Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke.
— H. L. MENCKEN, BALTIMORE EVENING SUN, JULY 9, 1925
Some say it was Moses’ fault for not asking for more details when God told him about creating the heavens and the earth. Others say it was Darwin’s fault for writing The Origin of the Species. Some blame the media, others blame the legal system, but most folks in Dayton, Tennessee, have pretty well settled on the fact that it was George Rappleyea’s fault that our city will forever be known as Monkey Town.
The whole thing started back in May of 1925, when Rappleyea rushed into Robinson’s Drugstore with a plan to “put Dayton on the map.” A New York native with a thick Yankee accent, horn-rimmed glasses, and a head full of modern ideas, Rappleyea was a bit of an alien in this tiny conservative town in East Tennessee, but most folks liked him. That fateful morning, he managed to capture the attention of some of the town’s most influential citizens, who, in the days of Prohibition, liked to gather around the soda fountain at Robinson’s to discuss business. “Mr. Robinson, you and John Godfrey are always looking for something that will get Dayton a little publicity,” Rappleyea reportedly said. “I wonder if you have seen the morning paper?”2 Rappleyea, who managed the struggling coal-mining business in the area, had discovered an advertisement in the Chattanooga Times from the American Civil Liberties Union offering to support any Tennessee schoolteacher willing to challenge the state’s new antievolution laws, which forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools. The evolution-creationism debate had taken center stage in recent years, and it didn’t take long for Rappleyea to convince Mr. Robinson and the rest of the drugstore regulars that hosting such a controversial test trial would reap economic benefits for the town of Dayton.
The group decided to call in local schoolteacher John T. Scopes, who they hoped would volunteer as the defendant in the case. Scopes, a quiet and unassuming man, admitted that he may have taught evolution in a biology class at the local high school and, more for idealistic reasons than capitalistic ones, agreed to serve as the defendant in the trial. Local attorney Sue Hicks, a man named after his late mother, agreed to coordinate the prosecution with the assistance of his brother, Herbert. (If this part of the story sounds familiar, it’s because Sue Hicks served as the inspiration for Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.”) With prosecutors and a defendant in place, the Robinson’s Drugstore gang had pieced together the publicity stunt they were looking for.
Luckily for them, the trial attracted some bigger names than the Boy Named Sue. Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal defense lawyer and an outspoken agnostic, volunteered his services for the defense, and William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist politician and “the Great Commoner,” volunteered his services for the prosecution. With these two ideological heavyweights in the ring, the Scopes trial was billed as a showdown between science and religion, “the trial of the century.”
More than two hundred reporters, from as far away as London, descended on Dayton during that hot summer of 1925. For the first time in history, a radio station broadcast the court proceedings live. Pictures of grinning monkeys sipping soda and holding medicine jars adorned billboards and shop windows across town, and Robinson’s Drugstore proudly displayed a banner proclaiming “Where It All Started.” Protestors, activists, and preachers made pilgrimages to Dayton, so residents erected a giant platform on the courthouse lawn to accommodate any impromptu lectures or debates. (It was rumored that George Rappleyea actually staged a fistfight there.) People could pay to get their picture made with a live chimpanzee, and the town constable even put a sign on his motorcycle that read “Monkeyville Police.” A New York Times reporter wrote that “whatever the deep significance of the trial, if it has any, there is no doubt that it has attracted some of the world’s champion freaks.”3
However, both Darrow and Bryan believed the trial to be of much more significance than just another Roaring Twenties sideshow. The two men had spent their entire lives promoting opposing ideologies, and the trial presented them with an opportunity to bring national attention to their causes. Bryan was sixty-five at the time and had not practiced law in thirty years, but that didn’t matter to the people of Dayton, who knew him as a great orator and champion of Christian fundamentalism. A three-time Democratic Party nominee for president, Bryan spent his political career fighting on behalf of progressive causes like labor rights and women’s suffrage and against imperialism, alcohol, and Darwinism. Known as “the Great Commoner,” he prided himself in representing the interests of regular people. He served in Congress and as Secretary of State for Woodrow Wilson, resigning from the cabinet in protest of the US involvement in World War I. For Bryan, the theory of evolution, particularly social Darwinism, represented a devastating threat to the moral and biblical foundation of American society, a threat that endangered all the things he had worked his whole life to preserve.
