Remind me how it works, Brenda.

How it works is that Brian is this very well-known now fundamentalist reading the Bible literally, and Darrow puts in the paper a series of questions for Brian to answer.

And these will be very similar to the questions that Darrow is going to ask Brian on the stand.

Do you believe really...

That Jonah made the sons stand still.

I mean, Joshua.

Do you believe that Jonah was eaten by the whale? Where did Cain get his wife? There are lots of questions.

Is that right, Brenda?

Who is Altgeld, Brenda?

John Altgeld, I think he would be better known today had he not died early on.

He was a very outspoken socialist-leaning, shall we say, progressive, who was governor in Illinois.

I mean, he was a big figure in Chicago.

He had made a lot of money investing in real estate.

He later lost all of that money.

And when young Darrow came to Chicago from small town in Ohio, he and Altgeld became very, very good friends.

To your understanding, Brenda, did he invent this style, or was it always there and he was imitating somebody older?

Was that popular to say that Darrow had driven Bryan into his grave?

[chuckles] It, it...

You know, if you're a Bryan supporter, uh, or you're, you're, um, horrified by the humiliation that Darrow inflicted on Bryan, you're likely to say that Darrow caused, uh, Bryan's death, but I think there are more physiological reasons.

Um, for one thing, as you mentioned, it was brutally hot, and, uh, Bryan was on the witness stand outdoors in the July heat.

Second of all, as we saw, he piled, uh, potatoes, corn, uh, potatoes and corn onto his plate.

He was a diabetic, and his diabetes was probably not in control, not just because of what he ate, but because he was always hungry.

He actually looked very thin.

If I understand correctly, Hoover got involved as well as the governor, is that right, Brenda?

And what is that idea, Brenda?

That idea is, um, uh, is a shocking legal maneuver that may or may not be, uh, legitimate, but it certainly was at the trial.

Since Bryan had said he was an expert on the Bible, Darrow and Hayes decided to put William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand and interrogate him.

Very unusual for a defense lawyer to put the prosecution lawyer on the stand.

Uh, it was shocking, but Judge Raulston went along with it because he, w- was very enamored of Bryan and wanted to hear what this three-time presidential candidate and, and important figure had to say.

The prosecution team, who worked with Bryan, were horrified.

They did not want him on the stand, but Bryan was excited, and he was willing to go on the stand because he thought this would give him an opportunity, a forum, to tell the world his ideas.

What-- Remind me how it works, Brenda.

Do I read that correctly, Brenda? They were thrown off balance.

Well, yes, they were, but what they were able to do, even though the number of scientists who had come to Dayton in order to testify, and they were religious men, by the way.

Since they weren't allowed to get on the stand, what the defense team was able to do, and Arthur Hays was the leader of this, was read their affidavits into the record.

Um, that meant that the jury itself didn't hear the scientific testimony about evolution and what it meant, but the court record would have that information, uh, and it would be disseminated, uh, in the newspapers.

So it was a setback and in some ways, for the defense, an outrage, but at the same time, the defense was very cagey and got it into the record.

But as I said, the jury didn't hear this at all.

Is he sympathetic to Darrow? I couldn't tell, Brenda.

I think he is very sympathetic to Darrow, um, because like Darrow, he considers William Jennings Bryan a fanatic and a bigot who would impose his, um, from Mencken and Darrow's point of view, his rigid, unthinking, anti-intellectual point of view on the nation, and he finds that to be absolutely reprehensible.

The defense counsel.

Yes, and he works for the ACLU as volunteers.

Um, he's a, a lawyer from Manhattan in New York City.

He's named for three presidents: Chester Arthur, James Garfield, Rutherford Hayes.

Um, he is a secular Jewish man, which means [clears throat] he's identified, uh, as Jewish, but he's not observant.

It's very interesting because the, uh, major people on the defense represent a kind of spectrum of religious points of view.

Um, just to take an aside for a minute, Darrow is an acknowledged agnostic.

How so, Brenda? What, what makes them the same person at this moment?

So early in life, Bryan was in two worlds, Brenda.

Yes, he was in two worlds, but the kind of, the kind of populist that he was, and in a way that his father was, was a sense that they were speaking for the people, the so-called people.

