The ethics of rhetoric

by Richard M. Weaver

Mr. William Jennings Bryan: An expert cannot be permitted to come in here and try to defeat the enforcement of a law by testifying that it isn’t a bad law and it isn’t—I mean a bad doctrine—no matter how these people phrase the doctrine—no matter how they eulogize it. This is not the place to prove that the law ought never to have been passed. The place to prove that, or teach that, was to the state legislature.... The people of this state passed this law, the people of the state knew what they were doing when they passed the law, and they knew the dangers of the doctrine—that they did not want it taught to their children, and my friends, it isn’t—your honor, it isn’t proper to bring experts in here and try to defeat the purpose of the people of this state by trying to show that this thing they denounce and outlaw is a beautiful thing that everybody ought to believe in.... It is this doctrine that gives us Nietzsche, the only great author who tried to carry this to its logical conclusion, and we have the testimony of my distinguished friend from Chicago in his speech in the Loeb and Leopold case that 50,000 volumes have been written about Nietzsche, and he is the greatest philosopher in the last hundred years, and have him pleading that because Leopold read Nietzsche and adopted Nietzsche’s philosophy of the super-man, that he is not responsible for the taking of human life. We have the doctrine—I should not characterize it as I should like to characterize it—the doctrine that the universities that had it taught, and the professors who taught it, are much more responsible for the crime that Leopold committed than Leopold himself. That is the doctrine, my friends, that they have tried to bring into existence, they commence in the high schools with their foundation of evolutionary theory, and we have the word of the distinguished lawyer that this is more read than any other in a hundred years, and the statement of that distinguished man that the teachings of Nietzsche made Leopold a murderer.... (Mr. Bryan reading from a book by Darrow) “I will guarantee that you can go to the University of Chicago today—into its big library and find over 1,000 volumes of Nietzsche, and I am sure I speak moderately. If this boy is to blame for this, where did he get it? Is there any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche’s philosophy seriously and fashioned his life on it? And there is no question in this case but what it is true. Then who is to blame? The university would be more to blame than he is. The scholars of the world would be more to blame than he is. The publishers of the world—and Nietzsche’s books are published by one of the biggest publishers in the world—are more to blame than he is. Your honor, it is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university.”... Your honor, we first pointed out that we do not need any experts in science. Here is one plain fact, and the statute defines itself, and it tells the kind of evolution it does not want taught, and the evidence says that this is the kind of evolution that was taught, and no number of scientists could come in here, my friends, and override that statute or take from the jury its right to decide this question, so that all the experts they could bring would mean nothing. And when it comes to Bible experts, every member of the jury is as good an expert on the Bible as any man they could bring, or that we could bring.

The Defense

Mr. Malone: Are we to have our children know nothing about science except what the church says they shall know? I have never seen any harm in learning and understanding, in humility and open-mindedness, and I have never seen clearer the need of that learning than when I see the attitude of the prosecution, who attack and refuse to accept the information and intelligence, which expert witnesses will give them.

The Prosecution

Mr. Stewart: Now what could these scientists testify to? They could only say as an expert, qualified as an expert upon this subject, I have made a study of these things and from my standpoint as such an expert, I say that this does not deny the story of divine creation. That is what they would testify to, isn’t it? That is all they could testify about.

Now, then, I say under the correct construction of the act, that they cannot testify as to that. Why? Because in the wording of this act the legislature itself construed the instrument according to their intention.... What was the general purpose of the legislature here? It was to prevent teaching in the public schools of any county in Tennessee that theory which says that man is descended from a lower order of animals. That is the intent and nobody can dispute it under the shining sun of this day.

The Court

Now upon these issues as brought up it becomes the duty of the Court to determine the question of the admissibility of this expert testimony offered by the defendant.

It is not within the province of the Court under these issues to decide and determine which is true, the story of divine creation as taught in the Bible, or the story of the creation of man as taught by evolution.

If the state is correct in its insistence, it is immaterial, so far as the results of this case are concerned, as to which theory is true; because it is within the province of the legislative branch, and not the judicial branch of the government to pass upon the policy of a statute; and the policy of this statute having been passed upon by that department of the government, this court is not further concerned as to its policy; but is interested only in its proper interpretation and, if valid, its enforcement.... Therefore the court is content to sustain the motion of the attorney-general to exclude expert testimony.