i wanted to hire a racetrack driver to be the city consultant. he said yo -- you can do that? i said yeah. he said, make it 25. that's how we got the recording arts theaterrer down there today. there's other stories that you probably never read about. >> watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> now on booktv, one from our archives and the scopes trial and the impact it had. the scopes trial began july 10th, 1925. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, and welcome to this session of festival of

books, a session where we feature an author, ed who wrote a book, and i used term a little bit losely because it's a photographic history of the scopes trial. the title is scopes trial photographic history. the -- i ask each of you if you're interested in the book following this session, mr. carter will be at the signing corridor to sign the book. if you buy a book, it supports the festival, and we'd appreciate it. he teaches at the university of tennessee, associate dean of graduate studies with a long standing interest in the subject of scopes trial and wrote another book called darwinian myth. without further adieu, there's a question and answer session following this, and you will have a chance to ask any questions you wish of him, and

now i'm going to introduce him and let him go into his story about the scopes trial which we all are interested in. i am as innative of tennessee and a lawyer. it's something i've been interested in for years, and i look forward to hearing from you. >> thank you. the scope trial is a blight on tennessee's history. now -- i'm sorry, the scopes trial is a black mark on tennessee history. it's take p me a while to come to that conclusion. let me throw in a bit of personal history material here. i came here in 1985, the university of tennessee. i had written a dissertation that concerned darwin and the press, scopes was not in the title, but he was a chapter. you can't do darwin in america in anything unless you come to the scopes trial at some point,

footnotes as least. i went through the trowel of a whole chapter. i came here with the idea -- it was one of the events in history, a deviation of some kind from the normal course of life. lots of history does that, and so therefore we talk about scopes, it was an odd ball thing, and we went on with it. a little over ten years later, maybe 12 or 13 years later, i changed my mind. it is tennessee hisly. if you understand the scopes trial, you'll understand much of tennessee history and i'm sure that's got to aggravate a few people. that's not my intention, but it's an honest opinion. the scopes trial as i pointed out may have been one of the biggest calamities in tennessee history because it branded the state for generations to come as a back water eating intellectualism, bible thumping education haters, and one

newspaper asked in 1925, why dayton of all places? i think at the time they were a bit mad at the town of getting the attention, but the envy was short lived. like the anticipated benefits to the local economy, it didn't last for very long, that envy or the benefits to the local economy. it started as most of you know with tennessee's butler acts. tennessee was not alone in antievolution inflation. during the 20s, 20 different states had 37 different measures, resolutions, writers, and bills that to varying degrees criticized were banned evolution. we're not alone there in tennessee, but the idea was rather common, six state

legislatures already considered this kind of legislation before tennessee did. only two states, florida and oklahoma finally adopted any such measures, so in early 1925, this legislation is winding its way through the state legislature, not much public notice is even given this legislation in its early days, and it was only a vocal minority that was talking about it, and they were printing pamphlets in its favor. well, john washington butler introduced it. he was a farmer from rural macon county, and butler didn't know a thing about evolution, but got interested in the issue after one sunday a preacher in his church talked about a young woman who came back from college and believed in godless evolution. well, that was enough to provoke him, so he ran for office shortly after hearing that

sermon and resolved that he was going to pass legislation to deal with that, and he lived up to his political promise. opponents of that legislation cited freedom of expression, cited the scientific evolution, talked about galileo, and a group of ministers from nashville, 13 of them, in fact, sent a petition to the legislature that said we don't like this; it's a bad idea. ironically the governor that signed the legislation into law was a progressive. when signing it into law, his thinking was no one's going to notice. it will make people happy and it will not be enforced. making your constituency happy and hoping it slides under the table. he, in fact, told the senator

that the act was absurd and should not have been passed by the legislature. he did these the legislatures to achieve reforms though which is why he signed it. well, the tennessee law, as i said, was not enacted in a cultural vacuum, but i believe strongly that that's the image that's been depicted, particularly by east coast newspapers and in particular among those hl minken, the obama -- baltimore sun. a survey concerning the teaching restrictions cited seven states at that time that required daily bible readings and forbade employment of radical or pass vies teachers. the survey was released in mid-1924 and said there's more

restrictive laws in the last six months than in any time in the history of the country so there is something of a surge of intolerance. it's not wake of world war world war i, and the emerging modernism that bothered people. let's talk about dayton for a moment. dayton, at this time, in 1925, needed an economic boost. it was a small town with lots of problems. most of the farms were small, less than 100 acres, and this was the only part of the economy fairing very well. a blast front employed nearly a thousand men shut down in 1913 so it cut the company payroll of $50,000 a month to nothing. well, that's devastating for an economy the size of dayton. itself population declined from

