William J. Bryans Fight against Eugenics and Racism …

It is commonly believed that the Scopes trial was about the propriety of banning the teaching of evolution pushed by ignorant persons for religious reasons. In fact, not just human evolution but racism were the major concerns. This fact is well documented, and a review of the books used to teach evolution in the public schools at the time shows that they were blatantly racist. This fact is critical in understanding the concerns of those supporting the Butler act law, which was the focus of the trial.

Almost 90 years ago the trial of the century, the now-infamous Scopes evolution trial, occurred in Dayton, Tennessee (Lienesch 2007). The textbook involved, titled A Civic Biology (1914), was mandated by the state of Tennessee and many other states. For nearly a decade Hunters book was the most widely used high school science textbook in the nation. It was endorsed by many distinguished professors, including those at both Brown and Columbia Universities (Larson 1997). In 1919 the Tennessee Textbook Commission selected the Hunter book as the biology text for use in every one of its public schools.

The state of Tennessee did not have any issues with the bulk of the text, most of which covered basic information about earths plants and animals. Then, in March of 1925, the Tennessee Legislature passed the following law:

The statute was aimed at teaching the evolutionary origins of human beings (the Divine Creation of man), not the origin of the rest of life or even the origin of life. The law was intended to allow parents the right to instruct their children in matters of the origin of humans, human nature, and the destiny of humans. Because the law did not openly conflict with any section in A Civic Biology, which did not openly teach human evolution, the text remained in use throughout the state. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz correctly noted that those actively advocating evolution in 1925 included racists, militarists, and nationalists, who used evolution to push some pretty horrible programs, including forced sterilization (1990, p. 2). Those who wanted to prevent the immigration into America of persons judged by eugenists then as unfit and inferior, or of inferior racial stock, worked to pass the so-called Jim Crow laws. They rationalized their agenda on the grounds that blacks, Jews and others were racially inferior and would interbreed with the superior races, causing deterioration of the superior white race (Dershowitz 1990, p. 2). Dershowitz added that the eugenics movement took its impetus from Darwins theory of natural selection, explaining that German militarism

Darwin explained in detail the process of how selection functioned and the importance of death and war in advancing evolution. He stressed how all-important, in the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage were to evolution, adding that a nation with superior qualities, those selected by natural selection, would have an evolutionary advantage that would enable them to destroy the weaker races (Darwin 1871, p. 162). This process of conflict was critical for evolution, and when natural selection that resulted from conflictsuch as from warceases, evolution also ceases. Hitler and other dictators repeatedly stressed this pointHitler in his bible Mein Kampf, and Marx, Engles, Lennin, Mao, and Stalin in their voluminous writings (Bergman 2012).

The law was supported by the famous Christian attorney, William J. Bryan, and opposed by the well-known agnostic attorney, University of Michigan trained Clarence Darrow. At issue in the 1925 trial were certain chapters on evolution and eugenics in a biology text by George W. Hunter. A major concern of attorney William J. Bryan was the degradation of humans by evolution and the influence of evolution on war and national conflicts. He wrote that the Darwinian theory teaches mankind reached his present perfection by the operation of the law of hatethe merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak (quoted in Larson 2003, p. 252).

One book that influenced Bryan to draw this conclusion about the doctrine of evolution was written by American biologist Vernon Kellogg, who documented the importance of Darwinism in causing War World I (Kellogg 1917). The Hunter text perfectly illustrated Bryans concern because it was laced with the racism of the day (Larson 1997, p. 23). Its discussion of eugenics included such scarlet passages as the following openly racist claim:

Hunter also wrote that, if we can improve domesticated animals by breeding then future generations of men and women on the earth can also be improved by applying to them the laws of selection taught by Darwin. Hunter stressed that this is no small concern because nothing less than the improvement of the future race is at stake (1914, p. 261). Hunter then, under the subheading Eugenics, which made it clear what type of improvement programs he was referring to, applied the animal breeding research to humans:

