“They Are Eating the Dogs!”

Unhinged, deranged, and imploding as we witness with our own eyes and ears

In 1925, William Jennings Bryan took on the role of lead prosecuting attorney as the State of Tennessee charged local high school teacher John Scopes for a violation of the Butler Act. State law prohibited “any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” (Bold italics, mine)

To teach evolution was a violation of the law. Other states, such as Mississippi and Arkansas enacted similar restrictions. Tennessee did not rescind the Butler Act until 1967, just before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned all such laws in 1968 as a violation of the separation of church and state.

William Jennings Bryan was nominated three times as the Democratic nominee for President - 1896, 1900 and 1908. In each election, he was defeated. But he was a powerful communicator, drawing huge crowds all across the country. He was known as “The Commoner” and “The Prince of Peace.” He spoke against the war, for labor, for women’s suffrage, for prohibition (of alcohol), and most of all, for fundamentalist Christianity. He enjoyed the support of the Ku Klux Klan. The primary culprits he named as responsible for destroying America: Charles Darwin and Frederick Nietzsche.

He stood in the sweltering heat of the Dayton courtroom against his legal adversary, Clarence Darrow. The aging Bryan was sweaty, exhausted, overweight, and suffering from untreated diabetes. 

The “Trial of the Century” caught the nation’s full attention. Daily headlines hit the front page of the most influential newspapers. Radio, the latest communication technology, brought the daily proceedings into households across America. Those living room receivers held a massive audience spellbound. 

The Scopes case was a vigorous fight to the finish: Evolution vs. The Bible. 

In an unprecedented moment in legal history, at Darrow’s suggestion, the prosecuting attorney agreed to sit in the witness chair. Jennings willingly, eagerly took the stand to defend his Bible against the heresy of atheistic Evolution. A ferocious verbal joust commenced between Darrow and Jennings.  

Darrow declared the Butler Act an assault on academic and personal freedom. The defense attorney went on the attack, interrogating Bryan. Six-day creation? 4004 B.C.? Universal flood? Cain’s wife? Noah’s ark? Jonah swallowed by a big fish? The sun stood still? 

Really?

Jennings argued that an abandonment of the Bible’s literal account of creation was the cause of every social malady, every immorality, political corruption, every vice, debauchery, and perversion. Dayton’s church-going crowd wholeheartedly agreed.

The intense clash of incompatible worldviews went on for hours.

In the suffocating humidity of July, William Jennings Bryan, drenched in sweat cowered in defeat under Darrow’s relentless questioning. But he would not yield. He became obstinate. Incoherent. Defensive. Muddled. Unintelligible. “Atheists!” “Evolutionists!” “Destroying our children!” “Destroying our country!”

As the world watched, he snapped. 

On the following Sunday morning, just five days after the trial, he preached a bitterly defensive sermon at a large church in Dayton, trying his best to recover his now tarnished reputation. 

That afternoon, while napping, he suffered a massive heart attack and died.

* * * * * * * *

This week’s one and only Presidential debate was a blistering defeat for the former president. 

Most everyone agreed - including the conservative media, Republican and Democrat leaders, voters red and blue. Throughout the debate, on that split-screen, we witnessed an aging, scowling, sullen, weary contender in cakey makeup against a vibrant, smiling, confident, informed, bright-eyed, prepared and focused woman ready for battle.

Darrow vs. Bryan.

If you only caught the sound bytes through the filter of a talking head, I would suggest you go back to C-Span and watch the debate in its entirety before you draw your own conclusions. 

As Donald Trump made his way into the “Spin Room” just after the debate, it was as though he snapped. He wrongly claimed total victory. “My best performance ever!” All of the polls, he declared, confirmed that he won: 90%, 72%, 85%, 68%... like he was quoting factual data. He pathetically stood there alone in the middle of the floor re-litigating the debate, restating his key (unsubstantiated) arguments, blaming the moderators and the mainstream media as intentionally biased and cruel. Everyone, he complained, is out to discredit him.

You’re fired! I’ll sue! It’s a disgrace!

“She let millions and millions and millions enter our country from prisons and insane asylums bringing crime and disease, taking our jobs, destroying our cities, and they’re [illegally] voting for Democrats!” 

“Not many people know this - the fake news doesn’t report it… They are EATING THE DOGS!” (Repeat. Repeat. Double down.)

William Jennings Bryan.

* * * * * * *

I just finished reading Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation by Brenda Wineapple. It’s an historical account of the Scopes Trial of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.

Next year will be the 100th Anniversary of the trial that riveted the nation. 

A few years back, the late Rachel Held Evans wrote her first book in which she described her own crisis of faith. She’s a graduate of a conservative Christian college in Dayton, Tennessee: Bryan University, named after the famed attorney/politician - William Jennings Bryan. Her study of the historic exchange between Darrow and Bryan prompted her to question the literalist, fundamentalist version of Christianity she’d been taught - and was expected to embrace. I remember well reading her 2010 book, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. I loved it.

Today, those same fundamentalists are as active and prominent as they were a hundred years ago. They’ve gone after control of the Supreme Court. To this day, they consider the “former President” to be their current and future President. They ban books. They eliminate women’s health care and criminalize doctors and the women in their care. They take over local school boards. They fill and enrich politically focussed MAGA megachurches. They suppress voter registration. They demonize anyone who challenges their presumption of domination. They claim to have God on their side.

We would do well to listen to Clarence Darrow. 

Ours is a democracy. We are free to worship as we will, or not. We respect human rights, not just for ourselves, but for our fellow Americans. We are committed to the common good.

In 1925, Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee law. But fundamentalism was exposed for what it is. It took decades, but the Courts finally chose democracy over a tyranny rooted in ignorance and prejudice.

On November 5th, we can do the same.