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A Brief Reply by Clarence Darrow

"Loeb knew nothing of evolution or Nietzsche. It is probable he never heard of either. Leopold did, it is true, and had read Nietzsche. But because Leopold had read Nietzsche, does that prove that this philosophy or education was responsible for the act of two crazy boys?

Background

1919 - George W. Hunter publishes Civic Biology, a textbook designed for high school biology students. The book contains a section on evolution. The book will be adopted by Tennessee and assigned as reading in the classroom of John Scopes.

1922 - William Jennings Bryan, William B. Riley, John R. Straton, T. T. Martin (and other religious leaders) began a campaign for legislation that will ban the teaching of evolution in public schools.

January 21, 1925 - John Washington Butler introduces a bill in the Tennessee House of Representatives to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The bill will later become the Butler Act, and will be the basis for the prosecution of John Scopes.

April 21, 1925 - Scopes discusses with his biology students the section on evolution in Hunter's Civic Biology, according to the later testimony of Superintendent Walter White. (A student, in his testimony, puts the date as "about the middle of April." The original indictment identifies the date of his teaching evolution as "the 24th day of April.")

May 3, 1925 - The ACLU discusses the Tennessee anti-evolution act at a board meeting in New York. The board decides to issue a press announcement that it stood willing to support any teacher that challenged the law's constitutionality.

Early June, 1925 - John Scopes and his first attorney, John R. Neal, travel to New York to meet with ACLU officials about the upcoming trial. Scopes states his preference for being represented by Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone. The ACLU reluctantly agrees to Scopes's choice of lawyers.

July 7, 1925 - William Jennings Bryan arrives in Dayton by train from Florida. That evening, the Progressive Club of Dayton holds a banquet in his honor at the Hotel Aqua. Sitting with Bryan at the main table is John Scopes. At the banquet, Bryan declares, "If evolution wins, Christianity goes!"

The John T. Scopes Trial--Vernon Dalhart (1925)

Oh the folks in Tennessee are as faithful as can be,
And they know the Bible teaches what is right.
They believe in God above and his great undying love,
And they know they are protected by his might.

Refrain:
You may find the new belief, it will only bring you grief,
For a house that's built on sand is sure to fall.
And wherever you will turn, there's a lesson you will learn:
That the old religion's better, after all.

Then to Dayton came a man with his new ideas so grand,
And he said, "we came from monkeys long ago."
But in teaching his belief, Mr. Scopes found only grief,
For they would not let their old religion go.

Refrain

Then the folks throughout the land saw his house was built on sand,
And they said, "we will not listen anymore."
So they told him he was wrong and it was not very long
that he found that he was barred from every door.

Oh you must not doubt the word that is written by the Lord,
For if you do, your house will surely fall.
And Mr. Scopes will learn that wherever he may turn,
The old religion's better, after all.

Refrain

Parochial schools are religious based schools. Teaching religion is their business.
The federal Department of Education, which took the reins away from the individual states, and their particular syllabi, oversees the secular instruction of the pupils, to federal government standards, sans religion, as per the 1st Amendment.

IF, my tax dollars are being argued to teach Christianity, and that alone, as some form of “religious training” in the federal schools, then I desire to see Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, as well, while excluding Judaism (parochial school exists), mohammedanism, a political theocracy in direct opposition to the U. S. Constitution. It’s all or none.