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The Trial That
Rocked the World
(Monkey Trial)
---by John Scopes
1. The author
• This article is written by John
Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900 –
October 21, 1970). He is a teacher in
Dayton, Tennessee at the age of 24,
and was charged on May 25, 1925
with violating Tennessee's Butler
Act, which prohibited the teaching of
evolution in Tennessee schools. He
was in court in a case known as the
Scopes Trial.
• The author makes efforts to
portray the utterly different
figures of two counsels,
describes the different
spectators' actions when they were
in the court. And the author uses
many rhetorical devices to give us a
famous and lively trial in U.S
history.
2. Background Information
about the Trial
• John Thomas Scopes came to
Tennessee fresh out of college. In
the spring of 1925, he had just
completed his first year as science
teacher and part-time football coach
at the high school in the little town
of Dayton.
• Scopes planned to return
home to Kentucky for the
summer. But in his words, "a
beautiful blonde" distracted
him and he stayed for
another week hoping for a
date. The decision changed
his life forever.
• It all began when the state of Tennessee
passed a law making it a crime to teach
evolution in public schools. A new
organization called the American Civil
Liberties Union responded immediately.
The ACLU placed an ad inviting a teacher
to help test the law in the courts.
Dayton was in an economic slump, and
the town's movers and shakers thought a
sensational trial would put Dayton "on
the map."
①---Butler Act《布特勒法》
The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law
forbidding public school teachers from
denying the Biblical account of man’s
origin. The law also prevented the
teaching of the evolution of man from
lower orders of animals in place of the
Biblical account. However, the law did
not prohibit the teaching of evolutionary
theory for other species of plants or
animals.
②---American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU)
• The ACLU Foundation, an
organization which focuses on
litigation法律诉讼 and communication
efforts.
• The American Civil Liberties Union, an
organization which focuses on
legislative lobbying立法游说 .
The ACLU's stated
mission
• The ACLU's stated mission is "to
defend and preserve the individual
rights and liberties guaranteed to
every person in this country by the
Constitution and laws of the United
States." It works through litigation,
legislation, and community education.
•
The ACLU's stated
mission
• Founded in 1920 by Crystal Eastman,
Roger Baldwin and Walter Nelles, the
ACLU was the successor organization
to the earlier National Civil Liberties
Bureau founded during World War I.
The ACLU reported over 500,000
members at the end of 2005.
• John Scopes was playing tennis when
a group of businessmen called him to
the town gathering place, Robinson's
drugstore. They asked if he would
be willing to be indicted for teaching
evolution. Though he could not
remember actually teaching Darwin's
theory, Scopes believed in evolution
and agreed to the plan.
• The trial quickly became a media circus.
John Scopes was to have Clarence Darrow,
America's top criminal lawyer, defend him.
The famous politician and antievolutionist,
William Jennings Bryan, volunteered to
assist the prosecution. Reporters from all
over the country flocked to Dayton,
including an announcer from Chicago's WGN
radio. It would be the first live broadcast
of a trial in American history.
• The trial began on July 10, 1925. "The
town was filled with men and women
who considered the case a duel to the
death死亡决斗 ," John Scopes later
wrote. "Everything I did was likely to
be noted.” But over the next two weeks
nobody paid much attention to the
defendant. Attorneys for both sides
hogged the spotlight in the overheated
courtroom.
• In the words of historian
Kevin Tierney, "Scopes was
being used. He was
completely willing to be
used. But essentially the
case had been taken over
by the big names."
• On the most sensational day of
the trial, when Clarence Darrow
interrogated William Jennings
Bryan as an expert on the Bible,
Scopes actually became a
reporter for his own trial-filling in for a journalist who had
left town!
• The trial ended in a conviction.
The judge imposed a fine of $100
and John Scopes spoke for the
first time. "Your honor," he said,
"I feel that I have been convicted
of violating an unjust statute. I
will continue in the future, as I
have in the past, to oppose this law
in any way I can."
