The ‘Trial of the Century’

“The court will come to order!” declared a judge one summer day in 1925 at a courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. Soon a witness took the stand: Howard Morgan, a 14-year-old freshman at Rhea Central High School.

A few hours earlier, Morgan had been at a nearby swimming hole with his friends, trying to cool off in the blistering Tennessee heat. Now he found himself sitting in an oversized wooden witness chair in front of 160 reporters and hundreds more spectators. Chicago’s WGN radio was covering the court case live, broadcasting coast to coast. The whole world was watching. Morgan was about to offer evidence at one of the most sensational trials of the 20th century.

The trial was sparked by a Tennessee law passed a few months earlier known as the Butler Act, which outlawed the teaching of evolution in public schools. Passage of the act was driven by Protestant fundamentalist Christians in Tennessee, who believed that every word in the Bible was the literal word of God. They felt that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution—which asserts that humans and apes share a common ancestor—should not be taught in schools because it undermined their own biblical teachings, such as the story of Adam and Eve.

It was a summer day in 1925 at a courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. “The court will come to order!” declared a judge. Soon a witness took the stand, Howard Morgan. He was a 14-year-old freshman at Rhea Central High School.

A few hours earlier, Morgan had been at a nearby swimming hole with his friends. They had been trying to cool off in the Tennessee heat. Now he found himself sitting in an oversized wooden witness chair in front of 160 reporters and hundreds more spectators. The whole world was watching. Chicago’s WGN radio was covering the court case live, broadcasting coast to coast. Morgan was about to offer evidence at one of the most sensational trials of the 20th century.

The trial was sparked by a Tennessee law passed a few months earlier known as the Butler Act, which outlawed the teaching of evolution in public schools. The act was passed because of Protestant fundamentalist Christians in Tennessee. They believed that every word in the Bible was the literal word of God. They felt that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution should not be taught in schools. The theory that humans and apes share a common ancestor undermined their own biblical teachings, such as the story of Adam and Eve.

To others, a ban on teaching Darwin’s theory (see “Tree of Life,” below) violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which in essence prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another or favoring religious views over secular ones. The Constitution doesn’t actually include the words “separation of church and state.” But the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”    

The trial, held 100 years ago, was more than a battle between science and religion in the classroom. It happened at a time of great change in the United States, when traditional religious values collided with modern ideas, even within Christianity itself.

To others, a ban on teaching Darwin’s theory (see “Tree of Life,” below) violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. (The Establishment Clause basically prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another, or favoring religious views over secular ones.) The Constitution doesn’t actually include the words “separation of church and state.” But the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”    

It was a time of great change in the United States 100 years ago when the trial was held. The trial became more than a battle between science and religion in the classroom. It happened at a time when traditional religious values collided with modern ideas, even within Christianity itself.

It was also a turning point in the continuing American debate over individual freedom versus majority rule. The Tennessee law “raised issues that went to the heart of democracy,” says Brenda Wineapple, author of a recent book on the trial. “It asked who controlled how Americans could be educated” and what limits should be placed “on the freedom to learn, to teach, to think, or to worship.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.), which had formed five years earlier to promote individual rights, wanted to test the constitutionality of the Butler Act. But could it find a teacher willing to be indicted for teaching evolution? The A.C.L.U. took an ad out in the Chattanooga Daily Times offering to defend any teacher willing to do so.

Community leaders in Dayton, looking for an opportunity to generate tourism in a town suffering from an economic slump, asked an instructor at the local high school named John T. Scopes whether he would consider taking on the role. They hoped the attention generated by such a trial would put Dayton on the map. Scopes, a 24-year-old math and science teacher, agreed.

It was also a turning point in the continuing American debate over individual freedom versus majority rule. The Tennessee law “raised issues that went to the heart of democracy,” says Brenda Wineapple, author of a recent book on the trial. “It asked who controlled how Americans could be educated” and what limits should be placed “on the freedom to learn, to teach, to think, or to worship.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) had formed five years earlier to promote individual rights. It wanted to test the constitutionality of the Butler Act, but it needed a teacher willing to be arrested for teaching evolution. The A.C.L.U. took an ad out in the Chattanooga Daily Times offering to defend any teacher willing to do so.

Dayton, Tennessee, was suffering from an economic slump. Community leaders were looking for an opportunity to generate tourism to the town. They asked an instructor at the local high school named John T. Scopes whether he would consider taking on the role. They hoped the attention generated by such a trial would put Dayton on the map. Scopes, a 24-year-old math and science teacher, agreed.

