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Of Monkeys and Men

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Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era

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Abstract

Kelso Rice, the court policeman in Dayton, Tennessee, struggled to make his voice heard over the laughter and applause in the loud, crowded courtroom. “People, this is no circus,” he demanded. “There are no monkeys up here. This is a lawsuit, let us have order.”1 The roomful of East Tennesseans, newspaper reporters, big-city lawyers, and curious onlookers could have been forgiven for assuming they were at a circus. For days, the East Tennessee town of Dayton had shown all the signs of it. The streets were full of buskers, snack stands, and carnival games. The hot July sun roasted the courthouse until even this latest “Trial of the Century” was forced outdoors under the shade of some cottonwood trees. For the first and only time in its history, Dayton was the most talked-about small town in the world. Reporters telegraphed hundreds of thousands of words daily from the town to the waiting world, as America held its breath for the outcome.2

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Notes

  1. Clarence Darrow, William J. Bryan, et al., The World’s Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case (Cincinnati, OH: National Book Company, 1925), 282.

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  2. The best source for understanding this trial is Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

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  3. Another good source is Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2002). Also helpful is Douglas O. Linder, “Famous Trials: Tennessee vs. John Scopes: ‘The Monkey Trial,’” University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Law, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes.htm (accessed July 18, 2005).

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  4. Governor Austin Peay, “Statement,” Moody Bible Institute Monthly [Moody Monthly] 25 (June 1925): 462.

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  13. Moran, Scopes Trial, 35–39. See also Donald E. Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1963).

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  14. J. Frank Norris, “Bryan Wins Greatest Victory of his Career—Bible Triumphs Over Infidelity: Commoner Outwits Darrow in Dayton Evolution Trial,” The Searchlight 8 (July 24, 1925): 1.

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  33. Quoted in Virginia L. Brereton, Training God’s Army: The American Bible School, 1880–1940 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 179n19.

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  1. Adam Laats
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© 2010 Adam Laats

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Laats, A. (2010). Of Monkeys and Men. In: Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_6

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-38507-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10679-6

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