Darrow, sixty-eight, did not share the same popularity among Dayton residents. A leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Darrow was best known for using insanity pleas and existential philosophy to save his clients from the death penalty, or to “let them off the hook,” some liked to say. He fought for individual liberty, freedom of speech, and educators’ right to teach the theory of evolution. He saw Tennessee’s antievolution laws as an unconstitutional and backward attempt by biblical absolutists to keep modernity at bay. The odds were against him in this case, considering the fundamentalist attitude of the local population and of the jury. During the trial, Darrow expressed dismay at the giant “Read Your Bible” sign draped across the courthouse door. However, the press remained sympathetic to his cause, which gave him an important ally.
When the trial finally began, there was standing room only in our famous little courthouse. It can get pretty hot here in July, so all the old, yellowed film footage of the Scopes trial shows participants fanning their faces vigorously and wiping their brows with handkerchiefs. The defense immediately attempted to quash the indictment against Scopes on state and federal constitutional grounds, but the judge denied their motion. So the trial, which would likely end in Scopes’ prosecution, simply became an excuse for Bryan and Darrow to launch attacks on one another whenever the opportunity presented itself. In their opening statements, both men lectured on the momentous nature of the case and the great struggle between science and religion. At one point, a debate erupted over whether to allow a biologist to testify for the defense, resulting in cheers and boos from observers. In between all of the rhetoric, a few high school students were called to testify about Scopes’ teaching of evolution at Rhea County High School.
The trial reached a climax when, on the seventh day of proceedings, the defense called William Jennings Bryan himself to the stand as an expert on the Bible. By this time, the trial had been moved to the courthouse lawn to better accommodate the swarms of spectators and press, so thousands watched as Bryan and Darrow finally got the chance to go head-to-head in the trial of the century.
Darrow, who had by this point removed his coat and tie, immediately began grilling Bryan with questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of the Bible. Darrow questioned his opponent on everything from the creation account of Genesis to the story of Jonah and the whale (which Bryan rightly noted was actually the story of Jonah and the big fish). At first Bryan appeared confident, answering as slowly and methodically as the wave of his palm-frond fan. However, as the questioning went on, his lack of preparation became obvious.
“The Bible says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still for the purpose of lengthening the day, doesn’t it, and you believe it?” Darrow pressed.
“I do.”
“Do you believe at that time the entire sun went around the earth?”
“No, I believe that the earth goes around the sun.”
“Do you believe that the men who wrote it thought that the day could be lengthened or that the sun could be stopped?”
“I don’t know what they thought.”
“You don’t know?” Darrow asked with mock surprise.
“I think they wrote the fact without expressing their own thoughts,” Bryan returned.
At this point, the attorney general interrupted the proceedings to tell the judge that he thought the line of questioning was irrelevant to the case. However, Judge Raulston, who seemed to be enjoying himself, said that if Mr. Bryan was willing to be examined, he saw no reason why the two should stop.
Darrow asked a few more questions, paced back and forth across the stage, and returned to the subject of Joshua and the sun.
“Now, Mr. Bryan, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the earth if it had stood still?”
“No.”
“You have not?”
“No, sir. The God I believe in could have taken care of that, Mr. Darrow.”
“I see. Have you ever pondered what would naturally happen to the earth if it stood still suddenly?”
“No.”
“Don’t you know it would have been converted into a molten mass of matter?”
“You testify to that when you get on the stand,” Bryan shot back. “I will give you a chance.”
“Don’t you believe it?” Darrow asked.
“I would want to hear expert testimony on that.”
“You have never investigated that subject?”
“I don’t think I have ever had the question asked.”
“Or ever thought of it?”
“I have been too busy on things that I thought were of more importance than that,” said Bryan.
Darrow went on to challenge Bryan about the age of the earth and the biblical account of the worldwide flood.
“When was the flood?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t attempt to fix the date,” said Bryan.
“About 4004 BC?”
