Eighty-five years ago today -- Tuesday, July 14, 1925 -- was the third day of the trial of State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes.
The jury remained out of the courtroom for the day, as the Court was still considering the defense motion to quash the indictment. The public and the press, however, were still very much present, and the fact that proceedings would be dashed and dotted to the world over the telegraph lines, or beamed by radio waves to thousands of listeners, was very much on everybody's mind -- not least that of Judge John T. Raulston.
This is the third of an ongoing series considering the events of the 1925 Scopes trial day by day. The first two installments can be found here (July 10, 1925) and here (July 13, 1925).
The day began with yet another improbable dispute, as defense attorney Clarence Darrow challenged the court's custom of opening the day with a prayer. In the context of what he called "a conflict between science and religion", Darrow believed that a prayer - promoting the interests of religion - was improper; it was, he said, "turning.... this courtroom into a meeting house" (i.e., a church assembly).
Attorney-General Stewart, speaking for the prosecution, denied that the case was a conflict between science and religion, and - rather gratuitously - said that
such an idea extended by the agnostic counsel for the defense is foreign to the thoughts and ideas of the people, who do not know anything about infidelity and care less.
Messrs. Hays and Malone, attorneys for the defense, not surprisingly took exception. Dudley Field Malone stated that the prayers that had already been made,
help to increase the atmosphere of hostility to our point of view which already exists in this community by widespread propaganda.
Stewart rejoined: "I would advise Mr. Malone that this is a god-fearing country!"
"No more god-fearing country than that from which I came!" answered Malone (a New Yorker).
Raulston concluded the spat by stating that it had been his custom, when convenient, to start court with prayer, saying that "I constantly invoke divine guidance myself, when I am on the bench and off the bench", but that he had "instructed the ministers who have been invited.... to make no reference to the issues involved in this case." The defense's objection was therefore overrruled, and a minister offered an opening prayer.
Darrow declined to add anything to his peroration of the previous day, and Stewart had no rejoinder. Raulston admitted that he had not been able to complete a ruling on the motions made by the defense the previous day, due to a power outage that had left him without light, and he would need some more time; and so, following a demurrer filed by defense attorney John R. Neal, on the same issues as those raised in the motion to quash (using a different legal stratagem to the same end), Raulston paused for photographs from the press (he was very keen on getting his picture in the papers) and the court recessed for three hours, until 1:00 p.m.
When the court resumed its session, Mr. Hays for the defense presented a petition from representatives of Jewish, Unitarian, and Congregationalist temples and churches, suggesting that the court alternate its ministers with "officiating clergymen from among other than fundamentalist churches", noting that "there are many to whom the prayers of the fundamentalists are not spiritually uplifting and are occasonally offensive"; together with which Hays moved that
we have an opportunity to hear prayers by men who think that God has shown his divinity in the wonders of nature, in the book of nature, quite as much as in the book of the revealed word.
Raulston referred the petition to the Dayton pastors' association -- which was, of course, dominated by fundamentalists. The decision provoked laughter and applause from the crowd, who assumed that only fundamentalist clergy would continue to be chosen; but in fact the pastor's association proved to be fair-minded on the subject, and subsequently conservative and liberal clergy alternated, in accordance with the petition.
Raulston spent the rest of the day trying to ferret out a pressman whom he believed to have "corruptly secured" a copy of his ruling on the motion, and published it prior to his actually delivering his ruling. The press were simply stating that Raulston had held the law constitutional (as he was expected to do); but the matter so exercised Raulston that he could do no further business that day, and instead he adjourned to meet with all the members of the press (presumably giving them an additional chance for photographs). The court was to resume the next day at 9:00 a.m.