3,000 in the 1890s to fewer than 1800 by july of 1925. in dayton, i deeply suspect the real issue was not evolution. the issue was diton. the trial was an ruse to promote a declining economy. they tried the event in the drugstore of robinson, head of the board of education, and it was there that robinson and a money engineer who oversaw 400 men, and walter white, the county superintendent of the schools argued in may of 1925 about evolution. the non-native of the bunch, from new york, by the way, took the pro-evolution side, a good

antagonistic of dayton and tennessee in general i believe. when the organizations resumed a day later, john scopes had to come to the drugstore. he recently graduated from the university of kentucky, taught science, and coached football at dayton. scopes is drown -- drawn into the argument and points out no one can teach biology without teaching evolution. he wanted to hear that, springs into action, told scope he'd been breaking the law. he showed him the offer to defend the case. he said, "that will make a big sennation." he didn't like the idea of being arrested, and he believed that the bible and evolution could be reconciled. he finally relented and agreed to get himself arrested.

later he called it a drugstore discussion that got past control. the aclu lived up to its end of the agreement, they greed to help, scopes was arrested on may 7th, and the townspeople sprang into action organizing a scopes trial organization committee. that sums it up well. it wasn't about evolution. this was going to be a carnival, going to bring people into town and have fun, rev things up a little bit, and they were supposed to do what they said, accommodate visitors and organize some intertapement so as the trial nears, the town adorns shop windows with apes and monkeys. one motorcycle cruised down with a monkey on it, another was serving simeon sodas.

the club approved $5,000 in 1925 money to promote town businesses during the trial. well, that's extremely important, and i think it's important to this day to keep those details in mind because that's what the trial really was, at least for dayton. the trial itself -- the trial itself legally was inconsequential. symbolically though, it defined the science and christian dates together. that, of course, is daro, the agnostic, and brine, the devout christian. on the one, you have the man on the political fringes with

radical causes. the other is a mainstream political moderate, three-time presidential candidate. they are a wonderful contrast to bring into the courtroom. what daro saw here was a wonderful opportunity to debunc christianity. he wanted to focus the nation on brine and fundmentallism. you notice he doesn't mention john scopes, and the concern for john scopes' welfare. they thought he was going to inknew wait people. they wanted him out of the picture, but he was too powerful and well known that they couldn't do it. his ag not tick -- agnosticism bothered them. they didn't like the idea of religion taught in school. pretty much the same agenda now, but daromented in the fight, and

-- daro wanted in the fight, and when he volunteered to help defend scopes, by the way, that was the only time in his life that he offered services for free. he did like the idea of a street brawl if you will with brine. he wanted this sensational fight between science and religion. that's exactly how he wanted to frame it, and he spent his life criticizing christianity in the courtroom, lectures, books, articles for popular audiences. brine, the other man, we often time diminish losers. brian was an individual of substance. i think the scopes trial really hurt his legacy very badly, but

we forget that he was a three-time presidential candidate for the democratic part in 1886, and he got some votes, but still, an individual of substance, and he was secretary of state under woodrow wilson. 24 is not a -- this is not a country preacher coming from out of the woods somewhere suddenly to show himself for a show trial. no, it is a national figure of substance, and what we have left, i think, is the image from inherent the wind all too often where he's a fool, a fundamentalist fool at that, that also do you doesn't reflect his religion position as well. more on that later. his attack on evolution, and he had made attacks on evolution,

pretty much established him by spink of 1921 as the leader of antievolutionists, and he focused on the speculative nature of evolution. he also set the agenda for fundamentalism by helping to define it as antievolutionism, and not so much the biblical literalism which is played up in too many places and probably overplayed to a great extent. if you examine his testimony closely in that famous exchange, he doesn't defend biblical literalism, but trying to get around it and is in the impossible spot of trying to say that genesis is true, but it's not true in seven days, 24 hour period. he can't do it. not with daro.

