Anything Goes_ A Biography of the Roaring Twenties - Lucy Moore [103]
Most journalists, including Henry Mencken and Joseph Krutch, went home during the first week. They had seen enough. After hearing that no scientific evidence was to be admitted, Mencken gave victory to the prosecution: “The main battle is over, with Genesis completely triumphant.”
Krutch, however, thought that Bryan had failed his devotees. “Any passionate revivalist from the hills could have been more effective. He would have believed. Bryan merely refused to doubt . . . [retreating] further and further into boastful ignorance.” On one occasion, when asked if he denied that man was a mammal, Bryan had answered, “I do”—because he was unsure of its meaning, Krutch thought—and an incredulous Mencken fell with a loud crash from the table on to which he had climbed to get a better view.
None of them had predicted Darrow’s masterstroke. At the beginning of the second week Bryan agreed to stand as witness in the role of biblical expert, facing Darrow’s questioning; it was understood that Darrow would in turn submit to Bryan’s examination. By this time the heat was so unrelenting and the crowds so immense that court proceedings had been moved out on to the lawn in front of the courthouse amid rumors that the floor was about to collapse.
Darrow, thumbs in his lavender braces, coolly declared that his intention in questioning Bryan was, “to show up fundamentalism . . . to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education system of the United States.” Bryan leapt from his seat, purple with rage. Pounding his fist on the table in front of him, he shouted, “I am simply trying to protect the word of God against the greatest atheist or agnostic in the United States. I want the papers to know I am not afraid to get on the stand in front of him and let him do his worst!” Although he remained defiant in the face of Darrow’s attack, Bryan’s willful ignorance made him seem a fool; he simply lacked the wit that would have helped him counter Darrow’s arguments. As Darrow said, “He did not think. He knew.”
When Darrow asked Bryan what he thought about biblical miracles like Adam’s rib, the Flood and Jonah and the whale, he replied, “One miracle is just as easy to believe as another.” Pressed further about how he could believe in such improbabilities, he responded, “I do not think about things I don’t think about.” “Do you think about things you do think about?” queried Darrow. “Well, sometimes.”
Darrow asked him how old he thought the universe might be—when God had made it and how long the seven days had lasted —and Bryan thundered, “I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than in the age of rocks.” The triumphant Darrow looked on his opponent with pity: he had “made himself ridiculous” and still worse, “contradicted his own faith.” For his part Bryan accused Darrow of insulting the people Bryan called “yokels” by trying to weaken their faith by making them admit that it was necessary to interpret the Bible. Darrow replied, “You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion.” Eventually Raulston adjourned court for the day.
The next day Raulston ruled that Bryan’s testimony was irrelevant and struck it from the record, forbidding any cross-examination of Darrow. “Mr. Bryan and his associates forgot to look surprised,” commented Darrow, evidently suspecting collaboration. The two teams were invited to make their closing remarks. Since Scopes had clearly broken the law, Darrow urged the jury to find Scopes guilty so that the case could be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court where the constitutionality of the law itself could be assessed.
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