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

by Edward Larson

  58 “Are People People?” Chicago Tribune, 20 June 1923, p. 8.

  59 Amendment to 1923 Okla. House Bill 197.

  60 1923 Fla. House Concurrent Resolution 7.

  61 William Jennings Bryan, “W. G. N. Put ‘On Carpet,’ Gets a Bryan Lashing,” Chicago Tribune, 20 June 1923, p. 14 (contains quote and affirmed that “my views are set forth in” the Florida resolution).

  62 Bryan, In His Image, 103—4 (emphasis in original).

  63 William Jennings Bryan to Florida State Senator W. J. Singleton, II April 1923, in Bryan Papers.

  64 “Memphis This Week Is Baptist Citadel,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 11 May 1925, p. I.

  65 Edwin Conklin, “The Churches,” in Philip M. Hamer, ed., Tennessee—A History, 1672—1932, vol. 2 (New York: American Historical Society, 1933), 826-27.

  66 T. H. Alexander, “Biography,” in Austin Peay: A Collection of State Papers and Public Addresses (Kingsport, Tenn.: Southern, 1929), xxx (quote); Joseph H. Parks and Stanley J. Folmsbee, The Story of Tennessee (Norman, Okla.: Harlow, 1963), 374; Billy Stair, “Religion, Politics, and the Myth of Tennessee Education,” Tennessee Teacher 45 (1978), 19-20.

  67 Austin Peay, “Address to Graduation Class of Carson and Newman College,” in Austin Peay, 433-34.

  68 Bryan, Is the Bible True? 3.

  69 “Bryan’s Latest,” Nashville Banner, 28 January 1925, p. 8.

  70 “Bryan Angrily Denies He’s a Millionaire,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 April 1925 , p. 1; “Remarkable Man,” p. 6.

  71 “Legislature Begins Drive on Evolution,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 21 January 1925, p. 1.

  72 Journal of the House of Representatives of Tennessee (1925 Reg. Sess.), 180.

  73 John W. Butler, quoted in “Dayton’s ‘Amazing’ Trial,” The Literary Digest 86 (25 July 1925), 7.

  74 1925 Tenn. House Bill 185.

  75 Bryan, Is the Bible True? 15—16.

  76 This summary of House action was compiled from Journal of the House, 248; “Evolution In Schools Barred by the House,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 January 1925, p. 1; “Peay Master of Assembly on Tax Plans,” Chattanooga Times, 28 January 1925, p. 1; “Peay Program Is Voted by Solons,” Knoxville Journal, 28 January 1925, p. 12; Ralph Perry, “Bar Teaching of Evolution,” Nashville Banner, 28 January 1925, p. 3.

  77 E. M. Matthews to Editor, Nashville Banner, 31 January 1925, p. 4.

  78 Lee Wilkerson to Editor, Nashville Banner, 29 January 1925, p. 8.

  79 Dillon J. Spottswood to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 4 February 1925, p. 4.

  80 Atha Hardy to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 4 February 1925, p. 4.

  81 Thomas Page Gore to Editor, Nashville Banner, 27 February 1925, p. 6.

  82 “And Others Call It God,” Nashville Tennessean, 1 February 1925, p. 4.

  83 “Monkey Business,” reprinted in “State Press Comment,” Knoxville Journal, 11 February 1925, p. 6.

  84 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Darwinism Done For,” Chattanooga Times, 1 February 1925, p. 16.

  85 “Lie Is Passed in Legislature,” Nashville Banner, 5 February 1925, p. 7.

  86 “Proceedings in Legislature,” Nashville Tennessean, 11 March 1925, p. 8.

  87 “Bill on Evolution Draws Fire Pastor,” Chattanooga Times, 9 February 1925, p. 7.

  88 “Baptists for Science in Church Colleges,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 5 February 1925, p. 5.

  89 Quoted in Kenneth M. Bailey, “The Enactment of Tennessee’s AntiEvolution Law,” Journal of Southern History 41 (1950), 477.

