Scopes Monkey Trial

I think the Scopes trial brought together a great cast of characters: three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan; America's best defense attorney, Clarence Darrow: and its most popular journalist, H. L. Mencken.

It was a trial about ideas, a contest between traditionalism, the faith of our fathers, and modernism, the idea that we test faith with our intellect. And it had what the New York Times called the most memorable event in Anglo-Saxon court history: Darrow's calling of William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor, to the stand and examining him on his interpretation of the Bible. Seventy-five years later, this trial has stood the test of time.

Clarence Darrow was a nearly-70 year old attorney who was largely regarded as America's most eloquent defense attorney. He had the ability to transform almost any courtroom trial into a much larger context, and raised large social and political issues that captured the public imagination.

He also had a very good sense of humor, which sometimes got him into trouble, as in the Scopes case, when complaining to the judge after his request to introduce scientific expert testimony had been rejected said, "Why is it that all of our requests are rejected?" The judge answered, "I hope you do not mean to reflect upon the Court?" Darrow replied, "Well, Your Honor has the right to hope."

H. L. Mencken was the reporter who played a large role in the trial, and is well-known as one of America's most colorful, acerbic, and in his own way, prejudiced reporters, but his colorful reporting added greatly to our understanding of the trial.

William Jennings Bryan was a three-time failed presidential candidate who, in the years preceding the Scopes trial, had transformed himself into a sort of fundamentalist pope. He campaigned against evolution, at one time offering to pay $100 to anyone who personally could prove that