he doesn't let him do that, but brian said that darwin's theory was simply a hypothesis, a scientific sin no , ma'am for a guess and that the theory lacked evidence, and he said that science did not document a single instance of one specie changing into another. i point that out because that alone shows that brian was out of his league. he doesn't know what a theory is. of course, some of the legislatures in this day and age don't understand a theory. it is not a synonym for a guess, and evolution in particular and theory of the fact of evolution, natural selection doesn't say that one species changes into another one at any point, and incontra veritable evidence, science is not. when it is, now we have religion

so that, again, points up, i think brian's problems herement well, throughout his life, brian had maintained faith in god and in the people. these were apparently thoughts of action that liberal reformer and fundmentallist, but not contradictory. he supported reform. sometimes people are surprised to hear that. brian was a reformer? a progressive? yes, he was. again, that's part of the injustice that's done to his legacy by the scopes trial. there's more substance we get there than the inherent whims. it's the social consequences of darwinism in particular that bothered brian. you heard of it, social darwinism. this is what he was really

after. he never really comes out and says that natural selection or evolution is untrue, but social darwinism is really worthy of attack and it doesn't apply to human society. it's understandable again in the wake of world war i # which was then called the war to end all wars, horrific death and with the help of great new weaponry and modernism. things are really looking ugly in the world. well, the political reformer and this fundamentalist preacher and brian found a common enemy in revolution. the common enemy in as much as it arose faith in god, according to brian, and he thought this in turn would discourage efforts on the part of people to build a better world, and in other words, the surrender to determinism. there's no point in trying to

improve things, things are pretty much set the way they are, so give it up and go on. well, as you know, scopes was convicted, and he was fined $100, and just five days after the triol brian made the most significant contribution to the antievolution cause. he died. in the day follow ling the trial he worked on policy and expanding his antievolution speech. on saturday after the trial, he delivered part of the speech in crowds in jasper and winchester, tennessee and received great responses each time. he returned todayton on sunday, led prayer at the methodist church south, returned to the private residence. after lunch, he took a nap and died in his sleep. this is when he became a martyr for the cause.

lincoln said we killed the sob, but it was a botched fling because brian's death is what gave new life to his ideas and beliefs. shortly after his death, efforts were started to build a university of dayton based on theology and as a me mori memorial to brian. it's there to this day, brian college. well, i mentioned the judge imposed a sentence and a $100 fine. that was an error because the defense had agreed to let the judge fix the penalty, but the state constitution required that the jury impose the penalty. on appeal, the supreme court seized upon that technicality to reverse the judgment against scopes so there was no case to be taken to the u.s. supreme court which is what daro wanted. you get to understand that he wanted a conviction of the

person he was defending, and as an aside, let me adhere that as you look at the cast of characters here, i have a difficult time finding heros. i think a lot of these people from brian to daro, the local attorneys, local tones people and their action, they do pretty ugly things. scopes is the least culpable of anybody in the group because he's dragged along for the ride. well, in a written opinion, the chief justice of the state supreme court said we see nothing to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case, and that ended it. in fact, he even noted that dropping the case might help restore dignity to the state. well, the butler act was finally

repealed in 1967, but the fight wasn't over. in 1974, tennessee lawmakers required equal emphasis to give in biology text for various theories of origins, the alternate, of course, meant genesis as a theory of origins. arkansas and louisiana enacted similar legislation in 1981. it came back to the tepees legislature in 1996, equal time rules. actually all of this legislation, all of the posturing, all of the speaking is framed by the scope's trial. the scopes' trial sets this up, this evolution issue as either/or. it will be fundmentallist christianity or evolutionism. it carries to this day. tennessee's legacy, of course, is that how many times have you seen this come up in kansas,

