Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

by Edward Larson

  Darrow questioned Bryan as a hostile witness, peppering him with queries and giving him little chance for explanation. At times it became like a firing line:“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.... ”

  “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 of them do what he pleases.... ”

  “But do you believe he made them—that he make such a fish and it was big enough to swallow Jonah?”

  “Yes sir. Let me add: One miracle is just as easy to believe as another.”

  “It is for me ... just as hard.”

  “It is hard to believe for you, but easy for me.... When you get beyond what man can do, you get within the realm of miracles; and it is just as easy to believe the miracle of Jonah as any other miracle in the Bible.”60

  Such affirmations undercut the appeal of fundamentalism. On the stump, Bryan effectively championed the cause of biblical faith by addressing the great questions of life: The special creation of humans in God’s image gave purpose to every person and the bodily resurrection of Christ gave hope to believers for eternal life. Yet Darrow did not inquire about these grand miracles. For many Americans, laudable simple faith became laughable crude belief when applied to Jonah’s whale, Noah’s Flood, and Adam’s rib. Yet the Commoner acknowledged accepting each of these biblical miracles on faith and professed that all miracles were equally easy to believe.

  Bryan fared little better when he tried to rationalize two of the biblical passages raised by Darrow. In an apparent concession to modern astronomy, Bryan suggested that God extended the day for Joshua by stopping the earth rather than the sun; similarly, in line with nineteenth-century evangelical scholarship, Bryan affirmed his understanding that in Genesis, days of creation represented periods of time, which led to the following exchange:“Have you any idea of the length of these periods?”

  “No; I don’t.”

  “Do you think the sun was made on the fourth day?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they had evening and morning without the sun?”

  “I am simply saying it is a period.”

  “They had evening and morning for four periods without the sun, do you think?”

  “I believe in creation as there told, and if I am not able to explain it I will accept it.”61

  Although Bryan had not ventured far beyond the bounds of biblical literalism, the defense made the most of it. “Bryan had conceded that he interpreted the Bible,” Hays gloated. “He must have agreed that others have the same right.”62 Furthermore, Scopes observed, “The Bible literalists who came to cheer Bryan were surprised, ill content, and disappointed that Bryan gave ground.”63

  As Darrow pushed various lines of questioning, increasingly Bryan came to admit that he simply did not know the answers. He had no idea what would happen to the earth if it stopped moving, or about the antiquity of human civilization, or even about the age of the earth. “Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?” Darrow asked. “No sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her,” came the bittersweet reply.64 “Mr. Bryan’s complete lack of interest in many of the things closely connected with such religious questions as he had been supporting for many years was strikingly shown again and again by Mr. Darrow,” the New York Times reported.65 Stewart tried to end the two-hour interrogation at least a dozen times, but Bryan refused to step down. “I am simply trying to protect the word of God against the greatest atheist or agnostic in the United States,” he shouted, pounding his fist in rage. “I want the papers to know I am not afraid to get on the stand in front of him and let him do his worst.”66 The crowd cheered this outburst and every counterthrust attempted by the Commoner. Darrow received little applause but inflicted the most jabs. “The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur the Bible, but I will answer his questions,” Bryan exclaimed at the end. “I object to your statement,” Darrow shouted back, both men now standing and shaking their fists at each other. “I am examining your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.” 67 Raulston finally had heard enough and abruptly adjourned court for the day.

  Darrow’s supporters rushed forward to congratulate their hero. Bryan was left virtually alone with his thoughts. Reporters rushed out to transmit the news. “Men who have written descriptions of great battles,” one journalist commented, “were overwhelmed with their responsibility to give their papers an account of the two sessions of court Monday in a light which will depict truly its immensity.”68 Newspapers throughout the country printed the complete transcript. The Memphis Commercial Appeal concluded: “It was not a contest. Consequently there was no victory. Darrow succeeded in showing that Bryan knows little about the science of the world. Bryan succeeded in bearing witness bravely to the faith which he believes transcends all the learning of men.”69 Most papers were not so kind to Bryan. That night, Stewart delivered the word to Bryan: he should neither resume his testimony nor call defense counsel to the stand. At first Bryan protested, but Stewart stated that if Bryan demanded to go forward either the judge would forbid it or the state would dismiss the case. Darrow shortly wrote to Mencken about the examination of Bryan, “I made up my mind to show the country what an ignoramus he was and I succeeded.”70

  A light rain fell in Dayton on Tuesday morning, forcing the trial back inside and cutting the number of spectators. The judge started the proceedings a few minutes early, before Darrow and Stewart arrived. As counsel for both sides hurried to their places, Raulston took it upon himself to bar further examination of Bryan and to order the Commoner’s prior testimony expunged from the record. “I feel that the testimony of Mr. Bryan can shed no light upon any issue that will be pending before the higher court,” the judge ruled; “the issue now is whether or not Mr. Scopes taught that man descended from a lower order of animals.”71