And in that particular way, the Copperhead, the Silas, uh, Bryan, who was enormously influential on his son's life, felt that you should be able to, as a member of a state, Illinois, which Illinois is a complicated state, even though, as you say, Lincoln's from it, but he's also Stephen Douglas is from Illinois.

And Silas Bryan was behind Douglas, which was to say, popular sovereignty.

If we want to vote to keep slavery, then we should be able to vote to keep slavery.

How dare the federal government, the Republicans, the Lincoln Party, come in and tell us what to do? So Bryan comes from a tradition where people, the people should decide.

He was a great believer in democracy, um, and in that way, we consider him a progressive.

How? How did he think the Scopes trial would help him?

Who is Altgeld, Brenda?

John Altgeld, I think he would be better known today had he not died early on.

He was a very outspoken, uh, socialist-leaning, shall we say, progressive, who was, uh, governor in, uh, Illinois.

I mean, he was a big figure in Chicago.

He had made a lot of money investing in real estate.

He later lost all of that money, and when young Darrow came to Chicago from small town in Ohio, uh, he and Altgeld became very, very good friends, and Altgeld really got Darrow on his way.

But Altgeld was a person who really felt that, for example, poverty was the cause of crime, not that people were necessary-- not that they were at all bad people, but the conditions, social conditions that surround people cause crime, and that was poverty.

Did other p- To your understanding, Brenda, did he invent this style, or was it always there, and he was imitating somebody older?

Felix Frankfurter is a member of the board.

He is indeed.

He is indeed.

And the discussion is, w-who should they take on as attorneys? Of course, the ACLU is going to have their own attorney defending, uh, Scopes, and that will be a man named Arthur Hays.

But there's also a man whom you mentioned, Clarence Darrow, who's a notorious and celebrated criminal and labor lawyer, who has volunteered himself to defend Scopes pro bono without any fee at all, because he felt that this Butler Act is, uh, uh, filled with bigotry, uh, and fanatics.

And s-since it's being defended by another man, whom you mentioned, William Jennings Bryan, he wants-- he is-- he, Darrow, feels called to battle.

So part of the meeting that you're talking about in the ACLU offices, downtown Manhattan, [chuckles] um, have to do with who shall defend John Scopes.

Yes.

They're looking for a recruit who will be a sacrifice in a courtroom.

That's absolutely right.

The ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, offered to defend anyone who is willing to test the Butler Act by breaking it.

And one, uh, local impresario who was working in Dayton decided, uh, got together with a group of people, people who met at Robinson's Drug Store.

It was kind of a meeting place, and they thought that they should be the ones to break the law.

And they asked a young man, a high school teacher, a science teacher, a substitute teacher, and football coach, uh, if he'd be willing to be the, as you say, sacrificial lamb.

His name was John Scopes, and he said, "You can't teach evolution, uh, you can't teach science, you can't teach biology without teach- teaching evolution." And he volunteered to be the person who would say he broke the law, and he did, and he was immediately indicted.

What do we need to know about his father and the Scopes family of Kentucky?

Much more of this tonight.

That idea is, um, a, is a shocking legal maneuver that may or may not be, uh, legitimate, but it certainly was at the trial.

Since Bryan had said he was an expert on the Bible, Darrow and Hayes decided to put William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand and interrogate him.

Very unusual for a defense lawyer to put the prosecution lawyer on the stand.

Uh, it was shocking, but Judge Raulston went along with it because he, who was very enamored of Bryan, wanted to hear what this three-time presidential candidate and, and important figure had to say.

The prosecution team, who worked with Bryan, were horrified.

They did not want him on the stand, but Bryan was excited, and he was willing to go on the stand because he thought this would give him an opportunity, a forum, to tell the world his ideas.

Much more of this later in the weeks.

And he thinks of himself like as, as a, a leader in the Democratic Party.

He thinks of himself as great commoner, as, uh, one of his nicknames.

He thinks of himself as a man of the people, and he thinks of himself as, in a way, a movie star, um, with the pith helmet, which by the way, is pres-- you know, presumably blocks the sun, keeps him cool.

But, you know, I mean, he's, he's there with a pith helmet, and he is waving a big fan in the shape of a palm leaf because it's so hot.

This is July in Tennessee, and it happens to be a heat wave, and nobody has any air conditioning, and he is surrou-- He gets off the train, and he's surrounded by well-wishers.

