Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019 - 26

M O U N TA I N C U R I O S

ALL FOR
THE
MONEY?

Scopes Trial Had Odd Undertone

The famous "Monkey Trial" of 1925 put the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, on the map, as per plan.
Story and photo by JOE TENNIS

t all began with the Butler Act: a rule in
Tennessee that said schools could not
teach anything that would contradict
what's in the Bible.
The year was 1925, and the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took note of
that rule by offering to pay for the legal
defense of any schoolteacher who would
challenge that law as unconstitutional.
Yet it was business leaders in Dayton,
Tennessee, who really took note of that
challenge, dreaming instead of how much
publicity such a court trial might muster.
Questions lingered: Where did man
come from? Was he created according to
the stories in the Bible or did he evolve
from monkeys?
Turns out, the small town of Dayton-
at least in the view of Earle Robinson, a
local druggist, and George Rappleyea, a
coal and iron company superintendent-
would seem like the perfect place to have
such a debate.
Why? Well, because this courthouse
town between Chattanooga and Knoxville
needed an economic shot in the arm with
the wane of the coal and iron industry.
So Robinson and Rappleyea conspired
with 24-year-old schoolteacher John T.
Scopes, figuring a test-case might collect
controversy as well as commerce.
Scopes had been a substitute teacher
at Dayton. "And he was willing to be that
one schoolteacher from Tennessee who
would test the case," says Dr. Rebecca
Tucker, a Dayton resident and a member
of the Rhea County Historical and Genealogical Society's board of directors.
Scopes taught the theory of evolution
to a handful of students-just to say he

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

A statue of defense
attorney Clarence
Darrow stands
outside the historic
courthouse in
Dayton, Tennessee,
where the "Monkey
Trial" took place in
1925.

did, Tucker says. "It was not that parents
were all upset about this teacher who was
coming in with all these ideas. It wasn't
that at all."
This, more or less, followed the plan
of a publicity stunt.
Reaching the courthouse at Dayton
on July 10, 1925, this "Monkey Trial" attracted about 200 reporters from coast to
coast as well as London. Trying to capitalize on all that publicity, a monkey posed
at Robinson's drug store.
"And they had monkeys on the courthouse lawn to add to the circus atmosphere of the day," says Tucker.
All this was to make Dayton "famous in
the sense that they wanted to bring people
here that would see what value there was
to a place like this. They needed for people
to come with investment purposes."
The actual trial spanned eight days.
In the end, it was agreed that Scopes
did teach evolution. And, for that, he was
fined $100. But the judge threw the case
out of court on a technicality on how the
fine was administered, Tucker says.

As for Dayton, its 1891 courthouse has
since become a shrine to what happened
during the summer of 1925. Statues of
both William Jennings Bryan, the prosecuting attorney, and Clarence Darrow, the
defense lawyer, stand on the courthouse
lawn. A newly-refurbished museum explains the story to visitors. And the actual
courtroom where the trial took place still
contains the original judge's bench, railing, jury chairs and spectator seats.
"What we were really looking at, in
the context of that day," says Tucker,
"was how much can the government dictate what happens in a local community.
It was looking at the majority versus the
minority. It was looking at academic freedom. And, so, there were some really big
over-arching issues of that day."
Still, Tucker says, "It seemed that the
people in Dayton were thinking more
about 'How can we get people and money
into this area?'"
Rhea County Heritage and Scopes Trial
Museum: 1475 Market St., Dayton, Tenn.,
423-775-6171, rheacountyheritage.com.

http://www.rheacountyheritage.com http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019

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