• For Scopes, the trial had been an
ordeal. When it was all over, he
gave up teaching and left town. He
accepted a scholarship to the
University of Chicago, received a
master's degree in geology and took
a job as a petroleum engineer in
Venezuela -- where no one had ever
heard of him
• The name of John Scopes became
synonymous with his trial, which
is popularly known as the Monkey
Trial. A film, called Inherit the
Wind, was made from the
trial ,with much of the dialogue
coming directly from transcripts
of the court proceedings.
• Rhea County Courthouse
The Scopes 'Monkey Trial' - July 10, 1925 - July 25, 1925
A slogan of Anti-evolution
• 3.
20世纪美国桂冠律师Clarence Darrow:
• Leader of defense, known as one of the best
criminal lawyers of his era who viewed criminals
as people led by circumstance into committing
antisocial acts rather than as free-willing
monsters. For this reason he was a bitter
opponent of capital punishment, viewing it as a
barbaric practice.
• In the Monkey Trial, Darrow's defense, and
particularly his cross-examination of Bryan, who
spoke for the biblical, antiscientific,
fundamentalist side, served to discredit religious
fundamentalism and won national attention.
4. William Jennings Bryan
威廉詹宁斯布莱恩
• William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925):
born in Salem, Illinois. In his middle-class
family, great emphasis was placed on religion
and morality, not only in one’s personal life
but in politics and in the conduct of national
affairs .After graduating from Illinois
College of Law in Chicago, he opened a law
offices in Jacksonville. In 1887,Byran moved
to Lincoln, Nebraska, practicing law and
simultaneously turning toward politics.
• In the trial, he’s the leader of
prosecution, known as a
fundamentalist and local hero. Bryan
was a three-time presidential
candidate and former Secretary of
State to Woodrow Wilson. After a
few years of retirement, he joined
the Chautauqua circuit传道、讲学等to rail
against抱怨Darwin in tent revivals信仰
复兴布道会 across the country.
• In 1925 he appeared for the
prosecution in the Scopes trial in
Tennessee opposing the teaching
of theories of evolution in public
schools. The ‘naivete‘天真and
narrowness of his thinking
emerged clearly in this trial,
which was Bryan's last appearance
in public before his death in 1925.
• Bryan was named the "Silver-Tongued
Orator" because of his eloquence and
logical thinking. During the trial he stood
firmly on his convictions despite the
drillings of Darrow. Bryan saw that this was
not a question of science, but of theology
and philosophy. One scientist summed up
Bryan's performance in this way: "William
Jennings Bryan, though maligned被恶意诽谤
and humiliated, was the hero of the Scopes
trial. He demonstrated that he had a
better basic understanding of evolution and
the Bible than his detractors诽谤者,贬低者
had."
• 审判结束5天以后，1925年7月26日，
在参加一场教堂弥撒后，睡眠中的布
莱恩再也没有醒来。他被描述成一个
悲剧性的负面人物，巴尔蒂摩太阳报
的名记者曼肯（Henry Louis Mencken）
对布莱恩评价“生命发端于一个英雄，
结束于一个小丑”，这个评价也广泛
流传开来。
Darrow
Brian
5. Henry Louis Mencken
(亨利 路易斯 门肯）
• Henry Louis Mencken is a US
controversialist, humorous
journalist, and critic. He is often
regarded as one of the most
influential American writers of
the early 20th century. Mencken
worked on the staff of the
Baltimore Sun for much of his life.
• As the most influential US literary critic
in the 1920s,he often used criticism to
jeer at the nation’s social and cultural
weaknesses. Prejudices (1919~1927)
collects many of his reviews and essays.
In The American Language, he brought
together American expressions and
idioms; by the time of his death he was
perhaps the leading authority on the
language of the US.
6. Dudley Field Malone
Dudley Field Malone (1882-1954):
American lawyer. He was city attorney at
New York (1909) and became third
assistant secretary of state in 1913.
Malone, known widely as an exponent倡导
者of liberal ideas, was a member of the
defense legal staff at the Scopes trial in
Tennessee.
7. 进化论和神创论之冲突
• Genesis:
• first Book of the Old Testament
which recounts the creation of the
world and claims that God made the
world and God made the sun on the
fourth day.