louisiana, in arkansas, in california where, by the way, the creation research institute is housed, but it's called scopes two. scopes cast a long shadow over this kind of legislation. the bill in 1996, by the way, said no teacher or administrator in a local education agency sham teach the theory of evolution except as a scientific theory. again, for those of you who have a science background, most scientists look at that and say, of course, that's how we're teaching it. well, evolution is a fact. natural selection is a theory, but that's how all the ideas are taught about science. they are theories. you support and disprove them with evidence, but calling

creationism a theory is problematic and the attempt to dodge the first amendment all along. well, likewise itself, the controversy simply doesn't stop and keeps evolving, and one historian summarized the consequences of the trial a few decades after it ended. "the drugstore loafers accomplished their purpose. dayton is on the map, and tennessee had become the laughing stock of the western world. a fundamentalist died in dayton in 1925, but fundamentalism did not. scopes did lose in dayton, science didn't. i think tennessee lost. " >> we're going to have a question answer session now, and i ask yows because it's televised, if you have a question to go to the microphone there in the back where the podium is there so that your

questions can be on the mind. >> i must have annoyed somebody with those remarks. >> i think we celebrated 75th anniversary recently, read a article in "common wheel" how scopes went on to teach at the university of chicago, somewhere up north, i can't remember where it was, and besides making the point that the supreme court kind of just took the wind out of the sails and didn't let him appeal by the reversal, that book he was defending that scopes was teaching out of that that -- it was a racist book that say blacks had not developed like the white race. are you familiar with the textbook? >> i'm not to that extent, but i can tell you such material was

common in bulge books of the -- biology books of the era. this is the 1920s. the movement is full steam in the united states. it's the one with racial differentiation because of genetic differences. this comes to full bloom in germany in the 1930s, but the american jenic society had been formed earlier, and was quite strong and a lot of major scientists were members of the society. they start to become away from it in the next decade when its full implications start to become obvious, but also this is only a couple of decades after mindell's work in her redty -- heredity were discovered.

heredity is a new science in that time. >> after the trial, scopes made a career change. was he able to continue to teach? you mentioned he coached. what happened to him after the trial? >> left tennessee not too long afterwards. think of the movie inherent the wind where the poor guy is run out of town or something, but he -- from what i've read of him, i hesitate to call it, you know, great regret on his part, but it's more of a head shaking of i can't believe i got into this, but, yes, he does leave town and go to chicago, so -- >> you told us about the characters in the trial and the

context it occurred # in, but yo u -- you have not talked about your book. how did you assemble? i thought you could use a plug. >> i appreciate it. the information you have in your talk, is that all in the book? >> it is in the book. i'm telling you the material that's in the book. we call it a photographic history. what happened several years ago, the university of tennessee special collections called me and said jim lloyd, head of special collections, said, ed, you know about these pictures we have in bogses over here? i didn't. he called me because it goes back to the dissertation i mentioned earlier that i published a monograph out of and then later had # done work on --

darwin, the book that came out in 97, the myth, which doesn't talk about scopes much, if at all, but if you do darwin, you talk scopes. people on campus new that. jim called me and said, do you think the university of tennessee pressments to bother with these? i had no idea. i called the university of tennessee press, and they said, sure, that's interesting. let's look at it. i did, and there were photographs that, to me, looked worthy of publication, but never had been collect the in one place. .. venues. some of them never. i didn't have time to put all th together. quite frankly. i had another publishing commitment at that time. i was trying to figure out how to do this in such a short period of time. you understand when you are talking about publishing a book, a year or so isn't a very long

time at all. it is no time, in fact. well, about that time, edward larson, that was shortly after he had won the pulitzer prize for the god's book, so he seemed like the logical fellow to call. here was the best book written on the scopes trial, and i think i have read them all, i said, what do you think? do you think we can put something together? he said we could, and as we were talking about how to get this done and do something of quality in the short period of time, this is sort of the formula we hit upon. and jesse mayshark who wrote the afterward is a political writer in knoxville and he had written about the evolution legislation at about that time. that's how we got this whole thing put together, with me doing the intro, larson doing those narrative captions, and mayshark doing the 1990's update, if you will.

