Education: The Great Trial
(2 of 4)
He wandered to Robinson's drug store for a strawberry sundae. There sat freckle-faced young Teacher Scopes, in his blue shirt and hand-painted bow tie, grinning with bashful curiosity at passers-by ("like the Prince of Wales," said one fanciful reporter) and listening to his proud father, Thomas Scopes of Paducah, Ky., exclaim: "John was always an extraordinary boy." Father Scopes was proceeding to uncomplimentary remarks about Lawyer Bryan when the son interrupted :
"Mr. Bryan, meet my father."
The two shook hands; Bryan consumed his sundae and departed, exuding benevolence.
A Florida realtor followed Bryan's motor in another bungalow on wheels, placarded : "Ask us about Tampa ! Ask us ! Ask us!" Countered Mr. Bryan, himself a Miami, Fla., realtor: "You don't need to ask us about Miami."
Lawyer Bryan addressed the Dayton Progressive Club at dinner, shrewdly comparing Dayton to Nazareth and Bethlehem, calling the trial a "duel to death," exhorting men to campaign with him to "put the Bible into the U. S. Constitution."
Slouching Lawyer Darrow, defense counsel, arrived. Finding shy young Scopes in the crowd, asked Darrow: "Is Bryan here? Is he all right? It would be very painful to me to hear that he had fallen a victim to synthetic sin." The Courtroom. Lawyers Colby of Manhattan and Godsey of Dayton having withdrawn from the case (the latter cowering before public opinion), there sat with Lawyer Darrow and Teacher Scopes in the courtroom only plump, foppish Lawyer Malone of Manhattan and Judge Neal of Knoxville, Tenn. Fumbling his soiled lavender galluses, slowly masticating a quid of tobacco, Darrow squinted across at Lawyer Bryan, rather voluptuous in a black mohair suit, surrounded by assistant counsel.
By the judge's bench, a cotton-topped, curly-headed boy of four played about, waiting to draw the names of venire-men for the jury from a box, a duty assigned to a young child by state law. The Judge himself, John T. Raulston of Winchester, Tenn., after opening the court and calling a special sitting of the grand jury to reindict Scopes so that there might be no mistake, sat back in his chair chewing gum, waving to friends among the spectators, occasionally calling for order when growls of prejudice greeted the cross-questioning to which Darrow and Malone were putting the venire-men.
Jury. A jury was sworn ten farmers, a shipping clerk and a farmer-teacher, none of whom had ever read a book on Evolution or admitted a prejudice for or against it; all of whom, with the exception of one illiterate, had read the Bible.
Trial. Lawyer Bryan, palm leaf fan in hand, collarless, led the prosecution forces into Court shortly before 9 o'clock. A few of the more courageous clung to their coats, but the heat soon overcame their vanity, with the exception of foppish, double-breasted-coated Dudley Field Malone.
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