Customer Reviews

The Scopes Monkey Trial (Headline Court Cases)

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The Scopes "Monkey" Trial did not appear in American History textbooks until after the play "Inherit the Wind" opened on Broadway. In fact, several textbooks used the fictional account of the trial as the basis for what appeared as history. One of the chief virtues of this book by Freya Ottem Hanson is that she puts the celebrated "duel in the shade" where Clarence Darrow questioned William Jennings Bryan about the Bible and evolution in perspective.

Hanson only spends a couple of pages on the cross-examination, but she does focus on the point where Bryan admitted that the days in Genesis were not necessarily 24-hour days. This, of course, is the focal point of the play's version of what happened. However, an examination of the trial transcript shows that Bryan, knowing where Darrow was going with his questions, was actually attempting to pre-empt the line of attack; he was not force to admit the point, but actually volunteered the point. After all, according to Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were not created until the fourth day. So, while Hanson does not let the cross-examination dominate the story of the trial, she does buy into the importance of that particular declaration. So while "The Scopes Monkey Trial" focuses more on what happened in the court that most juvenile accounts, it still falls short of adequately capturing the legal arguments of the trial.

Hanson provides a lot of information about the trial, including details about all of the various witnesses for the prosecution and the defense. I was also pleased to see that she pays more attention to Dudley Field Malone's speech in defense of academic freedom than you will find in Edward J. Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the trial "Summer of the Gods." However, for a book that is focusing on the trial as a court case, I was surprised that it does not given young readers a clear sense of the stages of the trial. The cross-examination of the third and final stage of the trial was intended to embarrass Bryan; the decision had already been made to ask the jury to find Scopes guilty. Darrow would even refrain from giving a closing argument just to prevent Bryan from giving the "Back to God" speech he had been working on for weeks.

Malone's speech represents the key position of the defense, which was to reconcile evolution and Genesis. This is important because it was this rhetoric of reconciliation that was intended to be their position and not the ridicule of Bryan that came to characterize their position. Furthermore, Hanson ignores the first stage of the trial, where defense attorney Arthur Garfield Hays argued the Butler Act was unconstitutional. Hays is mentioned in the book (but not in the index) so young reader do not learn about how he drafted up a law patterned on the Butler Act to teach that the Earth was the center of the universe, just like it says in the Bible.

Another strength of the book is how Hanson covers the legal cases involving evolution and creationism from the Epperson v. Arkansas case that finally saw the anti-evolution laws declared unconstitutional to more recent court actions. The book is illustrated with black & white photographs, including several which I have never seen before (and since I did my dissertation on the Scopes trial I had some reason to believe I had seen pretty much everything out there). In terms of primary and secondary sources, Hanson certainly availed herself of a better selection than any other author of a juvenile account of the trial....

In the book The Scopes Monkey Trial, by Freya Ottem Hanson, the trial between John Thomas Scopes and the state of Tennessee is broken down piece by piece. Everyone who had something to do with this trial was included in this piece of writing. Hanson talks about all of the different points of view that were faced when it came to Darwin's theory of evolution and the kind of people that had them. Hanson even talks about how much excitement was brought to the small town of Dayton Tennessee because of the trial and its publicity.

I personally did not like this book. It is a long drawn out piece of writing about a boring trial back in the 1920's. Though the fact that a state would feel that they have a right to outlaw the teaching of a different theory of how humans came to existence, other than the Catholic Church's theory does interest me a little bit. I personally would not recommend this book to anyone who is not studying this subject because the way that the material is presented is just boring and obsolete.

The Scopes Monkey Trial, Freya Hanson

Freya Hanson is a lawyer. These 101 pages provide a summary of this show trial. There are `Chapter Notes', a "Glossary" with definitions, "Further Reading" of six books, and an `Index'. 1921 saw the price of agricultural products fall by half; many businesses failed. A group in Dayton Tennessee decided to challenge the Butler Act that made teaching evolution a crime after the ACLU offered money and support to anyone who would challenge the law. It would bring publicity to this economically depressed town. John Scopes graduated with a law degree, but the best job available was a teaching job as the football coach. The trial was a town festival (pp.9-10). It attracted two famous lawyers: William Jennings Bryan (three time Presidential candidate, former Secretary of State), and Clarence Darrow (defender of working men and accused criminals). The basic issue was one of politics: do the people have the right to control local education, or does it belong to the Big Corporations (p.13)? This struggle continued to this day.

