"Rappelyea's Razzberry"

It was a reductio ad absurdum that the chemist and coal man, George W. Rappelyea, of Dayton, Tenn., had in mind when he caused the arrest of his friend John T. Scopes, 24-year-old instructor in the Rhea High School (TIME, May 18, 25). It started in a drug-store conversation; Scopes told Rappelyea that he was still using a Biology text book containing an explanation of the theory of evolution which had once been approved by state authorities and not yet recalled, though Tennessee's anti-evolution act had been the law for a month. Rappelyea swore out a warrant, "to test the law." But it turned out an infectious jest. Laws tending to infringe upon the freedom of mankind's intellectual liberty had been cropping up all over the country lately--an anti-parochial-and-private-school law in Oregon (TIME, Mar. 30, SUPREME COURT), similar laws (defeated, however) in Alabama and Michigan, lukewarm efforts for an anti-evolution law in Florida, similar laws pending in West Virginia and Georgia, narrowly defeated in Kentucky and North Carolina, passed but repealed in Oklahoma. Tennessee's case, for all its levity of origin, was clean-cut. It iso- lated the issue of all the others. So "Rappelyea's razzberry" grew to mammoth size. Last week, Dayton was intoxicated with "boom" elixir like a small town expecting titular pugilism. College presidents wired for reserved seats in the courthouse auditorium. Eminent lawyers were coming for the defense--suave Dudley Field Malone of Manhattan, cynical Clarence Darrow of Chicago. Perhaps England's H. G. Wells would send a message. Curious hundreds would be sure to jostle for a glimpse of the mournful Bryan, whose moans were loud in the land as, defeated on a Presbyterian issue (see RELIGION), he advertised his leadership of the crusade against "monkeyism." With a snarl or two at Chattanooga, who seemed to covet its juicy bone of publicity, Dayton made ready. The Progressive Club "drove" for $5,000 for additional publicity. A drug store re-named itself "Monkeyville Soda Fountain" and dispensed miniature simians. To house the crowds expected, the railroad company was asked for a fleet of Pullman cars. Cordell Hull, onetime Democratic National Chairman, Rhea County's representative in Congress, was requested to beg a village of tents from the War Department. In the court house, radio broadcasting apparatus was set up, with loud speakers out on the lawn and Instructor Scopes, ordinarily a quiet and reasonable young man, declared that he was "ready to fight and, if need be, to die" for a right whose national champion he never expected to be.

Meantime, over in Macon County, a certain Farmer-Legislator, J. W. Butler, simple and unassuming, toiled in his fields with plow and harrow, not greatly concerned that the bill into which he had written the faith of his fathers had been seized upon as the classic foe of intellectual freedom.