• 创世纪是《圣经》的第一卷描述了世界的
创造，声称是上帝创造了世界和上帝在第
四天创造了太阳。
• 创世纪名字取自一首诗，意思是开始。讲
述了犹太教和基督教的历史起源，开始了
以色列入侵的历史。除了上帝创造宇宙外，
它还包括伊甸园、亚当和夏娃、该隐和亚
伯、诺亚与洪水，通天塔、亚伯拉罕、以
撒和雅各的全部故事，最后以雅各的儿子
约瑟夫的故事结束。
CharlesDarwin(1809-82)
English naturalist and
biologist;
originator of the theory
of man's evolution by
natural selection;
his best known works,
Origin of Species (1859),
Descent of Man (1871)
On the Origin of Species,
published on 24 November
1859, is a seminal work of
scientific literature,
considered to be the
foundation of evolutionary
biology.
Its full title was On the
Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favored
Races in the Struggle for
Life.
Darwin's theory of evolution
is summarized as follows:
1.Every species is fertile enough that if
all offspring survived to reproduce ，
the population would grow .
2.Despite periodic fluctuations,
populations remain roughly the same
size .
3.Resources such as food are limited
and are relatively stable over time .
4.Individuals in a population vary
significantly from one another .
5.Much of this variation is inheritable .
6. Individuals less suited to the
environment are less likely to survive
and less likely to reproduce;
individuals more suited to the
environment are more likely to survive
and more likely to reproduce and
leave their inheritable traits to
future generations, which produces
the process of natural selection.
7. This slowly effected process
results in populations changing to
adapt to their environments, and
ultimately, these variations
accumulate over time to form new
species .
Fundamentalism 原教旨主义
•Fundamentalists, who believed in a literal
interpretation of the Bible, locked into
Darwin and the theory of evolution as "the
most present threat to the truth they were
sure they alone possessed" . With
evolution as the enemy, they set out to
eradicate it from their society, beginning
with the education system.
8. United States Law
• The legal system in the US originated from the
English system of common law, unwritten law in
which precedent plays an important role.
However, as the U.S. developed, its own system
of written statutes and codes evolved. American
Law is now based on a blend of written legal
decisions and of legislation.
There are two types of
American law
• civil law
• criminal law.
• Civil law covers suits between
individuals (companies as well as people
are “individuals”). Insurance claims,
divorces, and business malpractices
are example of matters handle under
civil law.
• 美国民法的特点是：包括的范围很广，除若干
州有单独的民法外，一般包括许多有关契约、
侵权、财产、继承和婚姻家庭方面的制定法和
判例，统称为私法。
• Criminal law covers cases
brought by the state against
individuals: criminal offenses
range from traffic tickets to
major crimes like hijacking and
murder.
• 刑法是规定犯罪、刑事责任和刑罚的
法律,像抢劫、杀人的制定法和判例。
• 9. Certain legal terms:
Jury陪审团: A group of laymen, called
jurors, summoned to study the evidence and
determine the facts in a dispute tried in a
court of law. The formally produced
evidence is considered the basis for
decision by an objective jury. The use of
the jury system is an important protection
against judicial and administrative tyranny
and is provided in most criminal and civil
cases.
大陪审团
• A grand jury of 12 to 23 members
usually considers the evidence and
determines whether a trial is
justified.
•
大陪审团成员一般在12~23人，
仔细考虑证据并确定审判的公正
性。
小陪审团
• A petty jury, usually of 12 members,
sits at the trial proper and, after
hearing the evidence, reaches a
verdict. Traditionally, the verdict was
required to be unanimous, but today
some states allow majority verdicts.
• 小陪审团，通常由12名成员组成，根
据证据作出判决。现在已允许少于十
二名陪审官组成的陪审团所作出的裁
决以及陪审团没有全体一致,只是多
数或绝对多数通过作出的裁决。
• In the case of “Monkey Trial”, among
the 12 jury members, one is a church
member, the rest are farmers with
little education. During the process
of the trial, the testimony from the
side of the defendant is denied,
therefore, to some degree, the
evolutionists failed before the trial.
Significance of monkey trial
• "Monkey trial" has become a famous
case of "the anti-modern religious
judge", it is a major battle between
ration and ignorance, science and
religion in the field of law. It’s of great
significance both in the legal and
intellectual history.