Famous Scopes 'Monkey trial' began as prank
By STEVE GUSHEE
Cox News Service
Friday, July 21, 2006
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The most famous case defending creationism and against teaching evolution in public schools was based on a public relations stunt.
The Scopes "Monkey trial," 81 years ago this month, was meant to pump up local tourism, not defend a cause that has roiled the country ever since.
It all began as a prank. The Tennessee Legislature passed a law in 1925 making it illegal to teach evolution in schools. The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone who challenged the law.
That set the stage for the city fathers of Dayton to promote their little town of 2,000 Christian folk in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee, according to a charming story in The Smithsonian.
They told young John Scopes, a local science teacher, of their scheme to get some publicity for Dayton and asked if he would be willing to be arrested for teaching evolution. He nonchalantly agreed and, apparently, went back to the tennis match he was playing.
No one conceived of the circus that would follow. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate, creationist and spellbinding orator, joined the prosecution team.
Clarence Darrow, a lawyer known nationally for fighting injustice, came for the defense, declaring that civilization itself was on trial.
More than 3,000 people and 200 journalists showed up for the eight-day trial. Sideshows included a gorilla that sightseers could watch for a dime and a chimp that played a toy piano in the local drugstore.
In the end, the jury, 11 of whom were members of local evangelical churches, deliberated for nine minutes and found Scopes guilty. The judge fined him $100.
The publicity stunt certainly put Dayton on the map but only to be known as Monkeytown. The city mounts a three-day Scopes festival every July. Its 6,500 citizens remain mostly Christian fundamentalists. Creationists built the 600-student William Jennings Bryan College in 1930 that bases its curriculum to this day on the inerrancy of Scripture.
The two famous lawyers succinctly explained the underlying issues of the trial. Darrow said, "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."
Bryan stood up against those who would "cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible."
What began as a prank was no joke then — or now.
Steve Gushee writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: steve_gushee AT pbpost.com