this is where scopes is in 1999 was basically what he was writing about. >> do you want to tell memorandum how many photos the are and how -- what -- i'm not well we can pick so of these up. but, for example, we get robinson's drugstore where it all starts. and the reason for some of these photos, let me tell you -- first of all, we didn't have a lot to choose from. in some indications, we took what's available. that's always a problem with history. you what's available. it's not necessarily what you want. it looks like mayberry. and it really is a wonderful, little town. even to this day, it's got this sort of idyllic feel to it. but this is where it all started, at rob binson's

drugstore. and this is one of my favorites. the reason being, it's the postures of the people. i think i'll try to get my fingers out of the way here. the postures of the people. here's scopes leaning forward. he's just falling all over himself to shake darrow's hn. he's almost servile. but i don't -- i don't like the way scopes looks there. just too anxious to meet the grea man. look atdarrow. he's not even looking at scopes. he's looking at the camera, which, of course, is appropriate. that's why he's there, publicity. to further the cause of clarence darrow. and i think it also illustrates well the fact that darrow, quite frankly, did not give a damn about john scopes or anyone in

dayton, tennessee. and that's what the picture shows here. and then, of course, a finishing touch, there was a fellow in between and he's sort of leaning forward like this into the mixture, that's the local attorney. he's actually from noxville, but perfect posture fo the local representative. because he's like dayton, itself. kind of leaning forward. let's get into the picture however we can. and i'm here for if the publicity so let me tag along with these great names. we don't have a lot of pictures of the townspeople. but is one,i thought, was appropriate for this collection. because it's -- it is a picture of some men in dayton, loafing around in the street at the time of therial. however, it's a stereotype, too. you notice how what you've got here are some people who are

cast as just that -- the drugstore loafers, that the other historian was talking about. here they are. they look like they're out of the hills. in fact, they've got on white shirts. and if you look closely, they're not comfortable in them. now, is that because they don't know how to wear anything other than cover alls or is it because it's 90-some dgrees outside and they have lo-sleeved shirts on at the time? well, you can decide that one. well, how can we do without monkeys at the scope's trial? we've got lots of monkeys. dayton was importing monkeys at the time they were brinng these things from local carnivals ad circuses and, of course, hey -- the people who had them were bringing them to dayton, too. this is part of the

misunderstanding that people evolved from monkeys, which is not what natural selection says, but it makes a nice frame, it's fun. it's easy to pick up on, easy to understand. it's also importantnot only because it reflects the misunderstanding of darwin's theory, but it also tells you what their nature of the rial is for dayton. again, it's a farce. people in dayton knew it was a farce. they knew it was something silly, to get attention, to get people in the town for te weekend. they weren't taking tis seriously. they were taken seriously elsewhere, of course. and then, finally, there are a number of pictures of brian's casket being taken out of town. he did die in dayton, as i mentioned. and this is marvelously symbolic because it kills brian, dayton

does. and i mentioned the great heat. he suffered from diabetes. he wasn't in great health here. and so in the other pictures, when you look at them, you see that brian inevitably oks bad. he's uncomfortable. of course, everybody's sweating because they're wearing overcoats and long-sleeved shirts, dress coats ad long-sleeved shirts in this 90-some degree weatherand i don't know how anybody can look comfortable in those things. but brian, in particular, looks uncomfortable. his shoulders are slumped, head tilted. "time & again," he looks in terrible shape. daryl looks hot, too. but he stands up. he's pretty rigid. he has that tire in his eyes, still. not so forrian. that, i believe, comes through in several of these pictures. yes? go ahead.

>> i'm confused by history and inherit the wind. did -- did daryl skewer brian on the witness chair and kind of hound him to deat that's the way it kind of came out in the movie, i th play. >> the movie, "inherit the wind" is a gross historical inaccuracy. of course, it's about mccarthyism and intolerance. it comes out in 1960. so, "inhet the wind" is the scopes trial, but it's mccarthyism more than scopes. it's intolerance more that they're after. the scopes trial was a convenie, dramatic platform for that movie. historically, it's -- it's way out of its league, as far as facts. they do get a couple of things, right, not many in the movie, in tes of history. but they're not concerned about getting history right. one of the things that gets, i suspect, fairly close is that

skewering. because they do use the trial transcripts there. and darrow really rough brian up on the stand. that was the high point of the trial, in fact. now, understand that brian made a terrible mistake, tactically, even showing up. the man hadn't been in a courtroom for 30 years. and here he' going up against probably the best trial lawyer of the day, wouldn't you say? >> oh, yes. >> the man -- it would be frightening to do that. that's -- that's like me trying to get in there and put my boxing skills up against a heavyweight champ of the era. no. you don't do that. but he did. and so when he got on the stand z daryl was merciless. and i mentioned this earlier. this is where he asks, so you believe that jona was swallowed by a whale?

