Word: darrow
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Fundamentalism was on the defensive in the Roaring Twenties, and William Jennings Bryan, its principal spokesman, found himself under siege by the giants of the emerging Liberalism. He was attacked not only in the press by Henry Mencken and in the courtroom by Clarence Darrow, but even from the pulpit by a bright-eyed Baptist who had the temerity to question the virgin birth and the second coming of Christ...
...late-show watchers remember Spencer Tracy's bravura portrayal of Clarence Darrow and Fredric March's performance as William Jennings Bryan in the movie Inherit the Wind, a reenactment of the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial." That classic courtroom confrontation seemed to come from another era, a benighted past when a 24-year-old substitute biology teacher named John T. Scopes was actually indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in a Tennessee schoolroom. But that era was not so distant after...
...characters he portrayed-an arrogant gangster in Scarf ace (1932), a fierce patriot in Juarez (1939), a dedicated scientist in The Story of Louis Pasteur, which won him a 1936 Oscar. His Hollywood appeal faded in the 1940s, but he made a triumphant return on Broadway as Clarence Darrow in 1955's Inherit the Wind...
Just Desserts. The pair of lawyers could have-perhaps should have-done their routine at the Palace. During one involved inquisition, Bryan quoted a Buddhist monk to the effect that Buddhism is an "agnostic" religion. Agnostic Darrow wanted to know what the monk looked like. "How tall was he?" Replied Bryan: "I think he was about as tall as you, but not so crooked...
Inevitably, as Darrow had predicted all along, Scopes was convicted and fined $100. Just as inevitably, the conviction was reversed in a higher court (though Tennessee's antievolution law is still on the books). Dayton reverted to quietude; Darrow went on to further legal dramatics; Scopes himself became an oil-company geologist, retired in 1964 and finally found time to complete his engaging memoir with the help of freelance Journalist James Presley...