I mean, he is one of the most famous political figures of the day.

More, much more of this tonight.

He is indeed.

He is indeed.

And the discussion is, w-who should they take on as attorneys? Of course, the ACLU is going to have their own attorney defending, uh, Scopes, and that will be a man named Arthur Hays.

But there's also a man whom you mentioned, Clarence Darrow, who's a notorious and celebrated criminal and labor lawyer, who has volunteered himself to defend Scopes pro bono without any fee at all, because he felt that this Butler Act is, uh, uh, filled with bigotry, uh, and fanatics.

And s-since it's being defended by another man, whom you mentioned, William Jennings Bryan, he wants-- he is-- he, Darrow, feels called to battle.

So part of the meeting that you're talking about in the ACLU offices, downtown Manhattan, um, have to do with who should defend John Scopes.

Well, but Hawthorne must have seen something in him.

He did.

He did.

And Pierce saw something in Hawthorne.

And in fact, Pierce is the one that got Hawthorne a gig in Italy.

Well, actually in England, Hawthorne then went to Italy being consul for the United States, which helped.

Hawthorne, who didn't really have much money, wasn't making a lot of money from Scarlet Letter and other books.

and darrow's a compelling figure but he you also complicate him like we get a lot of gray so early on you have this question that i can remember who asks it i think it was a reporter asking who is this man darrow so brenda who is this man darrow

And correct me if I'm wrong, but it felt like you were thinking that the questions that the Scopes trial illuminated for you seemed to circle around academic freedom.

Yes, absolutely.

Circled around a lot of things that were very important.

I think, aware of today.

Academic freedom, freedom to worship, obviously, freedom of speech, freedom to publish, censorship.

So it's not just academic freedom, although that's one of the freedoms that I think the trial really was about.

I think it was about a lot of things, but in that sense, I didn't set up to complicate anything, but what occurred to me is Why this trial at this time, right in the middle of the 1920s? What's going on in the 1920s? Why would people of that time be interested in this trial? What is this trial saying to us that we don't hear almost 100 years later, was almost 100 years was when I was writing it? And so those are the questions that I want to ask about anything, because I'm writing generally about either some kind of sense of the past.

I think it was a reporter asking, who is this man Darrow? So Brenda, who is this man Darrow?

How was that important for Bryan and his view of Darwinism?

Well, the interesting thing about Bryan, with his very storied career, by 1925 he's in his 60s, he probably isn't going to run for president again.

Although with Bryan, you could never tell.

And Bryan understood Darwinism as social Darwinism, and really, that was a gross misunderstanding.

He really thought social Darwinism was responsible, in many ways, for all the ills that the country was facing at the time.

And most specifically, he held it responsible for the slaughter in World War I.

He felt Darwinism, or what he understood as social Darwinism, had allowed people, because of their views of technology or their use of technology, had allowed them to create basically such terrible weapons as mustard gas, as aerial bombing.

Tell us more about him and what got him to Dayton.

I wonder if you can expand on the liberties that Hollywood took with the play and the film and some of the truth there.

Sure, absolutely.

I myself didn't see the film until I almost finished the book because I didn't want it in my head.

But I know a number of lawyers who said they became interested in the law and they became lawyers after seeing that movie as kids, which is sort of interesting.

So the caller is absolutely right that this movie had a tremendous impact on the way we think of the trial.

And the clip from Clarence Darrow or Henry Drummond, Spencer Tracy, who did a very good job in the movie, I must say, that was actually, in some sense, taken from the trial transcript.

And the trial transcripts are available.

Can you talk about that a little bit more? Because that's still very much a divide we're seeing in America in 2025.

(laughs)

You know, so, so there's w- that's the popular idea of the 1920s, but the 1920s is also the time of tremendous, um, intolerance. And, and, and, um, you know, the fear of what were called Bolsheviks or communists because there had just been a revolution in Russia. And there had just been a m- enormously destructive and incomprehensible war, the Great War, World War I. Which, which had s- you know, slaughter on a massive scale, and introduced new weapons of, then, mass destruction like mustard gas and aerial bombing. Just terrifying really in, in so many ways. Plus, 1924, you know, to get in the weeds just for a second, the, you know, Congress passed laws prohibiting more immigrants coming into the United States because there was such an influx of immigrants coming im- s- from the turn of the century to the '20s. And there was this sense in which, "Well, what is America anymore? We don't know what America is anymore. Everything seems different and weird." And there's an Einstein saying, "All things are relative." And so, you can see w- this is a time of, of, of, um, fear really. And one of the ways in understanding that fear is fear of change. So, "What are we gonna get back to?" uh, in a sense, is what is, the issue is being raised here. So, what are we gonna get back to? Uh, in a sense, is what is, the issue is being raised here. How can we get back to, that's according to Bryan and the fundamentalists, something fundamentally good and pure about this country? And w- and what is that thing?

