Left to right are member Bob Robbins, program chairman Neal Thompson, speaker Jerry Summers and president Bob Edwards
Well-known Chattanooga attorney Jerry H. Summers on Friday told members of the Civitan Club about the long-remembered Scopes trial, a/k/a The Monkey Trial, which occurred in the town of Dayton 28 miles north of Chattanooga for 11 days in July 1925.
The trial was conducted at the same Rhea County Courthouse that still exists today. It was about a young substitute school teacher and also the school coach named John T. Scopes, who was alleged to have violated the new Tennessee law, called the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee.
The speaker said the American Civil Liberty Union paid a certain amount of money to anyone who would contest this new law and John T. Scopes volunteered for the role. Also taking part was three-time Democrat candidate for President William Jennings Bryan. He volunteered to participate after the local District Attorney General of the Judical District, Tom Stewart, indicted the young teacher for teaching evolution in his classroom.
Attorney Summers said an 11-day jury trial occurred from July 10 to July 21, 1925, presided over by local Judge John Raulston in which Bryan of the prosecution team was called by defense attorney Clarence Darrow to testify for the defense as an expert witness on the Bible.
The speaker said the trial was covered by the local and national press and drew world attention to this town of 2,500 people.
Attorney Summers said that prior to the trial Chattanooga attempted to get this “Show Trial“ to held in the city.
During his well-delivered presentation, attorney Summers showed the club members many photos of the many participants in the trial such as the well-known Darrow.
Attorney Summers spent time describing the stories of the various townspeople who observed this trial and lived in Dayton at the time of the trial.
He showed photos of the town of Dayton in the year 1925, including the famous Robinson drug store and the hotel that was connected to the social life of the town, along with interesting stories of the interactions of various people who were connected in some way with the trial.
He talked about the various views of the local citizens to the carnival atmosphere of this historic trial. He further told that the famous William Jennings Byran died four days after the trial in his sleep of heart issues. That came after he attended a church picnic in Dayton, where he ate a huge meal most likely of fried chicken. He noted that his body was prepared by a mortician and then was transported by train from the local station in Dayton to Washington, D.C. He was then buried in Arlington Cemetery.
Attorney Summers spent time describing the appeal of the jury's conviction of Scopes and his sentence imposed by Judge Raulston to pay the sum of $100. The Tennessee Supreme Court heard the case in Nashville in 1926. For many days a battery of defense attorneys for Scopes took part in the appellant proceeding before the state high court. Both sides argued the constitutionality of the newly enacted state law.
After hearing from both sides, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the conviction. Attorney Summers said it was not because the Butler statute was unconstitutional, but only because the trial Judge Raulston had no authority to fine the teacher more than $50. Only the jury had the authority to fine the defendant the sum of $100. Consequently, the Scopes trial being reversed was returned by the Supreme Court to the same local court where the jury had convicted the school teacher.
District Attorney General Tom Stewart, who became a U.S. senator for Tennesse in the late 1930s, never re-tried the case and it was later retired from the court docket or dismissed by the state.
Attorney Summers concluded that this trial was important to the country regarding the Darwin concept of mankind evolving from primate lower form of life such as monkeys in time to the modern human beings. And how the majority Fundamentalist Christian view of evolution was perceived as going against the Bible.
He said teaching the theory of evolution in our public schools was opposed by most fundamentalists in the South and many other people in the rest of the country in 1925.
Kim Pendergrass, Jerry Summjers and Sue Lotze