“That has been the estimate of a [biblical scholar] that is accepted today. I would not say it is accurate,” Bryan responded cautiously.
“But what do you think the Bible itself says?” Darrow pressed. “Do you know how that estimate was arrived at?”
“I never made a calculation.”
“A calculation from what?”
“I could not say.”
“From the generations of man?”
“I would not want to say that.”
“What do you think?” Darrow pushed.
“I do not think about things I don’t think about,” said Bryan.
“Do you think about things you do think about?” Darrow asked slyly, drawing laughter from the crowd.
As the questioning grew more heated, the prosecution tried repeatedly to pull Bryan off the stand, but he insisted on remaining.
“These gentlemen have not had much chance,” Bryan said. “They did not come here to try this case. They came here to try revealed religion. I am here to defend it, and they can ask me any question they please.”
The crowd, which some estimate had swelled to about three thousand, roared, and the judge allowed Darrow to continue to press Bryan with questions about the biblical time line.
“You have never in all your life made any attempt to find out about the other peoples of the earth,” Darrow asked with feigned exasperation, “how old their civilizations are, how long they have existed on earth . . .”
“No, sir,” said Bryan. “I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it.”
“Were you afraid you might find some?” Darrow asked.
“I have all the information I want to live by and to die by,” said Bryan.
To this Darrow charged, “And that’s all you are interested in?”
“I am not looking for any more on religion.”
“You don’t care how old the earth is, how old man is, or how long the animals have been here?”
“I am not so much interested in that,” said Bryan.
“You have never made any investigation to find out?”
“No, sir, I have never.”
Finally, Bryan conceded that various interpretations of the creation account existed and that his understanding was that the days of creation represented periods of time rather than literal days, which led to a heated exchange.
“Have you any idea of the length of these periods?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you think the sun was made on the fourth day?”
“Yes.”
“And they had evening and morning without the sun?”
“I am simply saying it is a period.”
“They had evening and morning for four periods without the sun, do you think?”
Bryan’s response was telling: “I believe in creation as there told, and if I am not able to explain it, I will accept it.”
After nearly an hour of questioning, the judge finally got frustrated with the proceedings and adjourned the court. Supporters of both Bryan and Darrow declared victory, although it became clear the next day that the prosecution had no intention of putting Bryan on the witness stand again. The defense rested its case and suggested that the court instruct the jury to find the defendant guilty. This move deprived Bryan of the chance to question Darrow and to deliver a closing statement, and the trial soon came to an end. Scopes was found guilty and fined a hundred dollars.
Some have said that Bryan won the case, but Darrow won the argument.
Everybody left Dayton just as quickly as they came, and a few days later, after traveling around the area delivering speeches and sermons against secularism, Bryan died in his sleep during an afternoon nap. He died right here in Monkey Town.
Despite the ambitions of the Robinson’s Drugstore gang, Dayton faded back into obscurity after the trial, and today it remains a small manufacturing town of about six thousand, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. The coal mines closed long ago and were replaced by factories, the largest of which belongs to La-Z-Boy Furniture, Dayton’s biggest employer. The town grows in little fits and starts, but the countywide ban on selling liquor keeps a lot of potential chain restaurants at bay. A Super Walmart built at the south end of town a few years ago was welcomed like the second coming. My mother likes to refer to Dayton as “Little D,” a wry allusion to Dallas, Texas, or “Big D,” where she and my father lived while he was in seminary.
Cradled by the Tennessee River on its eastern border, Rhea County is surrounded by three nuclear power plants, and you can see two of them from the top of Dayton Mountain on a clear day. These imposing landmarks are owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal and a ubiquitous presence in the eastern part of the state, where the TVA provides nine million residents with power. To control flooding, the TVA drains Chickamauga Lake every winter, leaving a swampy, desolate wound in the middle of Dayton for four months. The lake is so pristine and deep and green during the rest of the year that retirees build big houses all around it, and they spend their money in our grocery stores and bait shops.
Folks around here don’t waste much time debating who really won the trial of the century. The bronze statue of William Jennings Bryan that stands guard on the courthouse lawn speaks for itself. The local newspaper lists more than one hundred churches in its directory, and every Thursday night McDonald’s hosts a gospel-music singing for seniors. Signs announcing revivals and church picnics line the highway winding up Dayton Mountain. Neighbors look out for one another, and people always bring food when somebody dies. It’s a community in the best sense of the word.