  With this ruling, Darrow called it quits. “We have no witnesses to offer, no proof to offer on the issues that the court has laid down here,” he declared. “I think to save time we will ask the court to bring in the jury and instruct the jury to find the defendant guilty.” Stewart immediately agreed: “We are pleased to accept the suggestion of Mr. Darrow.” This final ploy by the defense deprived Bryan of the chance to deliver his closing argument, and also averted the risk of a hung jury, which would have frustrated defense plans to challenge the constitutionality of the antievolution statute in a higher court. Bryan accepted the inevitable. “I shall have to trust to the justness of the press, which reported what was said yesterday, to report what I will say, not to the court, but to the press in answer,” he told the court, “and I shall also avail myself of the opportunity to give to the press, not to the court, the questions that I would have asked had I been permitted to call the attorneys on the other side.”72

  Stewart, Darrow, and Raulston agreed on the terms of the judge’s charge to the jury, and jurors finally reentered the courtroom. After expecting front-row seats for the entire proceedings, they had heard only two hours of testimony against Scopes and none of the memorable speeches. Based on what the court had permitted them to hear, Darrow told jurors, “We cannot even explain to you that we think you should return a verdict of not guilty. We do not see how you could. We do not ask it.” Stewart merely added, “What Mr. Darrow wanted to say to you was that he wanted you to find his client guilty, but did not want to be in the position of pleading guilty, because it would destroy his rights in the appellate court.”73 At least one farmer-juror welcomed the trial’s end. “The peach crop will soon be coming in,” he commented to a reporter.74

  The jury received the case shortly before noon and returned its verdict nine minutes later. They spent most of this time getting in and out of the crowded courtroom. “The jurors didn’t even sit down to think it o
ver,” one observer noted, “but stood huddled together in the hallway of the courthouse for the brief interval.”75 As the court waited, Bryan turned to Malone, “I am not a gambling man, but if I was I would bet that the verdict is guilty.” Malone laughed, “That is my bet too. I think we’re beaten.”76 In reality, both men felt like victors that day. The only point of concern involved the jury’s decision to let the judge impose the minimum $100 fine. State law required that the jury fix the amount of the penalty, Stewart observed. Raulston assured him that local practice in misdemeanor cases allowed the judge to impose the minimum on persons adjudged guilty, and Darrow agreed to that procedure—a decision he would deeply regret.

  Clarence Darrow addressing Scopes jury in front of packed courtroom. (Courtesyof Bryan College Archives)

  Only a few speeches remained. Scopes spoke briefly at the time of sentencing—his first words to the court. Prompted by Neal, the defendant called the antievolution statute unjust and pledged to continue fighting it in the name of academic freedom. Counsel took turns thanking the court and community. Representatives from the press and state bar added cordial comments. In their farewell remarks, Bryan and Darrow tried to explain the widespread interest in the trial. The Commoner called the matter a little case raising a great cause, and asserted that “causes stir the world.” Darrow, in contrast, blamed everything on the religious nature of the prosecution. “I think this case will be remembered because it is the first case of this sort since we stopped trying people in America for witchcraft,” he claimed. “We have done our best to turn the tide ... of testing every fact in science by a religious doctrine.” 77 Raulston expressed his satisfaction with the trial and, after a local minister delivered a benediction, adjourned the court in time for lunch. As the crowd surged forward to hail both Darrow and Bryan, the Scopes trial passed into history and its legend took on a life of its own.

  PART III

  ... AND AFTER

  —CHAPTER EIGHT—

  THE END OF AN ERA

  THE SCOPES TRIAL did not end the antievolution crusade. How could it? Scopes had lost and the law was upheld. Darrow embarrassed Bryan on the witness stand, but the Commoner was an experienced politician accustomed to rallying from defeat. More critically, he was an innate optimist. “If Bryan left the Scopes trial ‘an exhausted and broken man,’ as one writer has recently maintained,” Bryan biographer Lawrence W. Levine observed, “he did a masterly job of concealing it during the five days of life remaining to him.”1

  Bryan took the offense immediately after the trial ended. Only hours after court adjourned, Bryan released a series of curt questions to defense attorneys about their beliefs in God, biblical truth, Christ, miracles, and life after death. Darrow replied within the hour by tersely affirming his agnosticism on every point, concluding with his succinct answer as to the question of immortality: “I have been searching for proof of this all my life, with the same desire to find it that is incident to every living thing, and I have never found any evidence on the subject.”2

  The following day, Bryan launched his effort to cast events at Dayton in a favorable light. “The issue is so large that individuals and locations are relatively unimportant,” he asserted in a press statement. “Is the Bible true is the question raised by the Tennessee law, and that question is answered in the affirmative as far as this trial can answer it.” He identified Darrow’s contemptuous behavior in court as “exhibit A” in the moral case against life without faith in God. Darrow replied in kind. “Mr. Bryan’s convulsions seem due to the fact that I placed him upon the witness stand,” he told reporters later in the day. “Of course, I cannot help having some pity for Mr. Bryan for being obligated to show his ignorance by simple and competent questions asked him on the witness stand.”3 By nightfall, Bryan was defending his intelligence before assembled journalists and claiming that Darrow unfairly took advantage of his lack of technical knowledge in science. In an apparent attempt to contrast his simple answers with Darrow’s crafty questions, Bryan declared, “Evolution overestimates the influence of the mind on life and underestimates the influence of the heart.”4

