Edward J. Larson       . . . is a lawyer and historian. With a law degree from Harvard and a doctorate in the history of science from the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Larson holds a joint appointment in history and law at the University of Georgia. His book Summer for the Gods, about the Scopes "Monkey Trial," won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998. For his work on this book, Dr. Larson was awarded a fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center. He lives in Stanwood, WA, and Athens, GA.

3:44

"Science versus religion," "minority rights versus majority rule" -- tomorrow's headlines? Not when you add "Scopes Monkey Trial." The outcome is as important today as it was in 1925.

Edward J. Larson won a Pulitzer Prize for Summer for the Gods, his book about the Scopes Trial. Larson, a respected historian and lawyer, declares the Scopes Trial key to the revolution away from the dominance of majority rule and toward protecting individual rights. But, he says, very little has changed around the narrow issue of the trial itself -- teaching evolution in public schools.

Forget "Inherit the Wind." Good theater, maybe. Bad history, certainly. Nobody won. In fact, Larson characterizes the effects of this sensational trial as a classic example of the Anglo-American adversarial legal system. Both sides had their say: Bryan spoke for majority rule and against teaching evolution (which he construed as "Social Darwinism"); Darrow spoke for minority rights and defended the academic freedom of teachers to decide what to teach, including evolution. But nothing was resolved.  In fact, the trial further entrenched both sides.

In addition to being a huge national media event -- filmed for the first time, printed verbatim by hundreds of newspapers across the nation, critiqued, analyzed and discussed in every conceivable forum -- it was a contest between titans. Clarence Darrow versus William Jennings Bryan. And everything about the trial was ripe with contractions.

William Jennings Bryan -- a classic 19th century progressive, liberal, Bible-believing Christian, pacifist, passionate champion of the common man and of majority rights -- was the greatest orator of the age. His politically conservative co-religionists, for whom he was spokesman, supported none of Bryan's political agenda, interested only in keeping evolution from being taught in public schools.

Clarence Darrow was the greatest criminal lawyer of the time, but loathed by many. Those who lined up behind Darrow had been on the other side of the "free speech" argument. As long as the First Amendment rights of out-of-favor groups (workers, labor organizers, individuals sympathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution) were being violated, the establishment stood staunchly behind majority rule. But scientists and the intellectual establishment accepted evolution. When Tennessee passed a law declaring public schoolteachers could not teach evolution (because the majority did not accept it), the will of the majority was suddenly the treat of a "mobocracy." And the long march toward protecting individual freedoms had begun.

The issues Darrow and Bryan debated in the summer of 1925 still hold a great deal of heat. The balance between individual and majority rights is always at issue in all democracies. And with the global swelling of religious fundamentalism in today's world, there is renewed religious resistance to teaching evolution. But Professor Larson believes most people chose not to espouse either of the entrenched positions reinforced in Dayton. Most people, he's convinced, believe in both God and evolution. And they're grateful their right to express those beliefs is protected.

[This Program was recorded March 23, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia, US.]

Dr. Edward Larson, Esq. tells Paula Gordon and Bill Russell how he came to write Summer for the Gods. He explains why the Scopes "Monkey Trial" was the real Trial of the Century, pitting Clarence Darrow -- the most famous criminal lawyer of the day -- against William Jennings Bryan -- the most famous orator of the day -- in a debate over ideas still contested today, worldwide.

7:21