  90 Journal of the Senate of Tennessee (1925 Reg. Sess.), 214, 254, 286, 352.

  91 Sam Edwards to Editor, Nashville Banner, 4 February 1925, p. 8.

  92 J. R. Clerk to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 5 February 1925, p. 4.

  93 J. W. C. Church to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 8 February 1925, p. 4.

  94 Mrs. E. P. Blair to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 16 March 1925, p. 4.

  95 Dan Goodman to Editor, Nashville Tennessean, 6 February 1925, p. 4.

  96 John A. Shelton to William Jennings Bryan, 5 February 1925, in Bryan Papers.

  97 William Jennings Bryan to John A. Shelton, 9 February 1925, in Bryan Papers.

  98 This review and the following summary of Sunday’s crusade was compiled from daily articles in the 6 to 23 February 1925 issues of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which included both daily news reports and a complete transcript of each sermon.

  99 Ibid.

  100 “First Verse of Bible Key to All Scripture,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 13 March 1925, p. 11.

  101 This summary of Senate action was compiled from “Evolution Is Given Hard Jolt,” Knoxville Journal, 14 March 1925, p. 1; Howard Eskridge, “Senate Passes Evolution Bill,” Nashville Banner, 13 March 1925, p. 1; “Legislators Bar Teaching Evolution,” Chattanooga Times, 14 March 1925, p. 2; “Proceedings,” p. 8; Journal of the Senate of Tennessee (1925 Reg. Sess.), 516—17; Thomas Fauntleroy, “Darwinism Outlawed in Tennessee Senate,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 14 March 1925, p. I.

  102 Eskridge, “Senate Passes Evolution Bill,” 1.

  103 Excerpts from these letters to the governor appeared in “Peay Opens His Ape Law Letters,” Nashville Banner, in Peay Papers, GP 40—13 (including quotation about Middle Ages); James L. Graham to Austin Peay, 18 March 1925, in Peay Papers, GP 40—13; James W. Mayor to Austin Peay, 14 March 1925, in Peay Papers, GP 40—13.

  104 H. A. Morgan to Austin Peay, 9 February 1925, in Peay Papers, GP 40-24; “Anti-Evolution Bill Stirs Tennessee,” Atlanta Journal, 24 May 1925, p. 11.

  105 W. M. Wood to Austin Peay, 14 March 1925, in Peay Papers, GP 40-13.

  106 Austin Peay, “Message from the Governor,” 23 March 1925, in Journal of the House of Representatives of Tennessee (1925 Reg. Sess.), 741-45 (emphasis iadded). In his classic account of the Scopes trial, Six Days of Forever? Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), Ray Ginger uses this and other evidence to argue that the Tennessee antievolution statute was a symbolic protest rather than a serious law. It is clear to me, however, that antievolutionists took this statute seriously—they expected it to compel compliance. Bryan simply thought that, owing to the law-abiding nature of schoolteachers, the law would be self-enforcing rather than require active monitoring. What he did not anticipate was that some respected citizens would protest the statute by intentionally flaunting it. If there was a symbolic protest here, it was by opponents of the law in disobeying it rather than by proponents of the law in enacting it.

  107 “Give Up Schools Before Bible Is Peay’s Attitude,” Nashville Tennessean, 27 June 1925, p. 1; Peay, “Message,” 745.

  108 W. J. Bryan to Austin Peay, undated telegram, in Bryan Papers. 109. Peay, “Message,” 743, 745; Bryan to Shelton, 9 February 1925.

  CHAPTER THREE. IN DEFENSE OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY

  1 James Harvey Robinson, The Mind in the Making: The Relation of Intellect to Social Reform (New York: Harper, 1921), 181-86.

  2 Woodrow Wilson, “War Message, April 2, 1917,” in Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 41 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 519-27.

  3 Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, quoted in Paul L. Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (New York: Norton, 1979), 98.

  4 Roger N. Baldwin to W. D. Collins, 25 January 1918, in ACLU Archives, vol. 26.

  5 Norman Thomas, “War’s Heretics: A Plea for the Conscientious Objector,” reprinted in The Survey 33 (1917), 391-94 (quote at 394).

