The state of Tennessee had passed an act
That teaching evolution was a crime. (1)
It said all Bible stories were a fact
And life did not evolve from primal slime.

John Scopes, a high school teacher, volunteered
To break the law, submitting to arrest.
Two famous lawyers, one damned, one revered,
Both came to town for this historic test.

First, Clarence Darrow, well-known atheist,
Would represent John Scopes for the defense.
And William Jennings Bryan joined the list
Of prosecutors for the Scopes offense.

So, starting on the tenth day of July, (2)
The trial began; folks came from everywhere:
A flood of Christians, each the Lord’s ally,
And atheistic skeptics, also there.

The cynic, Mencken, came from Baltimore, (3)
And said conviction was a certainty.
The jury was just Christian men, therefore,
Charles Darwin would bow to divinity.

Biologists called to the witness stand,
Were all ruled out of order by the court.
Which meant most scientific facts were banned,
And left the Scopes defense without support.

But experts on the Bible were allowed,
So, Clarence Darrow, to the court’s surprise,
To show he was unbending and unbowed,
Asked William Jennings Bryan to please rise

And take the witness stand to testify.
The judge approved and Bryan took the stand,
To battle all who tried to falsify
The truth as written by God’s Holy Hand.

Then Bryan, soldier, witness, testified
That every single word in Holy Writ
Was true and therefore could not be denied.
And every true believer must submit.

Which meant that Darwin’s modern theory
Of speciation up from simpler forms
Should be considered Devil’s sorcery,
A sin that violated Christian norms.

Then Darrow showed that Bryan’s “expertise”
Should be received with quite a lot of doubt,
His cross-examination masterpiece, (4)
Led all of Bryan’s claims to be thown out. (5)

A few days later, God called Bryan “home.” (6)
He gave his all, his final battle…won?
Now, up in heaven, he may freely roam
With Christ’s apostles, of whom he’s now one.

As Mencken noted, John Scopes’ fate was sealed.
The Christian jury did what you’d expect.
But, when their “guilty” verdict was appealed,
The court’s proceedings were ruled incorrect. (7)

So, did the Bible lose and Darwin win?
(Research shows evolution is a fact.)
And Tennessee repented of its sin;
They finally repealed the Butler Act. (8)

(1) The Butler Act, passed in March, 1925.
(2) The trial ran from July 10 to 21, 1925.
(3) The Baltimore Sun newspaper, which helped fund the defense.
(4) For example, Genesis I says that God created everything in six “days.” But
since the sun was not created until the fourth day, how long were the first
three “days?” Were they twenty four hours or thousands of years?
(5) All of Bryan’s testimony was excluded from the record.
(6) Bryan died in his sleep five days after the end of the trial on July 26, 1925.
(7) The judge had imposed a $100 fine but the law said that the jury was
supposed to do that. The sentence was overturned and Tennessee did not
retry the case.
(8) In 1967.