  During the next two days, Bryan remained in Dayton revising his unused closing argument into a fiery stump speech. This 15,000-word address leveled four specific “indictments” against the theory of evolution. First, the theory contradicted the biblical account of creation. Second, its survival-of-the-fittest explanation for human development destroyed both faith in God, as exemplified by Darwin’s agnosticism, and love of others, as shown by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Third, the study of evolution diverted attention from spiritually and socially useful pursuits. Finally, its deterministic view of life undermined efforts to reform society. “Let us, then, hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Science is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine,” Bryan wrote near the end. “It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its un-proved hypotheses rob [society of its moral] compass” and thus “endangers” humanity.5

  Bryan planned to deliver this speech to audiences across the country during the coming months, counting on residual interest in the Scopes trial to draw crowds. On Friday, July 24, Bryan drove to Chattanooga, where he arranged with the Chattanooga News editor George Fort Milton to publish the address. Milton bitterly opposed the antievolution law, but as a lifelong Bryan Democrat he denounced Darrow’s interrogation of his Peerless Leader as “a thing of immense cruelty” and pre-dieted that a popular backlash against it could further entrench the statute.6 On Saturday, Bryan drove from Chattanooga to Tom Stewart’s home town of Winchester, where he fulfilled a promise to the prosecutor by delivering the new address. He stopped en route in tiny Jasper, where more than 2,000 people turned out to hear him rehearse a portion of the speech in an open-air forum. An even larger audience assembled in Winchester for the full oration. The historian Ray Ginger attributed this feverish activity to “desperation,” but failed to note that Bryan customarily campaigned at an even more rapid pace. “If I should die tomorrow,” he reportedly told a journalist in Winchester, “I believe that on the basis of the accomplishments of the last few weeks I could truthfully say, well done.”7 The Scopes trial clearly upset Bryan, but it hardly drove him to despair. Returning to Chattanooga for a night’s work on galley proofs of the address, he talked of an expanded crusade against the teaching of evolution.

  These plans worried Bryan’s wife. “Mother was greatly opposed to father’s activities in assisting the passage of the anti-evolution laws in several States,” their daughter Grace later confided in a private letter. “Mother did all she could to prevent father from taking part in the Scopes trial.”8 Now, on their drive through the Tennessee countryside, Mary Baird Bryan expressed her fears that the antievolution crusade would cross the line between a narrow effort by taxpayers to control public education and a broad assault on individual freedom of speech and belief. She recorded their exchange in an account published later that year: “‘Well, Mama, I have not made that mistake yet, have I?’ and I replied, ‘You are all right so far, but will you be able to keep to this narrow path?’ With a happy smile, he said, ‘I think I can.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘can you control your followers?’ and more gravely he said, ‘I think I can.’ ”9 He never got that chance. After returning to Dayton for Sunday services at the southern Methodist church, where he offered the morning prayers, Bryan died in his sleep during his afternoon nap. The final words of his last speech, lifted by him from his favorite hymn to dramatize the promised results of eliminating public school instruction about human evolution, seemed a fitting eulogy: “Faith of our fathers—holy faith/ We will be true to thee till death!”10

  Word of Bryan’s death reached Darrow that afternoon as he vacationed in the Smoky Mountains. “People down here believe that Bryan died of a broken heart because of your questioning,” a journalist commented. Darrow reportedly shrugg
ed his shoulders and replied, with a reference to the Commoner’s legendary appetite that would thereafter color the popular image of Bryan at Dayton, “Broken heart nothing; he died of a busted belly.” Back in Baltimore, Mencken characteristically joked, “God aimed at Darrow, missed, and hit Bryan instead,” but privately he reportedly gloated, “We killed the son-of-a -bitch!”11

  Darrow had not been idle during the days immediately following the trial. In addition to responding to Bryan’s sporadic statements, he had given a public lecture in Knoxville and attended a farewell party thrown by departing journalists. Hays later wrote about local high school students who attended this party and recalled that Darrow “danced with and even smoked cigarettes with them.” Hays and Darrow hoped to see the youths of Tennessee turn from their parents’ repressive ways. “Smoking, dancing, free association between girls and boys, games and movies on Sunday had been their issues at home,” Hays added. “Here [we] were champions indeed.”12 No such generation gap developed with regard to teaching evolution in Tennessee, however; the Scopes defense attracted its share of senior supporters, such as Neal, and the most enthusiastic prosecutors were under 30 years old. Darrow’s prediction that the rising generation soon would repeal the antievolution statute failed to come true. Indeed, after interviewing local students about Scopes, one journalist reported as a typical response: “I like him, but I don’t believe I came from a monkey.”13 Few Tennesseans—of any age—believed otherwise.