  6 Roger N. Baldwin, quoted in Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 39.

  7 Walker, In Defense of American Liberties, 21.

  8 Robinson, Mind in the Making, 180—82.

  9 Ibid., 186.

  10 Ibid., 187-88.

  11 Quoted in “The Real Motives Back of the Tennessee Evolution Case,” National Bulletin (Military Order of the Wor
ld War), June 1925, p. 3.

  12 Roger N. Baldwin, quoted in Peggy Lamson, Roger Baldwin: Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), 124.

  13 Roger N. Baldwin, quoted in Walker, In Defense of American Liberties, 46-47.

  14 Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 (1925).

  15 Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 51-52 (1919).

  16 Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted in Gerald Gunter, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge (New York: Knopf, 1994), 163.

  17 Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 828-30 (Holmes, J., dissenting, 1919) (emphasis added).

  18 American Civil Liberties Union, The Fight for Free Speech (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1921), 6-8.

  19 Roger N. Baldwin, in Walker, In Defense of American Liberties, 52.

  20 Arthur Garfield Hays, City Lawyer: The Autobiography of a Law Practice (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1942), 227. Despite this position on free speech, Hays regularly brought libel actions on behalf of his clients and himself.

  21 Arthur Garfield Hays, Let Freedom Ring (New York: Liveright, 1928), xi.

  22 Ibid., xx.

  23 Walker, In Defense of American Liberties, 53.

  24 Arthur Garfield Hays, City Lawyer, 227.

  25 David E. Lilienthal, “Clarence Darrow,” Nation 124 (1927), 417.

  26 In a characteristic comment on the topic, Darrow observed that “the only thing I ever saw that seemed to have free will was an electric pump I had once on a summer vacation. Every time we wanted it to go, it stopped. I couldn’t think of anything except free will, and all of a sudden when we knew nothing about it, it started again.” In Clarence Darrow and Will Durant, Is Man a Machine? (New York: League for Public Discussion, 1927), 51.

  27 Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960), 259-60.

  28 Kevin Tierney, Darrow: A Biography (New York: Croswell, 1979), 85.

  29 Robert G. Ingersoll, “Reply to Dr. Lymann Abbott,” in Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, vol. 4 (New York: Dresden, 1903), 463.

  30 Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life (New York: Grosset, 1932), 409; Clarence Darrow, “Why I Am an Agnostic,” in Clarence Darrow, Verdicts Out of Court, Arthur Weinberg and Lila Weinberg, eds. (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1963), 434.

  31 Clarence Darrow, quoted in Lilienthal, “Darrow,” 419.

  32 Darrow, “Why I Am an Agnostic,” 436.

  33 For example, Darrow, My Life, 382-423 (quotes from 383 and 419).

  34 Darrow, My Life, 408-13.

  35 “Darrow Asks W. J. Bryan to Answer These,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 July 1923, p. 1.

  36 See W. B. Norton, “Bryan’s Ailment Is Intolerance, Pastor’s Assert,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 June 1923, p. 3.

  37 Darrow, My Life, 249.

  38 John Haynes Holmes, I Speak for Myself: The Autobiography of John Haynes Holmes (New York: Harper, 1959), 263. The philosopher Will Durant made a similar observation during a debate with Darrow. Darrow and Durant, Is Man a Machine? 45.

  39 Hays, City Lawyer, 221.

  40 For example, Henry R. Linville, The Biology of Man and Other Organisms (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1923), 4—5. See also Henry R. Linville and Henry A. Kelly, A Text-book in General Zoology (Boston: Ginn, 1906).

  41 American Civil Liberties Union, The Fight for Free Speech (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1921), 17—18.

  42 Lusk Committee, quoted in Robinson, Mind in the Making, 190—91.

  43 Walker, In Defense of American Liberties, 59. The ACLU sought to get its message into public schools during the twenties both by providing schools speakers and helping high school debaters prepare for debates on free-speech issues. See, e.g., Roger N. Baldwin to College and High School Debating Societies, 17 October 1924, ACLU Archives, vol. 253. A typical example of classroom “Americanism” materials that surfaced in many places was the U.S. Bureau of Education’s 1923 American Education Week curriculum, which lauded the country’s founding fathers and military exploits.

  44 Darrow, My Life, 25.

  45 Georgia Supreme Court, quoted in William Seagle, “A Christian Coun try,” American Mercury 6 (1925), 233.

  46 1915 Tenn. Acts, ch. 102.

