Again, Evolution

On Nov. 24, 1859, Charles Robert Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The entire first edition (1,250 copies) was sold by the next afternoon.

Since then many voices have been raised against the Darwin theory, many an evangelist has shouted maledictions against the memory and followers of the Great Evolutionist. In the U. S., as everyone knows, the peak of the Darwin controversy was the famed Dayton, Tenn., debate between Attorney Clarence Darrow and the late great William Jennings Bryan (TIME, July 27, 1925).

After that debate, Evolution seemed to slip quietly out of the public press and mind. But actually fundamentalists and anti-evolutionists were banding together, distributing propaganda. In California blossomed the Bryan Bible League; in Philadelphia, the World's Christian Fundamentals Association. Elsewhere in the U. S. started the American Anti-False Science League, the Fundamentalist League, the Anti-Evolution League. The names BRYAN and DARWIN continued to ring in crowded halls, though afte-the Scopes climax the newspapers paid small attention. Mississippi and Arkansas followed the lead of Tennessee, passed laws against the teaching of Evolution in State-supported schools. In the legislatures ot 16 other States similar bills were introduced. And last week citizens of the U. S. had to realize, perhaps wearily, that the tumult and the shouting about Evolution has started again with vigor renewed.

In Indianapolis, last week, the apostolic, frock-coated figure of Evangelist Paul Rader, onetime prize fighter, dominated a group of determined antievolutionists. Defenders of the Christian Faith, they called themselves. Their plan: "To establish 48 nerve centres [one in each State] for the suppression of pernicious teachings that are undermining the very moral fibre of our youth."

"The very moral fibre"" is, of course, a phrase which always indicates that its utterer means business. And Evangelist Rader further stirred his hearers with many a Bryanesque booming. Examples:

"The Bible, as the infallible word of God, is being crucified on the cross of culture and neo-culture and nailed in place with the nails of taboo."

"Evolution is the salad dressing of science and a fad that will pass as the minds of scientists grow."

"Men once believed that the earth was flat, but not even a monkey could believe he was related to man."