Clash between Science and Monkey Business: Decline of Fundamentalism from the Democratic Party Politics after the Scopes Trial

Abstract

In 1925, a small legal case occurred in Dayton, Tennessee, which came to the fore in the United States. In this case, known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, John T. Scopes, a biology teacher in a high school in Dayton, was accused of violating the law by teaching Darwin’s evolution theory. Fundamentalists believed that this theory was a law of hate, while the liberal aspect approached it as a matter of freedom of thought. This clash turned into a showdown in the Democratic Party, by the representation of two wings of this party in this trial. While William Jennings Bryan, a religious fundamentalist, a three-time presidential candidate of the Democrats was the accuser, liberal Democrat lawyer Clarence Darrow was the defender. Bryan and Darrow stepped forward in this trial, as the representatives of the different wings of the Democratic Party, which was in a crisis of identity in the 1920s. Although Scopes was convicted of a 100-dollar penalty, this was not perceived as a victory of the fundamentalism in the American society, specifically in the Democratic Party. After that trial, the decline of the fundamentalist type of politics and politicians in the party began. In the second part of the 1920s, the fundamentalists took only the backseat in the Democratic Party. Firstly, the fundamentalist leader Bryan passed away with a broken heart after the trial. Secondly, leaderless fundamentalists tried to pass anti-evolutionist legislations in the Midwest and South; however, they could not succeed. In the end, the nomination of the Al Smith, a liberal, progressive character as the presidential candidate of 1928, pushed the fundamentalists aside. Therefore, this article aims to evaluate the fundamentalist aspect in the Democratic Party politics and its transformation throughout the 1920s, over the Scopes Trial debates and its consequences