4/8: Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation Hardcover – August 13, 2024 by Brenda Wineapple (Author)
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 6 November 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Faith-Democracy-Riveted-Nation/dp/0593229924/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JDRqUc36UiUIH3eK1_Pqbjxg6Sx8dBlH9BsLvmHdHafp_9Muk2_yEUhSCVX__F0MdOA4DhC69ktDYCzLlsPHGTcm-frb_k2Hnexz13sMaJxDWfyq4IUe0ILOyiUrFYPU_NYz6u09C36A1AtGqgDqw-0-ZLbsGdLDtipkKF2KSkk07atZvK0AX5heVgt9YYHDgNjftDlcWA5itjSpDZyEvB8zB6lDdr4CX5yJWAy-aRc.53SKRbwc3rF4M4p-RAjIj8VWAu0wIY5LjLXsK3oVBwM&qid=1730836318&sr=1-1
The dramatic story of the 1925 Scopes trial, which captivated the nation and exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today—divisions over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, censorship, and civil liberties in a democracy
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“No subject possesses the minds of men like religious bigotry and hate, and these fires are being lighted today in America.” So said legendary attorney Clarence Darrow as hundreds of people descended on the sleepy town of Dayton, Tennessee, for the trial of a schoolteacher named John T. Scopes, who was charged with breaking the law by teaching evolution to his biology class in a public school.
Brenda Wineapple, the award-winning author of The Impeachers,explores how and why the Scopes trial quickly seemed a circus-like media sensation, drawing massive crowds and worldwide attention. Darrow, a brilliant and controversial lawyer, said in his electrifying defense of Scopes that people should be free to think, worship, and learn. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for president, argued for the prosecution that evolution undermined the fundamental, literal truth of the Bible and created a society without morals, meaning, and hope.
In Keeping the Faith, Wineapple takes us into the early years of the twentieth century—years of racism, intolerance, and world war—to illuminate, through this pivotal legal showdown, a seismic period in American history. At its heart, the Scopes trial dramatized conflicts over many of the fundamental values that define America, and that continue to divide Americans today.
1925 Sunday service Dayton, Tennessee
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Tom Match for visiting with Brenda Wineapple, her new book, Keeping the Faith is the story of the Scopes Trial in 1925, but also it's the story of America in transition from the 19th century to the technology and the tragedy of the 2020th century. |
| 0:20.8 | In 1925, when they gather in Dayton, Tennessee for a trial of a young man who's |
| 0:26.7 | volunteered knowing everybody knows he's guilty of doing what they know to be a law that's probably |
| 0:32.7 | that very likely is unconstitutional. The law passed by the Tennessee legislature and Senate. |
| 0:39.6 | They all gathered there knowing that these men are larger than anything that could be resolved |
| 0:45.7 | in this trial. One side is Darrow. We've talked a little bit about how famous he is. Now William |
| 0:51.1 | Jennings Bryan. The boy orator of the Platte River coming out of Nebraska. |
| 0:55.9 | He served as a member of Congress. And then in 19, in 1896, he took the stage at the Chicago Convention |
| 1:03.5 | for the Democratic Party. And they were looking for a nominee to run against William McKinley, |
| 1:10.6 | who was the Republican nominee, and he took the |
| 1:13.8 | stage and made a speech that still echoes. What was the cross of gold speech to Brian? Why did he do |
| 1:21.7 | that? William Jennings, Brian, a young man, came to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention in 1896, |
| 1:32.2 | and he riveted the people there. |
| 1:36.1 | He got up on the platform, and he gave, as you mentioned, what was called the Cross of Gold speech. |
| 1:42.8 | And it was considered then and later one of the best examples of political oratory in the country. |
| 1:51.7 | And what he basically said was that we will not be crucified on a cross of gold. |
| 1:56.6 | The cross of gold is represented to, or represented to him, the plutocrats, the fat cats, the monopolists, the robber barons that were bleeding the country dry. |
| 2:09.0 | 1896, there was a recession, and Brian stood up to speak for the farmers, the men and women in the plains, the people whom he felt had been forgotten. |
| 2:20.3 | And he became their champion, and this young man, this boy orator, who as he was called, |
| 2:29.3 | was then the nominee at the Democratic Convention, and he went on to run for president. |
| 2:37.8 | Nobody really had heard of him before, and here he was holding the banner high for a new kind of Democratic Party. |
| 2:50.5 | No detail. Brenda's good about giving us the family. |
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