6/8: Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation Hardcover – August 13, 2024 by Brenda Wineapple (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2024
⏱️ 4 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
“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 Clarence Darrow in Dayton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS, I On the World. |
| 0:05.8 | I'm John Batchel with Brenda Wineapple. |
| 0:07.8 | Keeping the faith, God, democracy, and the trial that riveted a nation is the new book, |
| 0:12.9 | The Scopes Trial of 1995. |
| 0:15.7 | The principles have gathered. |
| 0:17.6 | The trial begins, but there are surprises right away, because the defense wants to |
| 0:23.9 | enter into the record. The science that they're saying is accurate and well taken and declaring |
| 0:32.4 | it unacceptable. A crime to convey that science to school children is outrageous. |
| 0:39.8 | However, the court rules, |
| 0:41.9 | eventually the prosecution |
| 0:43.3 | rules, that they can't bring any of |
| 0:45.4 | their scientists in, |
| 0:47.2 | meaning that the whole |
| 0:49.3 | defense plan |
| 0:51.4 | is awry right away. |
| 0:53.5 | Do I read that correctly, Brenda? They were thrown off balance. |
| 0:57.1 | Well, yes, they were, but what they were able to do, even though the number of scientists |
| 1:04.1 | who had come to Dayton in order to testify, and they were religious men, by the way. Since they weren't allowed to get on the stand, |
| 1:14.0 | what the defense team was able to do, and Arthur Hayes was the leader of this, was read their |
| 1:20.5 | affidavits into the record. That meant that the jury itself didn't hear the scientific testimony about evolution and what it meant, |
| 1:34.0 | but the court record would have that information and it would be disseminated in the newspapers. |
| 1:46.0 | So it was a setback and in some ways for the defense and outrage, but at the same time, |
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