So, how much, I mentioned this before, it really did happen, it's not just a scene from a movie that would make every lawyer roll their eyes, it really did happen that William Jennings Bryan was called as a witness because he declared himself an expert on the Bible, and then Darrow said, "Okay, let's call you to the witness stand." And then, well, as you document in the book, a lot of what we saw in the movie or read in the play really was reflected in the transcript. So, my question is did the trial, well, we know the results of the trial, but how important was that to either public perception or what the ACLU was trying to do in lay out, lay a precedent? Did it really, did it really hurt the case, um, even though the case was ultimately won by the prosecution?

Uh, well, you know, me personally, I don't think it hurt the case at all. There may be others who would argue that it, that it did, but if, you know, as you yourself said, we all know, or not all of us, but, you know, people have seen a, there was a movie, there was a play. You know, there, this, this became part of the kind of public fabric of America, this child- trial of the century. And that was partly because it moved outdoors, and Darrow and company put William Jennings Bryan on the stand which, you know, every time I speak to a group of lawyers, they're all kind of slapping their foreheads and saying, "This is, this is unprecedented. This is, you sh- can't do this." And, and even then, of course, people were saying, "You're putting Bryan on the stand," and the other members of the prosecution wanted him off, and the judge, (laughs) the judge was trying really hard to be fair, and he als- but he also wanted to hear Bryan. And Bryan wanted to go up there because, as we were just saying, he was a politician. He liked the limelight, and he really thought he could do a good job. So, here you have the most dramatic scene possible. Everybody, the newsreel cameras, the reporters, the spectators, the kids selling hot dogs, they're all outside on the courtroom, uh, outside the courtroom on the lawn in the hot July sun. They set up a kind of platform, and Darrow's up there in his shirtsleeves, and Bryan is there in his shirtsleeves, and they're both sweating. And Darrow lets Bryan have it, and Bryan thinks for a long time he's doing a good job, but they both lose their tempers. And, and it's, it's stunning and shocking, and w- when you say w- people, the sedate group in the ACLU are kind of horrified by this, and think that the case is really lost because it really did become a farce at this point. But there were others who felt Bryan had so impaled himself and his own literal reading of the Bible, and he basically, Darrow caught him in a trap almost inadvertently when he said to Bryan, "You really believe that the, that the earth, that everything on the earth, humans were, God created the whole thing in six days?" (laughs) And Bryan said, "Well, not six days literally. It's kind of figurative." And it was, you could almost, 100 years later, you could almost hear the gasp. It's like, "Oh my God, you don't believe what you say you believe?"

How far did the case go? Did the case go to the Supreme Court?

No, no, no.

What was interesting then, the case does go to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which is the first step on the road to the Supreme Court, which is what the ACLU ultimately wanted.

And Darrow argued before the Tennessee Supreme Court.

And as an aside, I just have to mention, because I found this so interesting, the ACLU at this point wanted to drop Darrow because they thought he was so controversial.

He's a radical lawyer, don't forget.

I mean, he wasn't just a progressive, he was a radical.

What about what it applies to today?

So who volunteered to defend?

Well, that's where it got very interesting and became a very big deal.

There was a fundamentalist Christian organization that thought this would be very interesting to have their main spokesperson, William Jennings Bryan, prosecute the case.

William Jennings Bryan had run for president on the Democratic ticket, mind you, three times and lost.

He was a big leader in the Democratic Party in 1925 still, even though he'd been around for a while.

When a very famous lawyer named Clarence Darrow, he was a star attorney at the time, heard that William Jennings Bryan was going to prosecute Scopes.

And since he was so offended himself by the Butler Law, he said, I'm volunteering to take on the defense.

Well...