, a mere mortal, could pick up a glass of water, thus defying the laws of gravity, imagine what God could do.
‘I read that years ago,’ said Darrow impatiently. ‘Can you answer my question directly? If the day was lengthened by stopping either the earth or the sun it must have been the earth?’
‘Well, I should say so,’ conceded Bryan.
‘Have you ever pondered what would happen to the earth if it stood still?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you know it would have been converted into a molten mass of matter?’
Bryan replied that Darrow could testify to that when he got on the stand.
Darrow began to ask questions about the Flood.
Included in the Bible admitted into evidence, the King James Bible, were the calculations of Bishop Ussher. Using these, Darrow and Bryan fixed the date of the Flood at 2348 B.C. and that of Creation at 4004 B.C.
‘You believe that all the living things that were not contained in the Ark were destroyed?’ asked Darrow.
‘I think the fish may have lived,’ replied Bryan.
Again, there was some laughter.
‘Have you any idea how old the Egyptian civilization is?’ asked Darrow.
‘No.’
Had he ever read anything about the origins of other religions?
‘Not a great deal.’
Darrow asked him if he knew anything about Buddhism or Confucianism? Did he have any idea of the number of people who lived in Egypt 3,500 years ago, or China 5,000 years ago?
‘No.’
‘Have you ever tried to find out?’
‘No, sir, you are the first man I ever heard of who has been interested in it.’
‘Where have you lived all your life?’ Darrow asked in amazement.
‘Not near you,’ said Bryan.
‘Nor near anyone of learning … You have never in all your life made any attempt to find out about the other peoples of the earth—how old their civilizations are—how long they have existed on earth?’
‘No, sir, I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it.’
This was the essence of his defence against the charge of ignorance and he did as well with it as he could; but, as Darrow’s questions increasingly revealed not just Bryan’s ignorance, which was forgivable, but his
satisfaction
with his ignorance, which somehow was not, his supporters began to applaud a little less enthusiastically.
satisfaction
with his ignorance, which somehow was not, his supporters began to applaud a little less enthusiastically.
‘Have you any idea how far back the last glacial age was?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you know whether it was more than six thousand years ago?’
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