REVELATIONS IN SCIENCE: The Cowardly Lion vs. the Non-Flying Monkey

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Mixing science with catering to voters is not a good idea — even the most authoritative figure will err. William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) was a very prominent politician, but unfortunately a hopeless populist, zealously defending precisely those ideas that were popular among the masses yet turned out to be wrong and were soon condemned by the majority.

BRYAN IN LIFE AND LITERATURE

he main of these ideas was bimetallism — a monetary system in which not one, but two precious metals (usually gold and silver) serve as universal equivalents. It was supposedly better than the gold standard, since gold was scarce, the money supply was insufficient, and this harmed business. Yet bimetallism is fundamentally unstable. Once new gold deposits are discovered — gold becomes cheaper; a silver mine opens — silver loses value; according to Gresham’s law, bad money drives out good money, and the money supply is again in shambles.

Defending bimetallism, Bryan ran three times as the Democratic candidate for president — and lost all three elections. President Woodrow Wilson later appointed him Secretary of State, but within two years had to remove him urgently after Bryan made a series of disastrous mistakes at the outset of World War I.

Most of us learned about Bryan, without even realizing it, at a very young age. It is now quite clear that L. Frank Baum’s famous book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — retold for us by Volkov as The Wizard of the Emerald City — was, in fact, a political pamphlet about bimetallism, with Bryan widely regarded as the prototype for the Cowardly Lion, for talking much and doing little, not to mention his opposition to the Spanish–American War (which the U.S. won). Later, however, it turned out that the Cowardly Lion in Volkov’s version had the greatest resemblance to Bryan — especially in the scene where the Flying Monkeys captured him and locked him in a cage…

Apart from bimetallism, Bryan had another favorite theme — Christian fundamentalism in its most rigid form, which now survives only in the deep provinces of the same United States. For him, the theory of evolution was almost an anti-Christian doctrine. His lecture Is the Bible True?, delivered in the capital of Tennessee, Nashville, inspired Congressman Butler to introduce a bill forbidding the teaching of any theory denying the divine origin of humankind in the state’s schools. The bill passed — and anyone teaching evolution in Tennessee’s classrooms became a criminal.

DECLARING WAR!

It would be wrong to think that the fundamentalists rejoiced and immediately used the new law to intimidate supporters of evolution — the reality was quite the opposite. The story of the trial began with a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union, sharply condemning the new law and promising support to anyone who would declare themselves a violator and demand to be tried. George Ripley, the manager of a mine in the Tennessee town of Dayton, brought this letter to a local pharmacy where his like-minded friends were gathered — and they eagerly supported the idea.

They invited John Thomas Scopes, a football coach who occasionally taught natural science, since Dayton — a town whose population had dropped from 3,000 to 1,800 over thirty years — suffered from a dire shortage of teachers. It was soon established that he had indeed told his students about the theory of evolution, even though he had quoted from an officially approved textbook. Ripley said to him: «You’ve broken the law. Want to take part in a trial about it?» Scopes agreed. Later he explained his decision this way: «The best way to kill a snake is to do it when it first starts to move».

On May 25, 1925, the trial in Dayton began. It became a nationwide sensation — more than 3,000 visitors arrived in the town, roughly matching its population at its peak. The courtroom was packed with people eager to witness the proceedings, which the brilliant American aphorist H. L. Mencken immediately dubbed “the Monkey Trial.” Dozens of journalists were present as well — it was the first court case in U.S. history to be broadcast on the radio — and two policemen with fans were stationed beside the judge so that His Honor wouldn’t suffocate from the heat.

Soon, the hearing had to be moved under a large tent on a nearby field so that everyone could attend. Dayton was bursting at the seams, hotels were overcrowded, and along with the crowds, several monkeys were brought in — not as witnesses, though such rumors circulated — but to take part in the show brimming with allusions to the trial.

THE PROSECUTION, THE DEFENSE, AND THE COURT

William Jennings Bryan eagerly joined the prosecution, delivering hours-long speeches to anyone willing to listen about the dangers of the theory of evolution. In his pamphlet, he wrote: «The theory is absurd in itself: it equates the rose with the onion, the lily with the thistle, the eagle with the mosquito, the nightingale with the rattlesnake, the wolf with the lamb, the royal palm with the shrub, and humankind with all of them» (one can only wonder what exactly he meant by that…). He was assisted by his son, a federal prosecutor, as well as both the former and current attorneys general of Eastern Tennessee.

The defense attempted to enlist H. G. Wells as an advocate for science, but he showed no interest in the prospect. Eventually, the defense was led by Clarence Seward Darrow — for the prosecution, a true devil incarnate: the son of a suffragist, a staunch agnostic, an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, and a lawyer who had defended a hundred murderers, of whom only one was executed — holy, holy, holy! He was certainly no worse an orator than Bryan, and their upcoming clashes drew enormous public attention.

Judge John T. Raulston was known as a very conservative Christian and clearly biased against Scopes, though he generally observed formal propriety. During jury selection, great care was taken to ensure that jurors were respectable property owners and churchgoers. As a result, ten out of twelve jurors were farmers, eleven attended church regularly, and the fact that, according to some reports, one of them was illiterate seemed to bother no one.