When defending his eugenics program, Hunter incorrectly concluded that Tuberculosis (TB) is a genetic diseaseTB is actually caused by bacteria pathogens. Furthermore, the main causes of both epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are pathogens, trauma, and genetic damage occurring in the womb due to such conditions as genetic non-disjunction, not heredity as Hunter claimed. Hunter then wrote that research had been completed on many different families in America,

One now infamous case that Hunter cited was the Kallikak family that

Both of the Jukes and Kallikak family studies have now been thoroughly debunked by a reevaluation of the data and cases used to support the studies original conclusions (Smith 1985). The study is fatally flawed because it implied that the source of both the so-called bad as well as the good genes was from the female: the man bore all good progeny from the Quaker girl, and all bad progeny from the putative feeble-minded girl.

These irresponsible studies were the product of a powerful ideaDarwinismand they created a social myth that Hunter did much to spread throughout the Western world (Smith 1985, p. 193). The Kallikak family study was even translated into German in 1914, and the full text appeared in the German academic journal Friedrich Manns Pedagogishes Magazin. As a result, the Kallikak study also had a significant impact on Nazi Germanys racist policies that ended in the Holocaust.

One example was the infamous July 14 1933, sterilization law that began the murder of millions of inferior persons (Smith 1985, pp. 161162). Hitler used the same reasoning that Hunter used to justify his eugenic programs. For example, under the subheading Parasitism and its Cost to Society Hunter wrote that hundreds of families, such as the Kallikak family,

Hunter then quotes the now-notorious American eugenicist Charles Davenport (using the expression that Hitler later made famous: blood tells), writing eugenics has documented the belief that families which produce brilliant men and women did so because they received good genes from their ancestors. The text then used an example lifted from Davenports Heredity in Relation to Eugenics to illustrate the claim that greatness is due largely to genes (1914, p. 263). The story is about Elizabeth Tuttle, a women of strong will, and of extreme intellectual vigor who married Richard Edwards, a man of high repute and great erudition. This union produced Jonathan Edwards

No mention was made of the critical factor that social influence and privilege had in the success of this family. Genetics was the only factor given (Smith 1985). Olasky and Perry wrote that Hunters view of e
ugenics, widely accepted early in the twentieth century, was a common deduction drawn from and associated with Darwinian theory (2005, p. 70). They added that Hunter explained Darwinian evolution in only five pages, then moved on to the meat of the book, namely the section on

Hunter openly advocated the infamous solution, negative genetics, to what he saw as the mental illness and crime problem, genetically inferior persons. The reasoning was if these

Many Tennessee taxpayers, especially those of African American background, objected to the implications of the whole evolution doctrine that were made explicit in the very science text required by their state. Even prior to the 1925 Tennessee law, so great was the outcry against these passages in many other states that the publisher, American Book Company, had them rewritten (Tennessee used the original 1914 edition until 1926). Even the title of the book, Civic Biology, implied eugenics because the text taught that it is our civic duty to apply eugenics to achieve racial improvement.

Soon after the Tennessee anti-evolution law was passed, the American Civil Liberties Union began advertising for volunteers to challenge the law in court. The city of Dayton saw this as an opportunity to attract both attention and tourism. The local politicians then urged a new young football coach and math teacher, John Scopes, who once substituted for a biology teacher for a few days, to claim that he had violated the law during his short substitute teaching stint.

Prominent scientists from major universities soon flocked to Dayton to challenge the right of the state to regulate the teaching of human evolution and eugenics in public schools. A critical point is that these expert witnesses never once distanced themselves from the many inflammatory racist passages in A Civic Biology. Some of them were active supporters of the eugenics movement, as was Hunters text. Even after the abuses of Darwinian eugenics by the Nazis in the 1930s became common knowledge, some academics still approved the eugenic passages in this once-required public high school biology textbook.

