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

by Edward Larson

  White fundamentalists rushed in to fill the void, and willingly engaged modernists and evolutionists in setting the terms for public debate over the trial. In pulpits across America, conservative ministers argued against Darwinism. Many attacked Darrow and the menace of materialism as well, such as the Tennessee pastor who claimed that he “had been searching literature and the pages of history in an effort to find someone with whom he might class Darrow, but as yet had not been able to place him but in one class, and that of the Devil.”31 Leading antievolution crusaders such as Riley, Norris, Straton, Martin, and Sunday redoubled their efforts in the days before the trial, barnstorming the country for creationism. On a train to Seattle, Norris wrote to Bryan, “It is the greatest opportunity ever presented to educate the public, and will accomplish more than ten years campaigning.”32 From Oregon, Sunday added his endorsement of “any views expressed by William Jennings Bryan.”33 Summer having come, the Bible conference and Chautauqua seasons were in full swing, providing ready audiences of antievolutionists.

  During the twenties, the public became fascinated by formal debates between proponents and opponents of the theory and teaching of evolution. In 1924, for example, Straton and Potter clashed over the theory before a large audience at Carnegie Hall in a debate broadcast live on the radio and subsequently published by a commercial press. A panel of three judges from the New York State Supreme Court gave a unanimous decision to Straton on technical merit. “With the exception of the legal battles to outlaw evolution or to get ‘scientific creationism’ into the public schools,” the historian Ronald Numbers observed, “nothing brought more attention to creationists than their debates with prominent evolutionists.”34 Public interest in the coming trial generated a variety of such debates across the country, including a series between Riley and the science popularizer Maynard Shipley on the West Coast. “Please report my compliments to Dr. Riley,” Bryan wrote to Straton in early June, just before Straton joined Riley for the final debate in Seattle. “He seemed to have the audience overwhelmingly with him in Los Angeles, Oakland and Portland. This is very encouraging; it shows that the ape-man hypothesis is not very strong outside the colleges and the pulpits.”35 For the moment, at least, antievolutionists appeared to have the upper hand.

  The presence of Riley or Straton insured a large audience, but a pair of mid-June debates in San Francisco between Shipley and two young editors of a Seventh Day Adventist journal may have attracted the greatest attention. According to the San Francisco Examiner, “That the Scopes trial is a living issue in San Francisco as elsewhere was indicated by the large crowd which on both evenings filled the auditorium long before the meeting hour, and afterwards filled the street and threatened to rush the doors.”36 Prominent California jurists served on the panel of judges. Shipley spent the first debate sniping at Bryan, which allowed his Adventist opponent to win a split decision against the proposition, “Resolved, That the earth and all life upon it are the result of evolution,” by systematically raising a host of technical questions about that theory. The second debate focused on the timely issue of teaching evolution in public schools. Here Shipley gained the victory with a plea for freedom. In typical Adventist fashion, his opponent presented the teaching of evolution as “subversive of religious views” and argued for “neutrality on the questions of religion” in public schools. The remedy: “Keep evolution and Genesis both out.” Shipley countered with stories about the religious persecution of Galileo and Columbus for their scientific theories, and asserted the near universal support among scientists for the theory of evolution. “We hold that this theory, or any theory, advanced by those best qualified by education and experience to judge such matters, should be made known to the pupils of our publicly supported educational institutions, and that to suppress such knowledge is a social crime. ”37

  The results of the San Francisco debates suggested that, in the spirit of liberty, people who doubted the theory of evolution might still tolerate the teaching of evolution. Perhaps Bryan sensed this all along and only campaigned to prohibit the teaching of evolution as true; but now he had to defend a broader law that barred all teaching about human evolution, while the defense followed Shipley’s approach by pleading for individual liberty to learn and teach about scientific theories.

  Despite strenuous efforts to reach the public through debates and addresses, Scopes’s opponents regularly complained that the press garbled their message—reflecting in part their own perceptions. Following the San Francisco debates, for example, the Adventist science educator George McCready Price wrote to Bryan, “Our side whipped Mr. Shipley ‘to the frazzle.’ ” Yet newspaper reports were mixed, as were neutral judges’ and audience reactions; even an accurate news account of antievolution arguments might not sound as good as proponents remembered them. Accordingly, Price directed Bryan to “the full report of the debate” as published by an Adventist press.38 In a private letter written shortly before the Scopes trial, Bryan explained his criticism of the press regarding the antievolution controversy. “I think the newspapers desire to be truthful about matters of science. Whether they are thoroughly sensible depends a good deal upon one’s point of view,” he commented. “I do not consider it thoroughly sensible for a paper to publish as if true every wild guess made by a man who calls himself a scientist; and yet the wilder the guess the more likely it is to be published.”39

