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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.07.10 17:16l 81 Lines 3860 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 21
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Jul 21, 1925:
Monkey Trial ends
In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" ends with
John Thomas Scopes being convicted of teaching evolution in
violation of Tennessee law. Scopes was ordered to pay a fine of
$100, the minimum the law allowed.
In March 1925, the Tennessee legislature had passed the
anti-evolution law, making 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 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 to the
stand 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.
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 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.
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