Among the first persons to awaken to the racism lurking quite undisguised in these passages had been the left-leaning Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Bryan stood at the forefront of the most progressive victories in his time: Womens suffrage, the direct election of senators, the graduated income tax, among others (Gould 1991, p. 417). His nickname since his first presidential candidacy (1896) was The Great Commoner, and Bryan believed his battle against evolution was an extension of both his populist support and his life work (Gould 1991, p. 419).

Historian Michael Kazin expatiates on Bryans attachments both to Thomas Jefferson and to the type of rural yeomen on whom Jefferson had pinned his moral hopes for the American Republic (2006). Although Bryan harbored doubts on the subject of evolution, his objections to teaching human evolution went far beyond his concerns about a scientific theory (Gilbert 1997 p. 25). A major concern of Bryan was that Darwinism had been used to justify the German war machine and that the survival-of-the-fittest philosophy had been translated into the might-makes-right ethos that had engulfed Germany and threatened to spread to other countries (Gilbert 1997 p. 31).

Bryan, a life-long opponent of solving national problems by war, was fearful that other nations would soon emulate Germany by using the martial view of Darwinism [that] had been invoked by most German intellectuals and military leaders as a justification for war and future domination (Gould 1991, pp. 421422). Bryan even resigned as Secretary of State in President Wilsons cabinet in protest of Americas entry into World War I.

Bryan pointed out several implications that many professors of his day were drawing from Darwins theory, included not only eugenics, but also the nihilistic morals of Nietzsche as elucidated in Darrows brief about the University of Chicago in the Leopold-Loeb murder case, and the moral obligation of superior races, such as the Germans in World War I, to overpower the weak races (e.g., the Belgians) for the advantage of the superior races future welfare. Bryan had been awakened to this last concern by reading a book by the well-known Stanford University biologist Vernon L. Kellogg (1917) that related his conversations with the German General Staff in Belgium in 1914.

African Americans were especially active in opposing evolution because Darwinism was a major force that supported racism against Negroes. The African American responses to Darwinism

Professor Moran added that African Americans living in both the Southern and Northern states openly expressed

Furthermore,

He added that

Using Darwinism to defend the coercive eugenics that was then being taught in American schools from Hunters bookand promoted by academiais now seen as repulsive by both most scholars and most Americans. Bryan turned out to be right on this point, while the promoters of eugenics as a corollary of human evolution were embarrassingly wrong. Bryan was right to object to Hunters text because its interpretation of science was wrong, and evolutionists were wrong to coercively impose their Darwinian eugenics philosophy and racism on public school students. The fact is, Bryan had identified something deeply troubling in the Scopes caseand that the fault does lie partly with scientists and their acolytes (Gould 1991, p. 423).

Bryan was also very concerned about the effects of Darwins racism teachings, such as the following passage from The Descent of Man: With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated (Darwin 1871, p. 168). Bryan made his concerns about the dignity of humankind very clear in the presentation that he gave to the court at the Scopes trial:

Bryan also noted that Darwins hostility to the use of vaccinations existed

Bryan then quoted Wiggam, a best-selling author in 1925, who wrote that

In his defense of accused murderers Loeb and Leopold, Darrow acknowledged the influence of Darwin on his clients. In his appeal to the court, Darrow wrote that Loeb became enamored of the philosophy of Nietzsche, a writer

In a chapter titled Monkeys and Mothers, Moran discusses gender and the anti-evolution impulse, concluding that, during the debate over the Butler anti-evolution act, the Tennessee State Senate Speaker

In addition, letters to

Moran concluded that the

One reason postulated by Moran for the opposition to Darwinism by women was because American women

Another reason he gave for womens support of anti-evolution was they were already secure

This concern of women was also over the harm that they felt Darwinism caused to their family.

Darrow added that one book Nietzsche wrote, titled Beyond Good and Evil, contained a criticism of all moral codes, and actually argued that the

These were exactly Bryans concerns as he documented in his booklet titled the Last Message (1975). Bryan was very concerned about the fact that an increasing number of students were attending high school and, Bryan believed, that Darwinism made man too much the product of essentially a material Godless process that invited his degradation through eugenics, too much a competitor in a struggle for survival that justified rapacious business relations and war between nations (Kevles 2007, p. x).

