EricCWelch

By the late nineteenth century, Darwin's evolutionary theories had been widely accepted by Christian fundamentalists.. The had adopted a form of Lamarckian explanation for changes in form. In fact, James Orr, well-known theologian, wrote in The Fundamentals, " Assume God – as many devout evolutionists do– to be immanent in the evolutionary process, and His intelligence and purpose to be expressed in it; then evolution, so far from conflicting with theism, may become a new and heightened form of theistic argument. What raised their ire was his theory of natural selection with its implicit unguided randomness. Edward J. Larson is the author of an excellent history of the Scopes trial. He reports the history of the debate that led to events in Tennessee. Natural selection had been pretty much ignored until genetics began to supply some evidence for it in the early twentieth century. Genetics provided further evidence that change was due to random variation. This the fundamentalists could not abide. Soon evolution came under attack, natural selection becoming fully identified with all of Darwin. The very nature of science– that is, continual debate– provided ammunition to the forces of darkness although debate and difference of opinion on this subject were not limited to science. Surely religion has been subject to more difference of opinion than perhaps and other theoretical field being as speculative as it is. William Jennings Bryan, the more vocal of opponents to evolution, had his fear fueled by the development of eugenics, a natural outgrowth of the popularization of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Some thirty-five states eventually passed legislation compelling the sexual segregation and sterilization of unfortunates that society chose to label as misfits. Soon eugenics became identified with evolutionary theory and more fat was added to the fire. Bryan was an interesting mix of contradictions. A pacifist and anti-Republican he had resigned from Wilson's Cabinet was war fever erupted. He was a fervent admirer of hard currency yet made millions from land speculation in Florida. Bryan's anti-evolutionist views originated from his view that "the Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection [!] by the operation of the law of hate– the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak." He blamed belief in evolution for WW I and the apparent decline in religious faith. He was not – contrary to the Inherit the Wind version – opposed to an extended geologic time frame, but he resisted vehemently the notion that humans were not created supernaturally. Bryan's majoritarian stance – the majority rules and schools should teach what the majority believes – was a major reason for the entry of the ACLU into the case. The NCLU– forerunner to the ACLU– had been founded by the Quakers to help provide support and defense for their anti-war activities and pacifist members who refused to serve in Wilson's war. The president's statements against disloyalty and his support for legislation against any kind of opposition to the war created a climate that fueled majoritarian thinking. The government had already used the postal service to help suppress any kind of minority point-of-view and the ACLU – originally quite cooperative with the Wilson government – soon became disillusioned. Samuel Walker, ACLU historian, wrote "largely oblivious to civil liberties considerations before the war, the wartime crisis forced them [the ACLU] to abandon their faith in the inevitability of social progress and their majoritarian view of democracy. They now began to see that majority rule and liberty were not necessarily synonymous and thus discovered the First Amendment as a new principle for advancing human freedom." Clarence Darrow's "appropriation" of the defense was not appreciated by the ACLU which wanted to concentrate on the issue of free speech. Darrow just wanted to lampoon the Christian Fundamentalists, a pathetically easy task – it was the only time he volunteered his services. Darrow delighted in challenging the traditional concepts of religion and morality. He hated "do-gooders" and regarded Christianity as a "slave religion that encouraged acquiescence in injustice, a willingness to make do with the mediocre, and complacency in the face of the intolerable." The biblical concept of original sin was to Darrow, "a very dangerous doctrine – silly, impossible and wicked." Yet he had voted for William Jennings Bryan in 1896 As the Democratic candidate for Congress. Many traditional institutions were undergoing radical change at the turn of the century. The university, heretofore, an arm of a church sect, offered little chance for teachers to stray from the party line. The rise of pragmatism led by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, offered a path away from a paradigm of obedience to a central authority and toward "a positive stage ion which empirical investigation would be accepted as the only reliable road to truth." Empiricism soon dominated both sciences and humanities in academic research. The newly formed American Association of University Professors wanted to join in Scopes's defense. They wanted to emphasize the deleterious effects of a popularly orchestrated curriculum. "It is, we believe, a principle to be rigidly adhered to that the decision as to what is taught would be determined not by a popular vote. . . but by teachers and investigators in their respective fields." The lawyer who represented them, John Neal, had been fired by the University of Tennessee in violation of newly created AAUP procedures. (Neal was perhaps not the best choice. A brilliant lawyer and teacher, he was usually late for class, often never appearing, rarely lecturing on the topic at hand, preferring political discourses and giving his students grades of 95 without reading their exams.) Following passage of the law forbidding the teaching of evolution that contradicted the biblical teaching (this odd phraseology was to provide the opening that Darrow needed) the ACLU began looking for a test case site. Most school superintendents wanted nothing to do with the case simply declaring they did not teach Darwinism. The Knoxville superintendent even declared that, "Our teachers have a hard enough time teaching the children how to distinguish between plant and animal life." One suspects he was part vegetable himself. The civic boosters in Dayton lusted at the idea of all the publicity. They were perhaps atypical. A relatively new little town, it was a Republican enclave in a predominantly Democratic south. Even H. L. Mencken was pleasantly surprised. "I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the houseblocks, pigs rooting under the houses, and the inhabitants full of hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town full of charm and even beauty . . . . Nor is there any evidence in the town of that poisonous spirit which usually shows itself where Christian men gather to defend the great doctrines of their faith." It was not really a fight against evolution for the Daytonites, but rather an attempt to overcome obscurity. It eventually blew up in their faces, as Dayton became the laughingstock of the country. "Powerful social forces converged on Dayton that summer: populist majoritarianism and traditional evangelical faith versus scientific secularianism and modern concepts of individual liberty." "If the anti-evolutionists in Tennessee were aware of the existence of any other religions than their own, they might realize that it is the very genius of religion itself to evolve from primary forms to higher forms. The author of the anti-evolution bill is obviously nearer in mental development to the nomads of early biblical times than he is to the intelligence of the young man [Scopes] who is under trial." Charles Francis Potter