and brian tried to dodge it. a great fish. oh, so he was swallowed by a great fish? you believe god made all that happen? he said i believe god can make all kinds of things happen. he can make a great fish and he can make that fish swallow a man. he said do you believe joshua made the sun stand still? and, again, brin tries to dodge it. he tried to say i believe that god can do what he wants to do. he's trying not to be a literalist. darrow's not going to et him do that. and they get to the part about a rock where i think in the movie, it's got the darrow character standing there holding a rock. ientists say this rock is millions of years old and brian tries to get off the hook with that line of, well, i'm more interested in the rock of ages than the ages of rock. tries to make light of it. darrow's not going to let him. he says you think this couldn'

be more than 6,000 years old, right? that's the date that the bishop usher has given us by looking at the genealogy in the bible. about 4004 b.c., about 9:00 a.m. right? and that's what bishop usher did say, in fact. well,o you believe a day is 24 hours long at the time of creation? he tries to say you know, i'm not saying that a day can be however long god wants it to be. he says, but how can you have a day before there's an earth and a sun? brian was not a literalist in that kind of sense of the word. but here hes on the spot. because what does he do? does he alienate that adience that's in front of him, the fundamentalist christians, by saying, you know, i really don't lieve in a seven-day creation, a seven-24-hour day creation.

he wouldn't. he didn't say that he couldn't. politically, he was on the spot. that's where darrow, you have the right word, he skewers him. that, of course, puts the agenda up for fundamentalist creationism that we have to this day. i think that's the script that's been followed. >> anymore questions? i might have a question. have you -- have you studied darrow's career and what he was doing or what he was doing at this time or how this fit into what he was trying to do? >> well, not closely. but what he was really -- darrow, of course, was a radical. he liked defending radical causes. but the real reason that he -- well, e had two reasons for actually wanting to come after this trial. one was very personal, and that was brian.

he really didn't like brian. and he saw here a chance to make a fool out of brian. the reason he didn't lik brian was because he blamed brian for those losses by the democratic party in 1996 -- 1896, 1900 and 1908. he thought that in the wake of brian's peak years in politics, the democratic party had just lost the white house because of that man. whether or not that's true. and as i said, that's the persal reason. the other reason was that he wants -- this is what he does. he defends the radical causes. so, this is a good one for him. he wanted to go after something li this. >> is this a trial by jury and did you -- >> it was a jury trial.

>> and were the comments from the members of the jurge jury with the comment as to why they voted as they voted? >> no, not onwhy they voted as they voted. but the motive for becoming a member of the jury was very clear. you get a front row seat! it was a crowded courtroom. some of you have probably been to dayton. as you can see, it is not a big courtroom. of course, by the standards of that day, it was pretty fair size. but it was wall-to-wall people. so, the best way to get in there and get right up front to hear this, was to be a member of the jury. well, brian is looking for, obviously, people that he thinks will support his argument. which isn't hard to do in rural dayton. darrow is also looking or people that will support brian's argument beuse he wants to lose an appeal. so, that's why they end up

picking a bunch of people who really don't have any sympathy for the idea of evolution at all. brian wants it and so does rw. they want the same thing in the injury jury-people ignorant of evolution who want to convict scopes. >> thank you. you talked a little bit about sort of the legacy of scopes and some of the legislative acts in tennessee and, you know, that's going on in some other states, too. but would you comment a little bit about your impression of how -- or whether you still feel that the scopes trial affects, taints, stains the image of the state of tennessee today? >> you're really putting me on the spot here. me being a state employee at the university of tennessee, i probably deserve it. but, yes, it does. it's still with us in substantial fashion. it's been pointed out before that what the scope tril des