Bryans objections to evolution were openly related to Darwins writings about eugenics and i
ts implications for human rights, human dignity, and humanity as a whole. In short, he focused public attention on the social implications of Darwinism (Larson 2003, p. 250). Bryan was especially concerned about defending the weak against the assaults of the strong and powerful, a fact that resulted in his being labeled The Great Commoner. Bryan, as a political progressive, was very concerned about the

As a result, due to his progressive political instinct of seeking legislative solutions to social problems, Bryan campaigned for restrictions against teaching the Darwinian theory of human evolution in public schools (Larson 2007, p. 68). These many well-documented facts of history are often forgotten or ignored when Bryans role in the Scopes trial is reviewed (Gould 1981, p. 1987).

The most common claim is Darrow scored a triumph for academic freedom after John Scopes was accused of violating a Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution (Farrell 2011, p. 111). This background is imperative to understand why the trial occurred and the implications of evolution both then and today. Last, this review shows how totally erroneous the common claims are about the Scopes Trial, such as those presented in the film Inherit the Wind.

I wish to thank John UpChurch, Jody Allen, RN, Clifford Lillo, M.S., and Mary-Ann Stewart, M.S., for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Bergman, Jerry. 2012. Hitler and the Nazis Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazis Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Joshua Press.

Bryan, William Jennings. 1975. The Last Message of William Jennings Bryan. (A Reprint Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Scopes Evolution Trial, July 1021, 1925). Dayton, Tennessee: Bryan College.

Comfort, Nathaniel, ed. 2007. The Pandas Black Box: The Intelligent Design Controversy. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Darwin, Charles. 1871. Descent of Man. London: John Murray.

Dershowitz, Alan (introduction). 1990. The Scopes Trial. Birmingham, Alabama: The Gryphon Press, Notable Trials Library Series.

Farrell, John. 2011. Darrow in the Dock. Smithsonian 42, no. 8: 98111.

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. A Visit to Dayton: The Site Remains a Pleasant Sleepy Town, but to the Bestial Cause of the Scopes Trial Stirs Again. Natural History 90, no. 10: 818.

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1991. Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Chapter 28: William Jennings Bryans Last Campaign, pp. 416431, and Chapter 29: An Essay on a Pig Roast, pp. 432447.

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1987. William Jennings Bryans Last Campaign: Scientists and Their Acolytes are Partly to Blame for the Lengthy and Bitter Struggle Against Creationism. Natural History 96, no. 11:1626.

Gilbert, James. 1997. Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Ginger, Ray. 1974. Six Days or Forever? Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hunter, George. 1914. A Civic Biology. New York: American Book Company.

Kazin, Michael. 2006. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Kellogg, Vernon. 1917. Headquarters Nights: A Record of Conversations and Experiences at the Headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Kevles, Daniel. 2007. Foreword in The Panda's Black Box: Opening Up the Intelligent Design Controversy. Nathaniel Comfort, Ed., Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Larson, Edward John. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and Americas Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Larson, Edward John. 2003. The Scopes Trial in History and Legend in When Science & Christianity Meet. Lindberg and Numbers, Ed., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Larson, Edward John. 2007. The Classroom Controversy: A History Over Teaching Evolution in The Pandas Black Box: Opening up the Intelligent Design Controversy. Nathaniel Comfort, Ed., Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lienesch, Michael. 2007. In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.

McKernan, Maureen. 1924. The Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb. Chicago: The Plymouth Court Press.

Moran, Jeffrey P. 2012. American Genesis: The Evolution Controversies from Scopes to Creation Science. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Olasky, Marvin and John Perry. 2005. Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and Holman Publishing Group.

Smith, J. David. 1985. Minds Made Feeble: Myth and Legacy of the Kallikaks. Rockville, Maryland: Aspen.

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William J. Bryans Fight against Eugenics and Racism ...