Scopes monkey trial:
In 1925 the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee by the state legislative. This act banned the teaching of mankind’s evolution in public schools. It was a misdemeanor if broken. Any other plant or animal evolution could be taught through theory or fact without breaking the Butler Act. Columbia University began declining high school students from Tennessee into the school. They believed that without knowing evolution that the students were not good enough for further academic study.
The Butler Act could not work with non-tax funded schools. The law gave an advantage to fundamentalist Christianity over science evolution. It allowed the teaching of the creation story from the book of Genesis, but banned the theory of Darwinism. If you broke the law you could get a $100-500 fine or imprisonment. This was the same fine for bootlegging. At the time this law was being passed the most popular biology texted supported the fact of evolution.
John Scopes was a high school football coach and biology teacher. He taught in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. John came to teach from college in Kentucky. An organization called the American Civil Liberties Union wanted to test the laws of the court. The town was having economical problems and thought it would be a great idea to put the town on the map.
One day while John was playing tennis a group of businessmen asked him to meet them at Robison’s drugstore. They asked him if he would be willing to teach evolution. John believed in evolution and agreed to teach about evolution. Scope’s had no memory of actually teaching the students about Darwin’s theory.
The media soon got involved in the trial. Scopes hired America’s top criminal lawyer, Clarence Darrow as his lawyer. William Brian a famous Politian and anti-evolutionist decided to help prosecute John Scopes. Many reporters came to Dayton to investigate the trial. The Scopes Monkey Trial became the first ever trial broadcasted live in American history.
Two weeks into the trial nobody was paying attention to John. The attorneys were hogging the spotlight. They were using Scopes to become famous. Scopes was willing for them to use him. The big names soon toke over the case. On the most important day of the trial Clarence Darrow was questioning William Brian as being an expert on the Bible. John Scopes became a reporter for his own trial. He filled in for a reporter who was out of town.
John Scopes ended up being judged guilty and was charged with a $100 fine. John then stated that he will continue to oppose the law in any way he could. After the trial John quit teaching and left town. He attended the University of Chicago on a scholarship. There he mastered in geology. He received a job as a petroleum engineer in Venezuela. John accepted this job for the reason that nobody had heard of him there. Five days after the trial William Bryan died in his sleep in Dayton.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/peopleevents/p_scopes.html
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