In 1925, stuff happened; great big, jazz-crazed, temperance rallying, radio-listening wads of stuff. Some of
the events of 1925 were tragedies of epic proportions, such as the birth of Merv Griffin. Others events, such as the appointment of Frank B. Kellogg as US Secretary of State, brought in the Utopian view that international crises could be solved by two scoops of raisins and those delicious flakes of bran. It was widely agreed that the selection of Kellogg was Grrrreat!!
But not all the events of 1925 were so clearly black and white. Well, there was the march on Washington of forty-thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan; that deal was about as black and white as an event can be. Other than that 1925 was a year full of nuanced events like American Zeppelin crashes, the development of the basis of quantum mechanics and the addition of the Pottsville Maroons to the National Football League.
What could conceivably be more not black and white than a Maroon?
For my purposes as a humorist, the most important event of 1925 was the Scopes Monkey Trial in which a young high school teacher was brought before the courts of Tennessee for making a chimpanzee drink mouthwash. Scopes claimed that it was entertaining and informative while the State held that giving monkeys fresh breath would only lead to inter-species dating. Further, in nearby Mississippi, Governor Henry L. Whitfield has just rocked the state by being the first elected official to put lipstick on a pig, and then consummate the relationship.
Apparently while giving a speech on improving the public schools.
Given that the lewd, groin-engorging Charleston was the most popular dance of the day, you can see why they would be concerned about the dexterous, multi-limbed allure of sweet-smelling monkeys. The eighty-third anniversary of the start of the trial took place yesterday, and I think we can all say that we are glad that the sensible people of Tennessee stopped that train at the station. Had the verdict turned out differently, how long might it have been before the horrified nation would have faced the Vagisil Manatee Trial? I think you see my point – society at the brink!
Hold on for a minute…
It turns out that the Scopes Monkey Trial is nothing at all like what I just described. The lovely and erudite Mrs. Sinister informs me that;
The Scopes Monkey Trial was actually brought because of a young high school teacher who taught evolution in science class in violation of the Butler Act. Butler specified that no state classroom could teach any theory that denies the story of “Divine Creation”.
After an epic trial (with a lightsaber duel, I’m betting) between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, Scopes was convicted of teaching that humans had evolved from lower order animals – a charge that Scopes never challenged. Scopes was in fact a willing volunteer to a pre-planned challenge to the Butler Act proposed by the ACLU. The conviction was overturned on appeal. Ruling on a technical rather than legal issue, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the verdict because the sentence (a 100$ fine) was issued by the judge and not the jury.
Mother of mongoose! My wife is wicked smart! She just dictated that whole mess of knowledge while driving the car, getting my oldest daughter to leave my youngest daughter alone and reading a news report about the anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Tri…
Damn her.
As near as I can tell, Scopes did more to raise the issue than to settle it. In the United States, the matter was not settled until 1968 when, in Epperson v. Arkansas, the US Supreme Court ruled that laws forbidding evolution from schools was unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, 1968 was also the year that Bill Clinton got an unusual 1-A draft deferment from Vietnam and officially became a weasel. For writing that, Rush Limbaugh will send me a cigar.
The dramatic high-point of the trial was an exchange where Darrow and Bryan argue the literal interpretation of the Genesis account. By all accounts it was such a debate that the model of the argument itself changed. Darrow challenged the Biblical account as being incomplete, asking Bryan to account for the creation of Cain’s wife.
Bryan, in the best spirit of unmovable apologetics, answered that the agnostics could sort that out. For him, the inconsistency was not very important. Say what you will about Bryan and Darrow, they were both very impressive brains.
Today, after 83 years of leaning progress and technology, we get two fine specimens of humanity who wish to argue postulate blather on that the similarities between soda cans and banana’s prove that god exists.
The obvious stupidity of that should make your head hurt. If it doesn’t, I think I might be having a stroke.
7 Comments
11 July , 2008 at 10:12 pm
Wow you really are back! Two posts in two days! Nice to see you back Dan. Now that you are around again, you want to be added to the cue for an Angry Seafood interview?
11 July , 2008 at 10:57 pm
Sign me up.
…and it’s three posts in four days…
One of them must have really blown.
12 July , 2008 at 12:26 am
After all that learnin’ I just did, all I could think of was “Is that Frank Barone in that picture with Hitler?”
And that goes to show I’m only TV smart.
12 July , 2008 at 6:29 am
i see what you doing. cynical bastard. this post will get you slammed with manatee porn traffic.
12 July , 2008 at 6:33 am
Hee.. I have never heard of the charleston referred to as “groin-engorging” before…
14 July , 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hey SinisterDan,
Sorry, but your wife is incorrect. The Scopes Monkey Trial was fought between Spencer Tracey and Frederic March.
Rock On,
Aitch
14 July , 2008 at 1:06 pm
See, I knew she was messin’ with me.