Facing Defections and Defeats

I.Facing Defections and Defeats A.William Jennings Bryan and the Monkey Trial

1.William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)-Fundamentalist orator and statesman-stood for many years as the "peerless leader" of the Democratic party. a)He was born in Salem, Illinois. After completing law school, he became a leading attorney in Nebraska. Serving in the United States Congress from 1891 to 1895, Bryan advocated the free coinage of silver at a fixed rate with gold. As a delegate to the Democratic national convention at Chicago in 1896, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." b)The speech won him the nomination for president, but the Republican candidate, William McKinley, defeated him in both that election and the next. c)In 1908, Bryan was again defeated in a bid for the presidency, this time by William Howard Taft. d)However, Bryan remained the leader of his party until 1912, when President Woodrow Wilson appointed him secretary of state. e)Perhaps the leading pacifist of his day, Bryan disapproved of Wilson’s increasing involve­ment in the war in Europe and resigned in 1915. f)Favoring the prohibition of liquor traffic, Bryan became a popular Chautauqua speaker, never at a loss for a telling phrase to express his thoughts. g)Although greatly admired by most Fundamentalists for his leader­ship, Bryan advocated an optimistic philosophy somewhat inconsistent with Fundamentalists’ insistence on man’s depravity and the widespread belief among them that increasingly dark conditions would lead to Christ’s premillennial return.

2.Arrested for violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution, public schoolteacher John T. Scopes (1900-1970) stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, July 10-21. a)For his defense, the American Civil Liberties Union provided some of the most eminent lawyers of the day, Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone. b)Bryan, now sixty-five years old, served as prosecuting attorney. c)Mil­lions of newspaper readers at home and abroad daily followed the arguments issuing from that small-town courtroom. (The trial was moved outdoors because of the extreme July heat that made the packed courtroom un­bearable.) d)Unwisely allowing himself to be cross-examined by Darrow, Bryan was described by the press as back­wards and ignorant. e)No doubt he was a much better orator than debater, for Bryan simply did not have ready and factual answers to sticky questions about the Bible and science. While the court convicted Scopes and fined him one hundred dollars, Fundamentalists had won a Pyrrhic (costly) victory. f)In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision on a technicality, though the anti-evolution law itself was not finally repealed until 1967. g)Perhaps Bryan’s own death, which occurred only five days after the trial ended, was an omen of the empty victories and bitter heartaches ahead for Fundamentalism. The bizarre trial would have far greater impact on the popular in­terpretation of Fundamentalism than all sermons and lectures ever would.