is it pits this agrarian community, dayton, ray county, against modernist idas and that's the city verses the country. this is agrarian ideals and mythologies, edenesque if you want, up against the vulg city. that's still a theme. and you look even now in the state of tennessee, money goes to building roads in rural counties. while the cities, with all sorts of urban probls, well, they get what's left over, including universities, of course. that's one small way in which that agenda perpetuates itself. the city verses country theme is not new to dayton, doesn't originate with dayton, doesn't end with dayton. but it's manifest quite well in

dayton. it's also, oddly enough, still celebrated in dayton. and that is one that i always have to stretch my head over because i guess i should interview people in dayton sometime and ask them why do you celebrate this? what makes this worthy of a celebration? shouldn't we have flags at half-staff or a day of mourning? instd of a carnival every year in july? i don't understand. >> go ahead. >> there may be some daytonians here. >> are you from tennessee? >> no, i'm not. >> i'm not either. my first trip was to dayton and i final it a cause for celebration. that's my question. i want you to talk more about the dayton. i come at this from the journalistic view point, going to the hills, finding a revival meeting, finding the snake

holders. i'd like you to comment on the natial theme because i do see it as a reason to celebrate because they pulled one on everybody else. i must admit the whole south, until baker verses car was once a one ruled area. but until the vote, the urban groupgot equal power and we're doing all right now. but that whole thing that dayton pulled off was something that the whole south suffered. because maycomb talked about the buwa. he hated anything below the mason dixon line. he married a southerner. but daryl had that prejudice. but still we, you know, now that i'm an adopted southerner, i see it as a point of celebration and i'd lke you to bring that out a little bit more. more than the monkeys. just what happened at, you know, with all the press that came down. well, the press coverage is an issue unto itself in many

respects. and this is something that we only know after the fact, i believe. and if people in 1925 understood the way e pre works the way we understand now how the press bork works, i think they would have seen the problem. even now, i think many people failed to appreciate the fact that the fundamentalist cause is doomed from the beginning when it comes to press coverage. that's not because the press s biased about it. it's because he way the press covers things. stop and think about what you got here. you've got an argument about something scientific. what is science? it's empirical in nature. you collect facts and data. it's in a courtroom. what does a courtroom do? you deal in acts and data. and it's being covered by the press. what does the press do? facts and data. what's on the other side?

faith. there's the problem. there's an inherent bias in the press for the scientific argument because it's logical, it's linear, and it's actual. it's much easier to present that than it is a testament of faith. that's kind of the tructuralist argument about the reason for the bias. but it is there. i don't know how a newspaper reporter would come int religion, science would just give them equal time, it would be balanced coverage. i don't know how you can do that because you have to write in a fashion that presupposes the validity of factual information. you can't do that with a personal testimony of faith. because it's not verifiable in a scientific sense of the word. i think i answered your question. >> the carnival atmosphere, talk

more about that. >> well, that's -- >> -- >> we had people in dayton, not only the dayton merchants, but people were coming from a long way off to set up shop for the brief time the trial lasted in dayton. dayton was making a carnival of it. and i emphasize that because they didn't see it as a trial of any substance. they saw it as simply an opportunity to pump a few dollars into that faltering economy. i wonder if that isn't still the case. that will get me a few letters, won't it? but there again, i'm baffled as to what's to celebrate. >> i think this, myself, that one of the things about the scopes trialthat gives an image to the state and maybe to the south as a whole, to a great

extent, is the idea that levels of education and levels of knowledge are lower here and we have, you know, people who are more ignorant and so forth. and that is -- that is the one thing that hurts the image of tennessee and i think it's even true today because you talk abouthere in nashville, we have a profootball team and, of course, we're trying to promote the city as being in a league with all the other sophisticated cities that have profootball teams. and when we get our television coverage, there's tennessee to think that somehow we're different in some way, not as sophisticated, not as, of course, the television coverage of course whenever it comes and they cover the team, they also feature the city, they'll show scenes from the city and so forth. and i think some of us stopped at -- thought that maybe dennis miller was putting us down a little bit thlast time and that we're rabid football fans

and red necks and so forth. >> some would probably agree. well, to some extent what you see here is yet more the legacy of brian. now, again, we have to back up and appreciate brian for the historical figure that he is. he's a populist at heart. and part of his ideology was egol irks tar irks anism, to the extent that he generally believe thad a communityhod dicta what's going on in the schools, that's local control. and if the local community said we don't want evolution in the schools, tht it. then evolution won't be in the schools. if we want the bible taught in schools -- and, of course, this is before e supreme court court cases have come along after world war ii and the 60's, especially -- then that's it.