  47 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. 2 (Boston: Little & Brown, 1851), 590-97.

  48 Andrew Dickson White describes the episode at length in Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1896), 313-16. See also Paul K. Conkin, Gone With the Ivy: A Biography of Vanderbilt University (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), 50, 60—62.

  49 George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Non-Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 130.

  50 White, History of the Warfare of Science, vol. 1, 315.

  51 “The Case of Professor Mecklin,” Journal of Philosophical, Psychological, and Scientific Methods 11 (1918), 67-81.

  52 Arthur O. Lovejoy, “Organization of the American Association of University Professors,” Science 41 (1915), 152.

  53 “General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 1 (December 1915), 21, 23, 27, 29-30.

  54 “Report on the University of Tennessee,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 10 (1924), 217.

  55 Ibid., 213-59 (quotes at 217 and 255). See also Jonas Riley Montgomery, Stanley J. Folmebee, and Lee Seifern Greene, To Foster Knowledge: A History of the University of Tennessee, 1794—1970 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 185-87.

  56 “Report on Tennessee,” 56-63 (quotes); Montgomery, Folmebee, and Greene, To Foster Knowledge, 187—89.

  57 Joseph V. Dennis, “Presidential Address,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 10 (1924), 26—28.

  58 “Report of Committee M,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 11 (1925), 93-94.

  59 Henry R. Linville, “Tentative Statement of a Plan for Investigating Work on Free-Speech Cases in Schools and Colleges,” in ACLU Archives, vol. 248.

  60 Harry F. Ward, “MEMORANDUM on Academic Freedom,” ACLU Archives, vol. 248.

  61 Harry F. Ward and Henry R. Linville, “Freedom of Speech in Schools and Colleges: A Statement by the American Civil Liberties Union, June, 1924,” ACLU Archives, vol. 248.

  62 “Free Speech in Colleges Tackled by New Group—Civil Liberties Union Forms Committee to Act in Cases of Interference with Students and Teachers,” 22 October 1924, Press Release, ACLU Archives, vol. 248. See also John Haines Holmes and Roger Baldwin to “Colleges,” 15 November 1924, ACLU Archives, vol. 248.

  63 Lucille Milner, Education of an American Liberal: An Autobiography of Lucille Milner (New York: Horizon, 1954), 161-62.

  64 Roger N. Baldwin, “Dayton’s First Issue,” in Jerry R. Tomkins, ed., D-Days at Dayton: Reflections of the Scopes Trial (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), 56.

  65 “Cries at Restrictive Laws,” New York Times, 26 April 1925, in ACLU Archives, vol. 273.

  66 “Plan Assault on State Law on Evolution,” Chattanooga Daily Times, 4 May 1925, p. 5; “Anti-Evolution Law Won’t Affect Elementary Schools,” Jackson Sun, 29 March 1925, in Peay Papers, GP 40—13.

  CHAPTER FOUR. CHOOSING SIDES

  1 Why Dayton, of All Places? (Chattanooga: Andrews, 1925), 3.

  2 The Census Bureau did not list Dayton in the 1870 census and placed its population at only 200 persons in 1880. The 1890 census reported a population of 2,719 for Dayton in 1890, but by the 1900 census the figure had dropped to 2,004. Thereafter, the Census Bureau ceased to separately list towns under 2,500 and Dayton dropped off the list. Boosted by agricultural development, however, the Rhea County population continued to grow. See U.S. Census Bureau, 1880 Census: Population, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1
883), 338; U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census: Population, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), 373.

  3 “Rappleyea Rapped,” Chattanooga Times, 19 May 1925, p. 5. Some secondary sources spelled this surname “Rappelyea,” but contemporary sources used “Rappleyea.”

  4 “Was Converted Through Science,” Chattanooga Times, 21 May 1925, p. 2; G. W. Rappleyea to Editor, Chattanooga Times, 19 May 1925, p. 5. When his devout Roman Catholic mother later read about his pivotal role in these events, she chided him, “You always had lots of book sense, but never any common sense.” “Was Converted Through Science,” p. 2.