The class text Scopes used, A Civic Biology, was a state-approved textbook and had a section on evolution. Scopes told authorities that, yes, he had used the book to teach the topic to his students. Upon doing so, he was arrested for violating the Butler Act, just as he and the A.C.L.U. had expected. A trial date was set. Two of the biggest legal names in the nation would soon star in this courtroom drama.

Dayton was a tiny town of 1,800 people, deep in the Tennessee River Valley, some 80 miles south of Knoxville. Town leaders prepared for the trial as if it were the Olympics. They installed park benches and drinking fountains. Street vendors set up sandwich and lemonade stands near the courthouse. Preachers from nearby towns came and delivered outdoor sermons. Someone brought a Hollywood-trained chimpanzee to town, offering him to the defense as evidence (the chimp could roller skate and ride a bicycle). The famed newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken termed the proceedings in Dayton the “monkey trial,” and the name stuck.

Scopes used the textbook A Civic Biology, which was state-approved. It had a section on evolution. Scopes told authorities that, yes, he had used the book to teach the topic to his students. He was then arrested for violating the Butler Act, just as he and the A.C.L.U. had expected. A trial date was set. Two of the biggest legal names in the nation would soon star in this courtroom drama.

Dayton was a tiny town of 1,800 people, deep in the Tennessee River Valley, some 80 miles south of Knoxville. Town leaders prepared for the trial as if it were the Olympics. They installed park benches and drinking fountains. Street vendors set up sandwich and lemonade stands near the courthouse. Preachers from nearby towns came and delivered outdoor sermons. Someone brought a Hollywood-trained chimpanzee to town and offered him to the defense as evidence (the chimp could roller skate and ride a bicycle). The famed newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken termed the proceedings in Dayton the “monkey trial,” and the name stuck.

The trial pitted two of the greatest public speakers of the day against each other. Clarence Darrow, a folksy but brilliant criminal defense lawyer from Chicago, volunteered to defend Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, a religious fundamentalist and the Democratic party’s three-time nominee for president, came to Dayton to prosecute the case against Scopes.

Held in Dayton’s red-brick county courthouse, the trial lasted just a week. It began with prosecutors establishing that Scopes had, in fact, broken the law. To do this, they called to the stand Howard, the Rhea Central High School freshman who had taken Scopes’s biology class that year. They asked him what Scopes had taught. He said his teacher described humans as mammals that had evolved from one-celled organisms.

Then Darrow cross-examined Howard. “Did he tell you what a mammal was?” Darrow asked, curling a thumb around his red suspenders.

“Well, he just said these animals were mammals and man was a mammal,” Howard responded, his voice cracking.

Darrow’s strategy wasn’t to argue that Scopes hadn’t broken the law, but to demonstrate to the larger audience outside the courtroom that the Butler Act itself was unconstitutional. It favored one religion over others, he said, violating the First Amendment. He argued that the Bible isn’t a book of science.

The trial pitted two of the greatest public speakers of the day against each other. Clarence Darrow, a folksy but brilliant criminal defense lawyer from Chicago, volunteered to defend Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, a religious fundamentalist and the Democratic party’s three-time nominee for president, came to Dayton. He would prosecute the case against Scopes.

Held in Dayton’s red-brick county courthouse, the trial lasted just a week. It began with prosecutors establishing that Scopes had, in fact, broken the law. To do this, they called Howard to the stand. He was a freshman at Rhea Central High School who had taken Scopes’s biology class that year. They asked him what Scopes had taught. He said his teacher described humans as mammals that had evolved from one-celled organisms.

Then Darrow cross-examined Howard. “Did he tell you what a mammal was?” Darrow asked, curling a thumb around his red suspenders.

“Well, he just said these animals were mammals and man was a mammal,” Howard responded, his voice cracking.

Darrow’s strategy wasn’t to argue that Scopes hadn’t broken the law. He wanted to show the larger audience outside the courtroom that the Butler Act itself was unconstitutional. It favored one religion over others, he said, violating the First Amendment. He argued that the Bible isn’t a book of science.

Bryan saw things differently. He termed the trial a “duel to the death”—a kind of holy war to vanquish atheists and Christian liberals, who believed that science was not only compatible with Christianity but could also be part of God’s work.

“Tell me the parents of this day have not any right to declare that children are not to be taught this doctrine?” he asked the court, referring to the “doctrine” of evolution. For Bryan, there was no compromise. Not even when the judge, himself a fundamentalist, reportedly asked: Wouldn’t evolution be compatible with the Bible if it was determined that God created the cell?

As the proceedings went on, Darrow made a clever trial maneuver. He called Bryan himself to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. Under questioning by Darrow, Bryan confirmed that he literally believed in Noah and the Flood, a story in which God instructs Noah to build an ark and fill it with pairs of animals to escape disaster. But he admitted that the six days of creation, in which God creates the world in the span of a week, might symbolize a longer stretch of time. With that admission, Bryan acknowledged that portions of the Bible were indeed subject to interpretation. Darrow then posed the question: Why couldn’t evolutionary theory be consistent with certain Biblical interpretations?

