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Scopes Trial Of 1925 Essay

2114 Words9 Pages

July 10th, 1925 marks the day in which John Thomas Scopes, a science teacher, was put on trial for violating a Tennessee law. This law, the Butler Act, forbade the teaching of any theory that denied the biblical story of divine creation. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a press release decrying the signing of the Butler Act, offering to defend any teacher prosecuted for teaching evolution. Scopes became the face of such a trial.The Scopes Trial of 1925 brought many journalists to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, in order to report on what they thought would be the battle of evolutionism versus fundamentalism or science versus faith. William Jennings Bryan, who argued for the prosecution, was a strong believer of …show more content…

The New York Times, which headlined the first day of the trial "Cranks and Freaks Flock to Dayton" described Daytonians as "thousands of unregulated or ill-balanced minds." In addition, the Times noted that the Tennesseans entering the courthouse were "sober-faced, tight-lipped, expressionless." In addition, the Times said that Tennesseans “came from mountain farms near Dayton, where work, usually begun at daylight, had been deserted so that gaunt, tanned, toll-worn men and women and shy children might be in the Rhea County Courthouse by 9 o’clock to see William Jennings Bryan’s duel to the death with enemies of the bible.” People who came to the trial were just people who came to see the brawl, and even though they were unaware of everything else that happened in the city. The Chicago Tribune news service was often more subtle, commenting: “At regular intervals loud, ringing tones from the courthouse steeple announce the hour to Dayton folk -- and announce it consistently 35 minutes ahead of central standard time. This little town, object of scorn to residents of great cities, is far from being backward in counting the hours.” Generally, Daytonians are depicted as people from a little town, much smaller and less important than the

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