I'm John Batchew with Brenda Wineapple.

Keeping the faith, God, democracy, and the trial that riveted a nation,

is the new book, The Scopes Trial, 1925.

The principles have gathered.

The trial begins, but there are surprises right away,

because the defense wants to enter into the record,

the science that they're saying is accurate and well taken,

and declaring it unacceptable a crime to convey that science to school children is outrageous.

However, the court rules, eventually the prosecution rules, that they can't bring any

of their scientists in, meaning that the whole defense plan is awry right away. Do I read that

correctly, Brenda? They were thrown off balance. Well, yes, they were, but what they were able to do, even though the

number of scientists 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, what the defense team was able to do,

and Arthur Hayes was the leader of this,

was read their affidavits into the record.

That meant that the jury itself didn't hear

the scientific testimony about evolution and what it meant.

But the court record would have that information and it would be disseminated in the newspapers.

So it was a setback and in some ways for the defense and outrage, but at the same time, the defense was very cagey and got it into the record.

But as I said, the jury didn't hear this at all.

Yes, now that's a blow to the defense.

At the same time, Brenda introduces us to a very famous man, H.L. Mencken, writing for the

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