'Monkey trial' of 1925, brought to life in Goodman's 'Inherit the Wind,' echoes today's culture wars

What was the greatest Chicago trial to not take place in Chicago?

It was a doozie. And it’s back. Through Oct. 20, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre is featuring "Inherit the Wind," a fictionalized stage play based on the compelling Tennessee v. John Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925. The acclaimed play is getting excellent reviews. But the actual trial was the real star.

The original Scopes drama took place on July 10-21,1925, in Dayton, Tennessee, with a population of about 6,000. The nationally followed trial featured several connections to Chicago, starting with the most famous trial lawyer in the country in those days, Clarence Darrow.

Why did Darrow travel so far to defend John Scopes, a young Dayton high school teacher? Scopes was cited for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in violation of Tennessee’s Butler Act. It seemed like a small local dispute, but it packed a powerful punch that still resonates in today’s combative environment about schools, teachers and books.

"Inherit the Wind" was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edmund Lee. It debuted on Broadway April 21, 1955, won multiple Tony awards, and spawned a 1960 feature film that was nominated for four Academy Awards. The cutting-edge trial pitted the Bible, Tennessee law and Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan against Scopes, Darrow and Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Almost 1,000 people jammed into the Dayton courtroom for the start of the trial, far exceeding the seating capacity of 700. The judge eventually moved the proceeding outside, where the gallery expanded to 5,000 onlookers.

The initial Scopes arrest had actually been a set-up. The American Civil Liberties Union needed a qualified plaintiff to challenge Tennessee’s anti-evolution Butler Act. Dayton obliged and prosecuted Scopes.

A national spectacle

Dayton’s population had been shrinking, and town leaders sought to exploit the spectacle of a national trial. The flamboyant Bryan volunteered to help prosecute, and that attracted the opportunistic Darrow. Famed journalist H.L. Mencken from the Baltimore Sun was enticed, and the war of words escalated.

Chicago’s WGN Radio amplified the drama with innovative on-site reporting that made broadcasting history through a unique long-distance telephone hook-up that cost $1,000 per day. Various photographs of the trial, plus the film version of the play, visibly feature a WGN mic in the courtroom.

On the seventh day of the trial, Darrow boldly called Bryan himself to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible, setting the stage for what the New York Times reported as “…the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history.” Darrow then questioned Bryan about the Bible, grilling him on the meaning of many passages.

Much of the play’s questioning, testimony and related courtroom banter was lifted from the actual trial transcripts. These included questions about the earth, earth’s orbit, Jonah and the “great fish,” the right of a sponge to think, and a contentious exchange between Darrow and the judge that led to a contempt finding against Darrow:

Judge: I hope that counsel intends no reflection on this court.

Darrow: Your honor is, of course, entitled to hope.

Darrow pressed Bryan on whether the earth was made in six days or 6 billion years, or whether man was created in an instant or millions of years of evolution. Bryan was largely a victim of his own hubris and eventually succumbed to Darrow’s courtroom mastery:

Bryan: I do not think about things I do not think about.

Darrow: Do you ever think about things you do think about?

Scopes, nonetheless, was convicted by the local jury and assessed a $100 fine by the judge. That, as it happened, was a fatal flaw.

Eventually, the fine was overturned, not on constitutional grounds, but on a procedural point since the jury was supposed to set the fine, not the judge.

Thanks to "Inherit the Wind," the case remains a symbol of law, literature, and freedom of thought. When it debuted, it also carried a not-so-subtle message about free speech during the Joseph McCarthy “red square” communism era. Then it won the Donaldson Award for best new play of 1955.

The aging Bryan died the Sunday following the trial. John Scopes left a hostile Dayton and went to — guess where — Chicago, to study geology in a doctorate program at the University of Chicago. Darrow and his wife even boarded him until he could find an apartment.

The Scopes trial was a modest case with lofty ideals, celebrity lawyers, groundbreaking visibility and historic significance. A century later, conflicts over science, speech and law are still contentious. The warning by Darrow’s character in the play remains relevant and foreboding, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind...” Indeed.

Eldon Ham is a member of the faculty at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, teaching sports, law and justice. He is the author of five books on the role of sports history in America.

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