The Defense
Mr. Darrow: Can a legislative body say, “You cannot read a book or take a lesson or make a talk on science until you first find out whether you are saying against Genesis”? It can unless that constitutional provision protects me. It can. Can it say to the astronomer, you cannot turn your telescope upon the infinite planets and suns and stars that fill space, lest you find that the earth is not the center of the universe and that there is not any firmament between us and the heaven? Can it? It could—except for the work of Thomas Jefferson, which has been woven into every state constitution in the Union, and has stayed there like a flaming sword to protect the rights of man against ignorance and bigotry, and when it is permitted to overwhelm them then we are taken in a sea of blood and ruin that all the miseries and tortures and carrion of the middle ages would be as nothing.... If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers.
Mr. Dudley Field Malone: So that there shall be no misunderstanding and that no one shall be able to misinterpret or misrepresent our position we wish to state at the beginning of the case that the defense believes that there is a direct conflict between the theory of evolution and the theories of creation as set forth in the Book of Genesis.
Neither do we believe that the stories of creation as set forth in the Bible are reconcilable or scientifically correct.
Mr. Arthur Garfield Hays: Our whole case depends upon proving that evolution is a reasonable scientific theory.
The Prosecution
Mr. William Jennings Bryan, Jr. (in support of a motion to exclude expert testimony): It is, I think, apparent to all that we have now reached the heart of this case, upon your honor’s ruling, as to whether this expert testimony will be admitted largely determines the question of whether this trial from now on will be an orderly effort to try the case upon the issues, raised by the indictment and by the plea or whether it will degenerate into a joint debate upon the merits or demerits of someone’s views upon evolution.... To permit an expert to testify upon this issue would be to substitute trial by experts for trial by jury....
The Defense
Mr. Hays: Are we entitled to show what evolution is? We are entitled to show that, if for no other reason than to determine whether the title is germane to the act.
The Prosecution