The Scopes Monkey Trial

Clarence Darrow makes a monkey out of William Jennings Bryan.

The Scopes Monkey Trial

 

By Elton Camp

 

A few years back I happened to be

In a burg called Dayton, Tennessee

For John Scopes, it was there claimed

That the theory of evolution he named

 

In the local high school he was a teacher,

But he ran afoul of the town’s preacher

“From a monkey you teach we’re arisen.

For that crime you should go to prison.”

 

When the press the charge did mention

It caught the entire nation’s attention

To the town came William Jennings Bryan

His goal was to show that Darwin was lyin’

 

Clarence Darrow took up Scopes’ defense

His presence made the whole town wince

To bring in money had been town’s goal

But the whole thing was out of control

 

“When Darrow gets through with his tricks,

This town and its people will look like hicks.”

This was the fear of the leaders of the city

Including members of the tourist committee

 

The judge wouldn’t allow scientists to appear

“Not relevant.  To this trial you will steer clear.”

Darrow came up with such a cunning scheme

To get Mr. Bryan on the stand was his dream

 

Bryan agreed that on the Bible he was expert

So he didn’t see how his testimony could hurt

It soon emerged he was ignorant as could be

Something even the fundamentalists could see

 

The trial’s outcome was John Scopes’ convictions

Outstanding was Bryan’s bumbling contradictions

His ineptitude didn’t mean that evolution was true

But he was no scholar and didn’t know what to do

 

When the fundamentalists Bryan began to chide

To their horror, their champion laid down and died

To their foolish thinking it proved to be quite odd

Darrow should have died by the hand of their god.

 

This is what can happen when religion tries to rule

The specifics of what is to be taught in the school

The creationists claimed all appeared in six short days

Doing this both true science and Bible teaching betrays

 

Even after the Great Orator in his duty came to fall

Gullible people of the town honored him after all

A college they built and to add to Bryan’s fame

They chose to give to the institution his name

 

Look at William Jennings Bryan just as close as you can

See he has a striking resemblance to a Neanderthal man

To be claimed as the direct ancestor of such a man as he

Most likely has all the hairy apes laughing in the tree.

 

(This is written, not in defense of the theory of evolution, but to ridicule the ignorance of William Jennings Bryan who is typical of fundamentalist religionists.)