Bryan saw things differently. He termed the trial a “duel to the death.” He saw it as a kind of holy war to defeat atheists and Christian liberals, who believed that science was not only compatible with Christianity but could also be part of God’s work.

“Tell me the parents of this day have not any right to declare that children are not to be taught this doctrine?” he asked the court, referring to the “doctrine” of evolution. For Bryan, there was no compromise. Not even when the judge, himself a fundamentalist, reportedly asked: Wouldn’t evolution be compatible with the Bible if it was determined that God created the cell?

As the proceedings went on, Darrow made a clever trial maneuver. He called Bryan himself to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. During his testimony, Bryan confirmed that he literally believed in Noah and the Flood, a story in which God instructs Noah to build an ark and fill it with pairs of animals to escape disaster. But he admitted that the six days in which God creates the world might symbolize a longer period of time. With that admission, Bryan acknowledged that portions of the Bible were indeed subject to interpretation. Then Darrow asked the question: Why couldn’t evolutionary theory be consistent with certain Biblical interpretations?

Despite his successes in the courtroom, Darrow lost the case. At the close of the trial, the jury convicted Scopes, and he was fined $100. The A.C.L.U. appealed. Two years later, a state appeals court held the Butler Act to be constitutional but overturned Scopes’s conviction on a technicality*, ending the case before the U.S. Supreme Court could get involved.

The ban against teaching evolution remained Tennessee state law for the next 42 years. But the Butler Act was never enforced again (though many schools steered clear of teaching evolution to avoid controversy). And in the two years following the trial, laws banning the teaching of evolution were defeated in 22 states. The Scopes trial, with its sharp debate over the roles of science and theology in public education, helped lay the legal groundwork for many of these cases. It also captured the public imagination as the nation’s first real media circus, even inspiring a 1955 Broadway play, Inherit the Wind.

In 1967, facing another legal challenge, the Tennessee legislature finally repealed the Butler Act, though it also specified that evolution should be taught as a theory rather than a fact. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a law similar to the Butler Act, in Arkansas, was unconstitutional and violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The decision read: “The State’s undoubted right to prescribe the curriculum for its public schools does not carry with it the right to prohibit . . . the teaching of a scientific theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment.” In yet another ruling, in 1987 in Louisiana, the justices struck down a state law requiring that creationism be given equal time in any class teaching evolution, also on the grounds that it defied the Establishment Clause.

The dialogue between science and religion in American schools, which the Scopes trial started, is still ongoing. As Scopes wrote in 1965, reflecting on the trial: “What, then, did we actually accomplish? . . . The trial marked a beginning of the development of a national consciousness of the roles played by religion, science, and education . . . Religion and science may now address one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect and of a common quest for truth.”

Even though Darrow had success in the courtroom, he lost the case. The jury convicted Scopes and he was fined $100. The A.C.L.U. appealed. Two years later, a state appeals court held the Butler Act to be constitutional but overturned Scopes’s conviction on a technicality.* This ended the case before the U.S. Supreme Court could get involved.

The ban against teaching evolution remained Tennessee state law for the next 42 years. But the Butler Act was never enforced again. Many schools chose to not teach evolution to avoid controversy. During the two years following the trial, laws banning the teaching of evolution were defeated in 22 states. The Scopes trial helped lay the legal groundwork for many of these cases. It also captured the public imagination as the nation’s first real media circus, even inspiring a 1955 Broadway play, Inherit the Wind.

In 1967, facing another legal challenge, the Tennessee legislature finally repealed the Butler Act, though it also specified that evolution should be taught as a theory rather than a fact. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that an Arkansas law similar to the Butler Act was unconstitutional. They found it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The decision read: “The State’s undoubted right to prescribe the curriculum for its public schools does not carry with it the right to prohibit . . . the teaching of a scientific theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment.” In 1987, the justices struck down a Louisiana state law requiring that creationism be given equal time in any class teaching evolution. They ruled on the grounds that it defied the Establishment Clause.

The dialogue between science and religion in American schools, which the Scopes trial started, is still ongoing. As Scopes wrote in 1965, reflecting on the trial: “What, then, did we actually accomplish . . . ? The trial marked a beginning of the development of a national consciousness of the roles played by religion, science, and education . . . Religion and science may now address one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect and of a common quest for truth.”

^{*The judge had set the fine; the jury was supposed to make that decision.}

^{*The judge had set the fine; the jury was supposed to make that decision.}