CYKIAE (Christ You Know It Ain't Easy)

CYKIAE Season 15 Part 41. And Christ Rose Yet Again – The Sudden Death of Atheism – The Scopes Monkey Trial – Dayton Tennessee – Freedom of Speech.

Darrow … had grand matters to place before the country — issues of academic liberty, free thought, and scientific inquiry. He hoped, by calling scientists to the stand, to educate the public and alert them to the threat posed by rural zealots with their silly lockstep creed. And the defense was aided by public expectations. The country was looking forward to a spectacular debate on Monkeys and Man, led by the titans Darrow and Bryan. So wrote John Farrell in his biography, Clarence Darrow, Attorney for the Damned. Was that add on just a clever title or did it conceal more truth about the Scopes Monkey Trial than Farrell realised? Bryan may have thought that he was on the side of God, but Darrow knew that he was on higher moral ground, he was defending science and the right of the evolutionary scientists to tell the truth that man was descended from the apes and that Bryan’s God was dead. Isn’t that what the Darrow character was saying in the movie Inherit the Wind in that passage I opened the last programme with - for this insight and for this knowledge we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis. Why? Because God was dead. Darrow could unembarrassedly say to William Jennings Bryan: I am holier than thou. Or could he? Tag words: Clarence Darrow; John Farrell; Scopes Monkey Trial; William Jennings Bryan; God; Genesis; American Civil Liberties Union; ACLU; Edward J Larson; Summer for the Gods; Dudley Field Malone; John Randolph Neal; Arthur Garfield Hays; Henry Linville; Darwin’s Theory of Evolution; Academic freedom; Harry F Ward; American Association of University Professors; Christianity; Jonathon Wells; Zombie Science; Charles Darwin; Richard Dawkins; River Out of Eden; The Origin of Species; Icons of Evolution; The Descent of Man; Freedom of speech;

CYKIAE Season 15 Part 40. And Christ Rose Yet Again – The Sudden Death of Atheism – The Scopes Monkey Trial – Dayton Tennessee – The Atheists Who Were Holier Than Thou.

Darwin took us forward to a hilltop from where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this insight and for this knowledge we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis Thus sprake Henry Drummond, (Spencer Tracy) who played the fictional role of the real life Clarence Darrow in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind which was based, ever so loosely on the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton Tennessee in 1926. So loosely that the play and the screenplay truly deserve the name fiction. This trial was backed to the hilt by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, which was determined to uphold academic freedom. Freedom of thought. Or was it something else that they were upholding? Anyway don’t listen to me, listen to Henry Drummond: Tag words: Charles Darwin;. Henry Drummond; Spencer Tracy; Clarence Darrow; Inherit the Wind; Scopes Monkey Trial; Dayton Tennessee; American Civil Liberties Union; ACLU; Theory of Evolution; Professor John Randolph Neal; Edward J Larson; Summer for the Gods; American Association of University Professors; AAUP; William Jennings Bryan; Darwinism; University of Tennessee; Harcourt A. Morgan; professor J W Sprowls; Fundamentalism; freedom of teaching; ALCU; American Civil Liberties Union; Henry Linville; professor John Dewey; Harry F. Ward; Felix Frankfurter; emeritus David Starr Jordan; Jonathon Wells; Zombie Science; Roger Baldwin; George W Rappleyea;

CYKIAE Season 15 Part 39. And Christ Rose Yet Again – The Sudden Death of Atheism – The Scopes Monkey Trial – She Murdered Her Philandering Husband in Court and He Got Her Off because She Was a Widow