  In fact, some bias against the prosecution did taint the news coverage. Most major American newspapers went on record favoring the defense. Even within Tennessee—although editorialists roundly criticized Dayton for staging the trial and several of them grudgingly conceded that the court should enforce the law—only one major daily newspaper, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, consistently supported the prosecution. Surveying the initial press commentary, a Nashville Banner editorialist observed that “There are vigorous champions of the right of the state to regulate its institutions, but a great many editors commenting insist that the question is whether truth shall be limited by law. Inevitably Mr. Bryan has become something of the storm center.” During the trial, an article in a trade publication for journalists commented, “Some of the reporters are writing controversial matter, arguing the case, asserting that civilization is on trial. The average news writer is trying to stick to the facts as revealed in court, but it is a slippery, tricky job at best.”40 Based on a later study of editorial and news articles from the period, the journalism professor Edward Caudill agreed: “The press was biased in favor of Darrow,” but mostly due to its insensitivity to faith-based arguments rather than to intentional advocacy.41

  Whatever the source for bias, the results could be quite blatant. For example, when T. T. Martin passed through Chattanooga on his way to the trial he defended antievolution laws with the standard claim that they protected the individual liberty of religious students. Apparently unable to see any connection between the restrictive statute and individual liberty, the Chattanooga Times article on Martin’s speech dismissed his claim as “quite novel.”42 Stung by critical letters to the editor from fundamentalists, the newspaper’s managing editor sought a balance by commissioning Chattanooga’s leading fundamentalist minister to join the paper’s regular staff reporters in covering the trial “with no restrictions,” as the minister was told, “save the truth and nothing but the truth be written.” This policy, which Bryan hailed as “highly commendable,” produced a diverse array of articles, with the minister’s daily features typically published alongside those written by modernist clerics or Watson Davis’s Science Service.43 No other newspapers followed this approach, however. In mid June, when Riley, Martin, and other prominent antievolutionists offered a series of newspaper columns to balance the proevolution Science Service series, there were few takers among major papers.

  Antievolutionists despaired of receiving fair treatment in the secular press. A letter to Sue Hicks from his brother Ira, a fundamentalist pastor in New Jersey, captured this feeling of frustration. “I have no doubt abou
t the outcome of the case,” Ira wrote in mid June. “What I fear is the news papers will color everything to look like a victory for evolution as their sympathy is there. To get the real facts of this case before the people, especially in the north, is going to be a difficult task.”44 Alternate outlets for information existed in church newspapers and journals. Some supported the prosecution, such as The Baptist and Reflector, which sent its editor from Kentucky to Dayton to cover the trial. Another Baptist journal offered its support from afar: “Scopes is just a fool boy who has lent himself to be the tool of faddists and opportunists.”45 A pretrial article in a Washington, D.C.-based fundamentalist journal, The Present Truth, added, “Scopes as a teacher is an employee of the State, paid out of state funds, and surely the State has a right to say what he may do and may not do in his official capacity.”46

  Most traditional church publications appeared under denominational auspices, however, and many established denominations were split by the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, which left their newspapers and journals in the middle on the Scopes case. Some criticized both Bryan’s fanaticism and Darrow’s naturalism; others called for tolerance or simply avoided the issue. In discussing the trial, Roman Catholic newspapers warned parishioners against both the theory of evolution as materialistic dogma and antievolution laws as part of an effort by Protestant fundamentalists to control public education. The Catholic Press Association sent a top officer, Benedict Elder, to cover the trial for diocesan newspapers across the country. Upon his arrival in Dayton, Elder complained about the “religious complex [of] some writers for the metropolitan papers,” and offered his qualified support for the prosecution: “Although as Catholics we do not go quite as far as Mr. Bryan on the Bible, we do want it preserved.”47 Elder went to Dayton with a top Knights of Columbus official. “There is a vast amount of sympathy for Mr. Bryan and the state of Tennessee among the Catholics of America,” the official noted. “However one may differ from him, the efforts of the Great Commoner serve the Christian faith of the young of Tennessee, and he is entitled to respect.”48

  Antievolutionists increasingly turned to interdenominational journals and publishers to communicate their side of the story. The WCFA’s quarterly journal presented its view of the Scopes trial to the faithful, and America’s two leading conservative Christian magazines, Moody Monthly and Sunday School Times, also took up the cause. Fundamentalist publishing houses, particularly the nondenominational Fleming H. Revell Company, contributed to the barrage of words. Antievolution books by Bryan sold so well that he discussed retiring from the lecture circuit after the Scopes trial to concentrate solely on writing. T. T. Martin’s Hell and the High School and Price’s The Phantom of Organic Evolution chalked up record sales; indeed, Martin hawked his book near the courthouse in Dayton under a large banner bearing the book’s title, which created a popular backdrop for photographers who wanted to emphasize the trial’s carnival atmosphere. The role of interdenominational and parachurch organizations in American religion had been increasing for years as traditional churches divided into liberal and conservative factions that crossed denominational lines; events leading up to the Scopes trial, however, accelerated this trend—especially for fundamentalists. Just before the trial, for example, when Riley announced the formation of a half dozen local societies to push for antievolution laws in various states, he stressed, “The societies are sponsored by fundamentalists of all denominations.”49

