Monkey Fizz

CENTER OF THE STORM: MEMOIRS OF JOHN T. SCOPES by John T. Scopes and James Presley. 277 pages. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. $5.95.

In every account, the 1925 trial of John T. Scopes, who was accused of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee schools, is cited as a cultural showdown. The event pitted fundamentalists against religious skeptics, conservatives against radicals, fear of change against freedom of thought. According to the man who was at the center of the affair, it was even more than that. In this quietly amused memoir, John T. Scopes recalls it all as a hell of a lot of fun.

Bursting with Ballyhoo. Scopes, 66, still considers himself a freethinker, but he admits that he was chosen to test Tennessee's anachronistic antievolution law because he was the only available high school teacher left in the dusty little mining town of Dayton (pop. 1,800) that summer when local Chamber of Commerce types decided to work up a little publicity for themselves. Called away from a tennis game one hot afternoon, Scopes duly reported to "Doc" Robinson's drugstore, where a bunch of ambitious boosters asked him if he had ever taught evolution. "To tell the truth," says Scopes, who taught high school chemistry and coached the football team, "I wasn't sure I had." But he was an amiable 24-year-old, and he was willing to go along.

Soon Dayton was bursting with ballyhoo. Local stores sold bales of cotton apes and bundles of buttons proclaiming "Your Old Man's a Monkey." Robinson's drugstore featured a "Monkey Fizz." The town's only hostelry, the Hotel Aqua, raised its rates to $8 a 'day, and soapboxes sprouted on every corner. Chicago's radio station WGN set up the first nationwide radio hookup to cover the trial in Dayton's bell-towered, red brick courthouse. Bald-pated William Jennings Bryan, munching radishes by the sackful because he was on a diet, starred for the prosecution and sold Florida real estate on the side; Clarence Darrow, in a straw katy and snappy galluses, handled the defense with all the warmth of a cobra.

Just Desserts. The pair of lawyers could have--perhaps should have--done their routine at the Palace. During one involved inquisition, Bryan quoted a Buddhist monk to the effect that Buddhism is an "agnostic" religion. Agnostic Darrow wanted to know what the monk looked like. "How tall was he?" Replied Bryan: "I think he was about as tall as you, but not so crooked."

Inevitably, as Darrow had predicted all along, Scopes was convicted and fined $100. Just as inevitably, the conviction was reversed in a higher court (though Tennessee's antievolution law is still on the books). Dayton reverted to quietude; Darrow went on to further legal dramatics; Scopes himself became an oil-company geologist, retired in 1964 and finally found time to complete his engaging memoir with the help of freelance Journalist James Presley.

For Bryan, the Great Commoner, Dayton was the end of a long trail studded with lost causes. He died of "apoplexy" less than a week after the trial, and his supporters instantly elevated him to martyrdom. Scopes feels that Bryan knew he had failed to stem the tide of scientific modernism despite the fact that he had won a fight in court. "No fair man would judge Bryan's place in history by his actions at Dayton alone," concludes Scopes. "He deserves better." As the man who stirred up the controversy, Scopes wryly comments on his own just desserts. During his last visit to Dayton, in 1960, Robinson's drugstore honored him with a "Scopes Soda--15-c-'

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