its kinduh funny but i spent a while outside that courtroom, since some EF! activists i was with got arrested and put there. (i am, as i have made clear, unarrestable----just try it.)
interestingly, wm jenning bryon i think was fairy progressive in alot of issues.
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-- On Fri, 7/10/09, Robt Mann <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Robt Mann <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: This Day in History: Monkey Trial begins
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Friday, July 10, 2009, 3:43 PM
>
> This Day in History: Monkey Trial
> begins
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> Welcome to the THIS DAY IN HISTORY newsletter
> from
> History.com
>
>
> July 10: General
> Interest
> 1925 : Monkey Trial
> begins
>
>
>
>
> In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey
> Trial" begins
> with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science
> teacher, accused
> of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state
> law.
>
>
>
> The law, which had been passed in March, made it a
> misdemeanor
> punishable by fine to "teach any theory that denies
> the story of
> the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to
> teach
> instead that man has descended from a lower order of
> animals."
> With local businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had
> conspired to get
> charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair
> enlisted
> the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to
> organize a
> defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on
> Christian
> fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time
> Democratic
> presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero,
> volunteered to
> assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great
> attorney Clarence
> Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the
> stage was set
> for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.
>
>
>
> On July 10, the Monkey Trial got underway, and within a few
> days
> hordes of spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton
> as
> preachers set up revival tents along the city's main
> street to keep
> the faithful stirred up. Inside the Rhea County Courthouse,
> the
> defense suffered early setbacks when Judge John Raulston
> ruled against
> their attempt to prove the law unconstitutional and then
> refused to
> end his practice of opening each day's proceeding with
> prayer.
>
>
>
> Outside, Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as an
> exhibit
> featuring two chimpanzees and a supposed "missing
> link"
> opened in town, and vendors sold Bibles, toy monkeys, hot
> dogs, and
> lemonade. The missing link was in fact Jo Viens of
> Burlington,
> Vermont, a 51-year-old man who was of short stature and
> possessed a
> receding forehead and a protruding jaw. One of the
> chimpanzees--named Joe Mendi--wore a plaid suit, a brown
> fedora, and
> white spats, and entertained Dayton's citizens by
> monkeying around on
> the courthouse lawn.
>
>
>
> In the courtroom, Judge Raulston destroyed the
> defense's strategy by
> ruling that expert scientific testimony on evolution was
> inadmissible--on the grounds that it was Scopes who was on
> trial, not
> the law he had violated. The next day, Raulston
> ordered the
> trial moved to the courthouse lawn, fearing that the weight
> of the
> crowd inside was in danger of collapsing the floor.
>
>
>
> In front of several thousand spectators in the open air,
> Darrow
> changed his tactics and as his sole witness called Bryan in
> an attempt
> to discredit his literal interpretation of the Bible.
> In a
> searching examination, Bryan was subjected to severe
> ridicule and
> forced to make ignorant and contradictory statements to the
> amusement
> of the crowd. On July 21, in his closing speech,
> Darrow asked
> the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the
> case might be
> appealed. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby
> denied the
> opportunity to deliver the closing speech he had been
> preparing for
> weeks. After eight minutes of deliberation, the jury
> returned with a
> guilty verdict, and Raulston ordered Scopes to pay a fine
> of $100, the
> minimum the law allowed. Although Bryan had won the
> case, he had
> been publicly humiliated and his fundamentalist beliefs had
> been
> disgraced. Five days later, on July 26, he lay down for a
> Sunday
> afternoon nap and never woke up.
>
>
>
> In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey
> Trial
> verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional
> issues
> unresolved until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court
> overturned a
> similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the
> First
> Amendment.
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> General Interest
>
> 1925 : Monkey Trial begins
>
> http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=5167
>
>
>
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