William Jennings Bryan was pitched against Clarence Darrow in the Scopes Monkey Trial – and it wasn’t a fair fight. John Farrell, in his biography, Clarence Darrow – Attorney for the Damned, wrote of one of Darrow’s more remarkable court wins – and he had had many remarkable court wins: He was a practicing defense lawyer, and in his time he represented … many a scorned woman like Emma Simpson, the socialite who smuggled a handgun into court and shot her philandering husband in the midst of their divorce proceeding. "You've killed him!" said a shocked clerk. "I hope so," said Emma. Meeting the classic definition of chutzpah, Darrow convinced the jury to have mercy on the widow. The types of cases and the types of clients that Darrow appeared in and represented were in an entirely different league to the ones that Bryan was used to. Darrow had been almost constantly in practice with the most remarkably complex variety of cases imaginable. Bryan had not practised law for 30 years. The legal contest was one between Darrow, armed with the best Samurai sword, and Jennings, armed with an airline plastic knife. But, having said that, the results weren’t what you would expect. Tag words: William Jennings Bryan; Clarence Darrow; Scopes Monkey Trial; John Farrell; Clarence Darrow – Attorney for the Damned; Prendergast; Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb; Bobby Franks; James McNamara; Los Angeles Times; Big Bill Haywood; Red Scare; Isaac Bond; Scottsboro boys; Ossian Sweet; Henry Sweet; Emma Simpson; Edward J Larson; ACLU; American Civil Liberties Union; NAACP; Darwin’s Theory of Evolution; Christianity; The Commoner; Omar Khayyam; Dudley Field Malone; Nietzsche; Felix Frankfurter; Bainbridge Colby;

CYKIAE Season 15. Part 38. And Christ Rose Yet Again – The Sudden Death of Atheism – The Scopes Monkey Trial – Dayton Tennessee – William Jennings Bryan the Legend Prosecuting Scopes.

William Jennings Bryan had won the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for President against William McKinley in 1895. For the same elections, Clarence Darrow had secured for himself the nomination of the Democratic party to run for Congress. Darrow in fact spent most of his time campaigning vigorously for Bryan, to the detriment of his own campaign. In the result both he and Bryan failed in their bids for office. John Farrell, in his book Clarence Darrow, Attorney for the Damned wrote: Darrow blamed Bryan, in part, for the Democratic defeat. When they met the following spring, Darrow was "terribly raw" to Bryan, said Masters. "You'd better . . . study science, history, philosophy and quit this village religious stuff," Darrow told Bryan before a group of fellow Democrats. "You're a head of the party before you are ready and a leader should lead with thought." Bryan turned to the others and said, "Darrow's the only man in the world who looks down on me for believing in God." "Your kind of a God," Darrow replied. Bryan's success gnawed at Darrow. He despised Bryan's dull intellect and complacency. Soon, Darrow would be telling a story of how Altgeld, on the day after the Cross of Gold speech, had labeled Bryan a "damn fool." "I've been thinking over Bryan's speech," Altgeld had sneered, according to Darrow. "What did he say anyhow?" For thirty years, Darrow's envy and antipathy toward Bryan would build — until he was given, and took, the opportunity to destroy him. In part the story of the Scopes Monkey Trial is the story of Darrow finally seizing the chance to take his revenge on Bryan. Tag words: William Jennings Bryan; William McKinley; Clarence Darrow; John Farrell; Clarence Darrow, Attorney for the Damned; Scopes Monkey Trial; Edward Larson; Summer for the Gods; The Boy Orator of the Platte; Great Commoner; Peerless Leader; Cross of Gold speech; Darwinism; majoritarian; Jonathon Wells; Zombie Science; Theory of Evolution; H G Wells; Dudley Field Malone; John Randolph Neal;

CYKIAE Season 15 Part 37. And Christ Rose Yet Again – The Sudden Death of Atheism – The Scopes Monkey Trial – Dayton Tennessee – A Boy Named Sue.

Now here’s what could sound like a very modern story. Only it isn’t. In this part I’m going to be telling you about Sue Hicks of Tennessee. Except Sue Hicks isn’t the 1925 Southern Belle that you might be thinking she is, in any event Sue Hicks wasn’t originally from Tennessee. Although in one sense Sue was. But in another she wasn’t – but one thing is for sure and certain, Sue Hicks played an essential part in what was soon to become known as the Monkey Trial. Tag words: Sue Hicks; Monkey Trial; Scopes Monkey Trial; Edward J Larson; Summer for the Gods;Leopold Loeb Case; John Farrell; Clarence Darrow – Attorney for the Damned; American Civil Liberties Union; ACLU: George W Rappleyea; Fred E Robinson; Walter White; John Godsey; Herbert E Hicks; Sue K Hicks; Wallace Haggard; John T Scopes; Hunter's Civic Biology; William Jennings Bryan; Clarence Darrow; Mencken;