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William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
Bryan had been the leader of the Democratic Party for 25 years and had run three times unsuccessfully for president of the United States. While considered a conservative Christian, his political views were very liberal for his time; indeed even the archliberal Clarence Darrow supported him in his first two attempts for the presidency. Bryan served as secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson.
Bryan was well informed about the creation/evolution controversy and regularly corresponded with scientists of his time, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, on the evidence for and against evolution. While Bryan was a staunch creationist and a strong critic of biological evolution, he accepted geological evolution and an old age for the earth. In his autobiography, The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan, Bryan said that his objectives in the Scopes trial were to “establish the right of taxpayers to control what is taught in their schools” and to “draw a line between teaching evolution as a fact and teaching it as a theory.”
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow was an immensely successful criminal lawyer who specialized in defending unpopular people and radical causes, often winning seemingly impossible cases. His agnostic convictions led him to believe that man’s actions were ultimately just the result of body chemistry, and that concepts of good and evil were essentially meaningless. In his autobiography, The Story of My Life, Darrow explained his purpose for participating in the Scopes trial: “My object and my only object, was to focus the attention of the country on the program of Mr. Bryan and the other Fundamentalists in America.”
The Trial
Technically, the only legal issue in the Scopes trial was: did John Scopes violate the Butler Act by teaching that man descended from a lower order of animals? For both Bryan and Darrow, however, the real issue wasn’t Scopes’s guilt or innocence, but rather should evolution be taught as fact in the public schools? Darrow had hoped to have a number of evolutionist scientists testify in the court to the “fact” of evolution, but this wasn’t permitted by the judge because the evidence for evolution was technically not at issue in the trial, and Darrow refused to allow his evolutionists to be cross-examined by the prosecution. As a result, most of the testimony by the scientists at the trial was written and filed into record—none was heard by the jury.
Anyone taking the time to read the transcript of the Scopes trial (The World’s Most Famous Court Trial, Bryan College) will note that Darrow and his defense team of lawyers knew little about evolution and failed in their efforts to establish why it was necessary to teach evolution in the classroom. They lamely attempted to justify its reality and importance by equating evolution with human embryology. For example, the development of the embryo from a single cell (the fertilized egg) was often cited as evidence that all life came (evolved?) from a single cell. Even the evolutionary expert Dr. Maynard Metcalf of Johns Hopkins University confused evolution with human embryonic development and the aging process!
Much of Darrow’s effort at the trial amounted to a caustic diatribe against the Bible and Christianity. His anti-Christian hostility was so intense that there was fear on the part of liberal theologians and organizations that supported his evolutionary views that he might turn popular opinion against them. Darrow even turned his anger and hostility against Judge John T. Raulston by repeatedly interrupting and insulting him, for which he was cited for contempt of court.
After a self-serving apology from Darrow, Judge Raulston forgave Darrow for his contempt with these words: “The Man that I believe came into the world to save man from sin, the Man that died on the cross that man might be redeemed, taught that it was godly to forgive and were it not for the forgiving nature of himself I would fear for man. The Savior died on the Cross pleading with God for the men who crucified Him. I believe in that Christ. I believe in these principles. I accept Col. Darrow’s apology.” It’s difficult to imagine a judge saying such a thing in our “enlightened” day, but not difficult to imagine what would happen to one who did.
Bryan Takes the Witness Stand
On the seventh day of the trial, Darrow challenged Bryan to take the witness stand as an expert on the Bible. Going against the advice of his co-counsel, Bryan foolishly agreed to this outrageous and unprecedented arrangement, with the agreement that Darrow would in turn take his turn at the witness stand to be questioned on his agnostic and evolutionary views.
In his questioning, Darrow sarcastically and often inaccurately recounted several miracles of the Old Testament such as Eve and the serpent, Jonah and the whale, Joshua’s long day, Noah’s flood, confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, and biblical inspiration. Darrow ridiculed Bryan for his belief and defense of these miracles, but Bryan steadfastly stuck with the clear words of Scripture, forcing Darrow to openly deny the Word of God.
Then came the turning point. Darrow raised the matter of a six-day creation. Bryan denied that the Bible says God created everything in six ordinary days of approximately 24 hours. When Darrow asked, “Does the statement ‘the morning and the evening were the first day,’ and ‘the morning and the evening were the second day’ mean anything to you?” Bryan replied, “I do not see that there is any necessity for constructing the words, ‘the evening and the morning,’ as meaning necessarily a 24-hour day.”
When Darrow asked, “Creation might have been going on for a very long time?” Bryan replied, “It might have continued for millions of years.” With the help of Bryan’s compromise on the days of creation, Darrow achieved his goal of making the Bible subject to reinterpretation consistent with the ever-changing scientific and philosophical speculations of man.
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