Chapter 2 discusses Charles Darwin and his 1859 book. Darwin did not study fossil evidence to create his belief of evolution from a common ancestry. Darwin's example of finches is flawed; birds can and do fly to other areas in search of food. Darwin knew nothing about genes and their effect on organisms. Hanson does not tell how Darwin's ideas justified the rule by corporations and the aristocracy ("survival of the fittest"). Fundamentalism was especially popular in rural areas and in the South (p.20). [These were suffering from economic oppression by the forces pushing Darwinism.] Popular support allowed passage of a law banning the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Even though a standard textbook discussed Darwinism. Chapter 3 notes the changes in America (p.23). Drugstores (not taverns) were the social gathering places (p.25). Town leaders picked John T. Scopes to create a test case (p.27). Pages 27-31 explain the background to this trial.

Chapter 4 provides the background of John T. Scopes. He believed in evolution. He profited from the trial to go to graduate school in Chicago and worked as a geologist. William J. Bryan was known as "The Great Commoner" for his support for farmers and working people (Chapter 5). Bryan was talented (p.44) and supported popular control (p.45). Clarence Darrow was one of the best defense attorneys in America (p.46). He defended oppressed workers and people charged with crimes. A Grand Jury indicted Scopes twice (Chapter 6). Chapter7 highlights the prosecutor's case. Chapter 8 has the defense: a teacher has the right to educate students about well-known theories. The defense experts were not allowed to testify. Bryan testified as a witness, but his testimony was expunged.

The jury quickly found Scopes guilty (Chapter 9). The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the verdict. The media commented on the trial (p.89). John Scopes enrolled in the University of Chicago (supported by the Rockefellers), then worked for an oil company in Venezuela (Rockefeller interests). Should the parents and voters control what is taught in their local schools (home rule), or should corporate flunkies control local education? This fight continues today (Chapter 10). Note the US Supreme Court says only one sort of belief is allowed, but doesn't say this is also a belief system. [A history of science shows how its truths evolve.] Is the creationist movement a form of resistance to political oppression by big corporations (p.104)? Belief in Darwinism requires an act of faith (p.105). Does Darwinism have a practical use? Do teachers have the right to comment on evolution (p.108)? Can a teacher point out the damage done to America by Wall Street bankers and brokers? Or the damage from the Federal Reserve? Note the noxious Wall Street gang are now attacking the school teachers of America. Is that science?

Firstly, I would have given this book just one star, but for the fact that it mentions Richard Milton's work on Darwinism (page 105).

I'm only giving it two stars, firstly because I have to agree with the last reviewer about the quality of the writing in this book. It is, to say the least, tedious and uninspired, not to mention frequently repetitive (though not to any perceivable purpose) which does nothing to convince the reader that the trial was of much importance or interest.

Secondly, though the series in which this book is included is described in the "School Library Journal" as "well researched" - this particular volume certainly doesn't fit that description, including as it does, numerous errors and omissions which build up into a quite obviously "spun" version of history.

For example, Clarence Darrow is presented in a highly partial manner which gives the impression that he completed his law course at the University of Michigan (page 46), though he quit after the first year; we are told that Darrow was "fascinated" by religion (page 46), but not that he is generally acknowledged to have been a religious bigot. And whilst mentioning Darrow's part in the McNamara case (page 48), the author somehow forgets to mention that the bombing perpetrated by the brothers killed some 20 innocent people.
Likewise Darrow's loss of Union patronage after the McNamara case is mentioned, but not the reason - that Darrow was charged with two counts of attempted bribing of a juror, and that although Darrow was freed on both counts (one because of a hung jury), he was barred from ever again practising law in the State of California.

Bryan, likewise, is misrepresented. In particular we are left with the impression that Bryan opposed the teaching of evolutionist ideas, period (page 45), though in fact he made it quite clear that he was content to have evolution on the school curriculum as long as the ideas were taught as a "theory" rather than a "fact". Likewise Darrow's cross-examination of Bryan on day 7 of the trial is quite wrongly referred to as a "debate" (page 83), a strange error for a lawyer (as this author is) to make.

There are plenty more errors (apparently there were only 10 days between July 10th and July 21st inc. in 1925 (page 58)), and selective presentation of the facts (such as the highly edited version of Maynard Metcalf's thoroughly garbled live explanation of the term "evolution" (page 77)).

Most importantly, the author fails to highlight or explain a key issue - both in 1925 and in all subsequent confrontations/discussions/debates of a similar nature - the difference between evolution and Darwinism, though the point was mentioned two or three times in the expert testimony presented at the Scopes Trial. Worse still, the author actually obscures this issue by describing "evolution" (in the glossary, page 121) as:

"A theory written in 1859 in which Chares Darwin claimed that all life evolved from a single organism."

(So "evolution" is "a theory" which claimed that life "evolved". Oops!)

This is not to say that the book is rubbish and totally inaccurate. It isn't. But there are just too many flaws for it to be useful to anyone who doesn't already have a good working knowledge of the case - but then such a person would have no need of this book in the first place.