  Bryan moved at the center of the fundamentalists’ pretrial publicity campaign. He kept in close contact with leading antievolutionists as they spoke around the country. He traveled extensively himself, criss-crossing the eastern United States half a dozen times during May and June, speaking freely about the case in a style reminiscent of his whistle-stop campaigns for the presidency. The trial “is not a joke,” Bryan assured a Chicago audience, “but the beginning of the end of attacks upon the Bible by those teachers in the public schools who have been substituting the guesses of scientists for the word of God.”50 Before a crowd of over 20,000 people in a small midwestern town, he added, “The most important elements that stir the human heart are bound up in [this case:] the education of the child and the religion of the child.”51 In full campaign mode, the Commoner proclaimed in Brooklyn, “We must win if the world is to be saved.”52 Back home in early July, he reported to the Miami Rotary Club: “The wide publicity given evolution and religion is focusing the attention of the world on a subject the people did not fully understand.”53 Upon meeting Scopes in Dayton several days later, Bryan leaned toward the teacher and quietly said, “You have no idea what a black and brutal thing this evolution is.”54

  Bryan’s busy schedule made it difficult for the prosecutors to arrange a joint strategy session. Knowing that Bryan was passing through Tennessee in early June, Sue Hicks proposed that the Commoner stop over in Chattanooga for a conference, but Bryan had a speech in Tallahassee the following day. “You might meet me in Nashville at 8 A.M., [and] ride to Decatur,” Bryan scribbled his reply on hotel stationery. “This would give us about four hours together on the train, which would I think be sufficient for plans necessary now.”55 Thus forewarned of Bryan’s itinerary, a band playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and a blue-ribbon delegation of city and state leaders greeted the Commoner’s train when it pulled into Nashville. The three Dayton prosecutors, Hicks, Hicks, and Haggard, met with Bryan that morning; Stewart was in court at the time. The prosecution met together only once more prior to assembling in Dayton, late in June when Bryan had a brief stopover in Atlanta. Otherwise, they communicated by mail. Nevertheless, a bond immediately formed among the prosecutors. Four days after the first meeting, Sue Hicks wrote to his brother Ira, “We had a splendid conference with Bryan ... in Nashville and rode with him in [his] state room to Chattanooga. He is greatly enthused about the case and will talk about nothing else. Of course we think Bryan is a wonderful man.”56 In similar letter to another brother, Sue Hicks added that Bryan “is making great plans for this case. He says it is [a] turning point for Christianity.”57

  Bryan never varied in his public pronouncements regarding the prosecution’s strategy. “I have been explaining this case to audiences. It is the easiest case to explain I have ever found,” he wrote to Sue Hicks at the outset. “The right of the people speaking through the legislature, to control the schools which they create and support is the real issue as I see it.” Bryan went on to add, “By the way I don’t think we should insist on more than the minimum fine and I will let the defendant have the money.”58 He reasserted this position after consulting with co-counsel on the train in Nashville. “The New York papers have entirely mistaken the issue,” he told reporters. “Mr. Scopes demands pay for teaching what the state does not want taught and demands that the state furnish him with an audience of children to which he can talk and say things contrary to law. No court has ever upheld any such proposition.” As to raising “the question of evolution” at trial, Bryan commented, “I am not so sure that it is involved.”59

  Privately, however, Bryan hoped to discredit the theory of evolution through expert testimony. Sue Hicks explained the plan to his brothers shortly after the prosecution’s first strategy session. “We can confine the case to the right of the legislature to control the schools and easily win. However we want both legal and moral victory if possible,” he wrote in strict confidence. “After we have put on sufficient proof to show the facts of the teaching, the state will rest its case and wait for the defense to move. They will likely want to win a moral victory for their scientific beliefs and will introduce various scientists, to substantiate the theory of evolution.” Here, Bryan hoped to ambush the defense. “We are planning to meet them on every issue raised and we think, without trouble, we have them beat in both the legal and scientific phases,” Hicks boasted. “It is part of our plan to keep the defense thinking that we are going to restrict the case to the right of the legislature to control, but when the trial comes on we can gain a moral v
ictory by opening out the field to our evidence.”60 Bryan confided his hopes in a letter to Johns Hopkins medical school professor Howard A. Kelly, one of the scientific experts solicited to testify. “The American people do not know what a menace evolution is—I am expecting a tremendous reaction as a result of the information which will go out from Dayton, and I am counting on you as one of the most powerful factors,” he wrote.61

  Early on, the prosecution divided up responsibility for preparing and presenting the case. Recognizing his lack of trial experience and unfamiliarity with Tennessee law, Bryan left the legal issues strictly to the local attorneys. He assumed responsibility for securing scientists and theologians to testify against the theory of evolution. It was here that Bryan’s ambitious plans for attacking the theory at trial began to break down. None of the Tennessee prosecutors knew anything about science. Sue Hicks’s confidence about winning the scientific phase of the trial rested solely on Bryan’s assertions about the matter. “Mr. Bryan is getting up the witnesses for us,” he wrote to his brother Ira, “and expects to have many of the leading scientists and doctors of divinity.” 62 This great expectation met with bitter disappointment.