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CLOSING ARGUMENTS

At the very beginning of the trial, Scopes’s students admitted that their teacher had indeed spoken to them about the theory of evolution. The prosecution rubbed its hands in satisfaction — Scopes had violated state law, case closed! The defense, however, showed no sign of despair — they did not deny the fact itself but intended to prove that the law under which Scopes was being tried was unconstitutional and should be overturned.

Darrow openly called the law «stupid, harmful, and immoral», declaring: «This is not a trial of Scopes — it is a trial of civilization». Bryan, in response, warned that if the theory of evolution prevailed, Christianity would come to an end. Incidentally, modern church hierarchs do not share this view — at least three popes of Rome have acknowledged that the theory of evolution does not contradict faith.

The defense summoned several prominent biologists as witnesses. The judge graciously agreed to hear the first one, but refused to allow the rest — claiming that everything was already clear, and that whether the theory of evolution was true or false was irrelevant: since its teaching was forbidden, Scopes was guilty regardless.

Darrow was outraged, stating he could not understand why they «continued to waste time hearing the prosecution’s witnesses, while the opinions of competent experts for the defense were dismissed almost immediately». The judge took offense and threatened Darrow with the standard charge of contempt of court. Darrow chose to step back, shook the judge’s hand, and continued the proceedings.

THE STAR WITNESS

Who could the defense call as a witness if the court refused to hear scientists? Darrow made a brilliant move: he summoned as his witness the key figure of the prosecution itself — William Jennings Bryan! After all, Scopes was accused of teaching ideas that contradicted the Bible — so the defense needed an expert on the Bible. Was Bryan willing to admit he was such an expert? Absolutely!

At first, the newly minted defense witness was supremely confident, responding to Darrow’s questions in his usual folksy oratorical style — with condescending disdain disguised as popular humor. «Where did Cain’s wife come from, if the Bible says nothing about her?» Darrow asked. «Let’s leave that to the agnostics to figure out», Bryan retorted weakly, unable to provide a real answer.

Where did the great fish that swallowed Jonah without chewing come from? God could create any fish, including one for that occasion. Did Joshua really make the sun stand still? Yes — it stopped revolving around the Earth (Copernicus had been dead for nearly four centuries by then). Why, then, didn’t the entire world collapse during such a cataclysm? Because God didn’t want it to…

But Darrow pierced even this seemingly impenetrable armor. He showed Bryan a fragment of an ancient fossil and said that, according to scientists, it was millions of years old. Bryan immediately objected, saying that this was impossible, since the wise Bishop Ussher had already determined that the world was created on October 23, 4004 BC, at nine o’clock in the morning.
«Nine o’clock where?» Darrow inquired. «According to the Bible, the Sun wasn’t created until the fourth day. So how long did the first day of Creation last? And the others? Twenty-four hours or longer? And how much longer?»

Bryan reluctantly admitted that those were not literal days but «periods», and that he didn’t know how long each one lasted — perhaps millions of years? In that moment, Darrow demolished Bryan’s insistence on a literal, word-for-word reading of the Bible. It was obvious to everyone present. Historians later wrote that Bryan appeared as a pitiful and feeble-minded fighter who, that day, was destroyed by his own testimony — both as a man and as a legend.

THE RESULTS OF THE TRIAL: IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM

Judge Raulston interrupted the interrogation and adjourned the hearing. The next day, he ruled that the questioning of the witness would not continue and that Bryan’s testimony should be disregarded (as if that were possible!). Darrow himself asked the jury to find his client guilty — in order to appeal to a higher court seeking to overturn the law itself. Bryan had prepared a long and fiery closing statement, but Darrow outmaneuvered him once again — he waived his own final address. And if the defense does not make a closing statement, the prosecution is not permitted to do so either. The jury’s verdict was expected: guilty, the state law was violated. Yet they did not assign punishment, so the judge himself issued Scopes a fine of $100 — the minimum allowed under the Butler Act.

During the appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court reached an unexpected conclusion: a fine of that amount could only be imposed by the jury, not by the judge, so it was annulled. And since no other punishment had been assigned, the Supreme Court chose to acquit Scopes — which, paradoxically, deprived Darrow and other supporters of evolution of the opportunity to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thus, Darrow was dissatisfied with the outcome. And Bryan? Who can tell — five days after the trial ended, he was found dead in his bed — a ruptured spleen. Whether this was the result of overindulgence, or whether the Cowardly Lion was finally defeated by the Non-Flying Monkeys he refused to descend from, no one will ever know.

In the end, science triumphed over superstition: Scopes was ultimately acquitted, and of the fifteen states that had considered laws similar to the Butler Act, only two — Mississippi and Arkansas — actually adopted them. True, in all three states such laws forbidding the teaching of evolution remained in force until the mid-1960s, when even there people realized that, first, it was indecent to be a national laughingstock, and second, such laws violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the state from establishing any religion.

Incidentally, the First Amendment was ratified in 1791 — meaning that all these laws were unconstitutional from the very beginning, and «dormant» at that: after the «Monkey Trial», they were virtually never enforced. Yet the enemies of the theory of evolution have by no means vanished — there are still plenty of them today. So perhaps it’s a bit too early to forget the «Monkey Trial» and its lessons.

REFERENCES

• Yu. Yeskov. The Monkey Trial — Evolution Must Die! Moscow, Komp’yuterra, No. 13 (633), April 4, 2006
• A. Kashintsev. The Monkey Trial in America. Moscow – Leningrad, Gosizdat, 1931, 67 pp.

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