this is the kind of rather radical egalitarianism that is at the heart that brian is talking about. you see that today in this state, a levelinthat nothing stands out,but everything will be the same. there's a suit now, i believe, winding its way through concerning teacher pay, that teachers in rural areas should make the same thing as teachers in metropolitan areas. there again, egalarianism. the proposal was floated -- i guess it's been nearly a decade ago -- that when the states should pump a lot of money into one university, it should be a stelllar one, it should stand out. it was shotted down fairly convincingly. we don't wt to do that. we don't ant one university here and the others here. people don't want that as the argument. again, the brian legacy th

community dictates idea and e gal tearian. is egalitarian. there's no elitism about it. so, when you're really at heart, very anti-elitist, i thinkthat ultimately it is going to affect intellectual institutions and educational institutions. someone has to know more an someone else in order to teach. >> i think we have to conclude the session because i think we're all instructed to conclude these sessions a little bit before time so that people can move in and out. believe. well, maybe we have a little bit more time. if we've got anymore questions? my watch might be a little fast. >> there's a lot of creationists out there in my state, i think they're in a large majority. do you see something like this trial coming about nowadays? >> well, i think so.

and i'm not a legal scholar and one of the nuances of the legislation that's popping up all over the place. kansas recently was trying to get it out of its state test, get evolution out. and these kinds of issues. so, there is a lot of nuances in the legislation that comes up. and a lot of the proposals that come up, i think come up for very blunt, political purpes to mollify a constituency, knowing full well that it's not going to get ver far. but you can go back and tell them, hey, look, i tried. but the liberal atheis, we just couldn't do it. because they threatened to take us to thsupreme court, but i tried it. you know? this is where we're going to teach creationism as an equal time theo, for example. those kinds of proposals which, of course, creationism isn't a scientific theory.

but that's what i mean by the rather blunt, political motivation knowing that you'll mollify a constituency. but it's not going to go anywhere legally. i'd be surprised to see one get to the court levels, quite ankly. >> does anyone else have a question? i think my watch may be a little fast. i don't know whether we have a little more time. >> do you have that famous picture of, i think it was brian, darrow, and maybe -- maybe it was just darrow and brian. do you have that in your book of photographs? >> which picture? >> they're both sitting and talking. they're both in suspenders and white shirts, no coat on. >> darrow is leaning over the table talking to brian in that picture. yes. it's in there. it's not in great detail. and you just about have to know who's in the picture to know

what's going on. the -- and it's a curious on because the question, of course, is why are they talking to one another? darrow despised brian. and quite unlike "inherit the wind," they weren't boyhood friends or anything, not by a long shot. and i suspect he's just leaning over the table, maybe as denny can tell us, lawyers have to do that. even if you don't like the opposition, you have to talk to them. >> there always has to be a ce f civility. nowadays, there's less than there should be. and there's ot of talk among the legal profession about that. but most lawyers believe that you're supposed to be friends even though -- even though you may fight very hard in the courtroom and you may say some things that, you know, would alienate you forever. bullawrs are supposed to have thick skins and hides. they're upposed to be able to put that aside and be friends.

and i think that there was an effort made to do that and i know that -- i know tha darrow, for example, i've read a lot of books about darrow and i know that he, one thing about him as a lawyer, he was always invold in causes, comparing him to lawyers today, they're famous for million-dollar cases and big defenses. but he would frequently do what mr. caud irks ll says, is they would be concerned about their client. he was involved in labor causes and his other famous one was th death penalty cse. but he would be more concerned with an issue than he was with his own client. and he would be taking the case for that to dramatize that issue. and i don't think he made nearly as much mney as some of the other lawyers. he