Largely unaffected by its historic past, Dayton moves at a slow, methodical pace. Conversation in the beauty salon changes with the seasons. We talk about who will be crowned Strawberry Queen at this year’s Strawberry Festival, how the high school quarterback looks for the year, why the EPA won’t let us fix the creeks that flood every spring, who’s in charge of hanging the Christmas wreaths on the lampposts downtown.
Only every now and then do we have what I like to call “a Monkey Town moment,” the most recent of which occurred when the Rhea County Commission voted to make homosexuality illegal in Dayton.
In March 2004, eight of our elected leaders passed a resolution calling for a ban on homosexuality and an amendment to state law that would allow the county to charge gay and lesbian people with crimes against nature. When word of the decision reached the press, it was as if the Scopes trial had come to Dayton all over again.
Within twenty-four hours, thousands of calls, from as far away as Australia, flooded the county offices. The local paper published four pages of letters to the editor. A group of Independent Baptists organized a march “for our American godly heritage” through the streets of downtown Dayton, and a local high school student coordinated a gay pride rally. The courthouse lawn was crowded with street preachers calling for the deportation of “sodomites,” teenagers waving rainbow-striped flags, and of course, reporters from all over the country taking every opportunity to remind the world that this was, in fact, the same Monkey Town of 1925.
One preacher carried a cross up and down Highway 27 through Dayton for a week. Another hoisted into the bed of his Chevy an enormous sign that read “Sodomites Don’t Produce, They Recruit.” The entrepreneurial owner of the music store across the street wandered the sidewalks carrying a sign that simply said “Buy a Guitar.” By the time the county commissioners got together to rescind the motion, claiming they had not realized what they were voting for when they passed it, the damage had been done. Dayton was again the laughingstock of the country, and rightly so. In the next local election, the community voted out of office all but one of the remaining county commissioners who took part in that vote. The rest had already resigned or chose not to run for reelection.
With the exception of June the Ten Commandments Lady, most of us were pretty angry at that county commission. Several Bryan College professors made it clear they didn’t support the resolution, and local pastors confronted the out-of-town street preachers, begging them to leave. One church youth group handed out water at the gay pride rally as if to apologize on behalf of the community. Of course, such efforts received little coverage from the press, but I don’t think it was because the reporters were out to “get us” again. I think they were just fascinated to discover in our hometown a small remnant of the kind of extreme religious separatism thought to be extinct in this country.
That’s what’s funny about this little town. When it comes to different breeds of Christianity, Dayton is a Galapagos Island of sorts, a terrific destination for anyone wishing to study the evolution of fundamentalism in America. We’ve got folks like June the Ten Commandments Lady shopping for groceries at the same produce stand as biblical scholars and apologists. On a given Sunday morning, one pastor will charge his congregation to love their enemies, another to consider the historical context of the book of Romans, and another to handle live rattlesnakes as an expression of faith. While some local parishioners insist on King-James-only services, a good many can read the text in the original Hebrew and Greek. While a few congratulated the county commission for their stand against homosexuality, most accused them of making Dayton look backward and out of touch.
The evangelical community has a curious reputation for resisting cultural movements before suddenly deciding to embrace them, and believers in Dayton are no different. These days most Christians, even conservative Christians, acknowledge that the Monkey Town approach of stubborn isolationism and anti-intellectualism is an outdated and ineffective strategy for expanding the kingdom.
It’s hard to say for certain how the Scopes trial affected the Christian community in Dayton and around the world, but I have a feeling that after the cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan, a lot of evangelicals decided that something had to change. They decided that what happened on the witness stand that hot summer’s day should never happen again. To survive in a modern world, they needed to be more prepared to respond to its questions. They could no longer simply resist evolutionary theory, secular humanism, higher criticism, and other modernist threats; they had to learn to effectively engage them instead. So after years of opposing any concept of survival of the fittest, a funny thing happened to the evangelical community in Dayton and around the country: it evolved.