John Scope Monkey Trial :: essays research papers

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) were already aware that the Act was likely to become honor because it had been passed by the lower house of the Tennessee legislature by a landslide (in January, 1925). After a few false starts, the ACLU sent a press qualifying to several Tennessee newspapers, such as the Chattanooga Daily Times, announcing that they would provide legal assistance, etc. for a school teacher in Tennessee who would be willing to project trial for having taught evolution in a public school so that a prove case could be mounted to challenge the constitutional daring of the Act.Encouraged by George Rappelyea, (a mining engineer who managed six local coal and iron mines owned by the Cumberland Coal Company), a group of leading citizens in the small town of Dayton* - the "drug store conspirators" - decided to accept the ACLUs offer, in the hope that the publicity surrounding the trial would help to reverse the towns declining fortunes. On may 4th the group recruited John Scopes, football coach and occasional stand-in teacher at Rhea County High School as the subject for the test case, on the basis that he had taught from the section on evolution in Hunters A Civic Biology - the State-approved textbook.(* Dayton is situated in the valley between the Cumberland tableland and the Appalachian Mountains. It is just a few miles West of a line from Chattanooga (36 miles to the Sou Sou West) to Knoxville (79 miles to the North East).)Rappelyea sent a telegram to the ACLUs New York office. The ACLU replied promptly, accepting his proposal. Scopes was aerated on May 7th with having taught evolution on April 24th, 1925. A preliminary hearing on May 10th bound him over pending a specially convened Grand Jury hearing on May 25th. The membersof the Grand Jury, who are well aware of the true purpose of the charge against Scopes, handed atomic pile an indictment and Scopes was instructed to present himself at the Rhea County court house for t rial on the morning of July 10th.At no time was Scopes held in jail on this charge which, by the way, was only classed as a "misdemeanor", not a "crime."The OvertureOn hearing about the trial, from the leaders of the WFCA (Worlds Christian bedrock Association), on May 12th William Jennings Bryan volunteered his services to the prosecution. By the end of that week Clarence Darrow had contacted Scopes with an offer to appear pro bono for the defense.