Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes.

SCOPES, John T. and James Presley.

Item Number: 102498

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

First edition, early printing of Scopes’ autobiography. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by both authors in the year of publication, “For Evelyn Oppenheimer John T. Scopes Jim Presley 16 April 1967.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by William Wondriska.

John Thomas Scopes was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925, with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was tried in a case known as the Scopes Trial, in which he was found guilty and fined $100. Scopes' involvement in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would finance a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher who was willing to act as a defendant. A band of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, led by engineer and geologist George Rappleyea, saw this as an opportunity to get publicity for their town, and they approached Scopes. Rappleyea pointed out that while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of human evolution, the state required teachers to use the assigned textbook, Hunter's Civic Biology (1914), which included a chapter on evolution. Rappleyea argued that teachers were essentially required to break the law. When asked about the test case, Scopes was initially reluctant to get involved. After some discussion he told the group gathered in Robinson's Drugstore, "If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial." By the time the trial had begun, the defense team included Clarence Darrow, Dudley Field Malone, John Neal, Arthur Garfield Hays and Frank McElwee. The prosecution team, led by Tom Stewart, included brothers Herbert Hicks and Sue K. Hicks, Wallace Haggard, father and son pairings Ben and J. Gordon McKenzie, and William Jennings Bryan and William Jennings Bryan Jr. The elder Bryan had spoken at Scopes' high school commencement, and remembered the defendant laughing while he was giving the address to the graduating class six years earlier. The case ended on July 21, 1925, with a guilty verdict, and Scopes was fined $100. The case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In a 3–1 decision written by Chief Justice Grafton Green, the Butler Act was held to be constitutional, but the court overturned Scopes's conviction because the judge had set the fine instead of the jury. The Butler Act remained in effect until May 18, 1967, when it was repealed by the Tennessee legislature. Scopes may have actually been innocent of the crime to which his name is inexorably linked. After the trial, he admitted to reporter William Kinsey Hutchinson, "I didn't violate the law," explaining that he had skipped the evolution lesson, and that his lawyers had coached his students to go on the stand; the Dayton businessmen had assumed that he had violated the law. Hutchinson did not file his story until after the Scopes appeal was decided in 1927. In 1955, the trial was made into a play titled Inherit the Wind starring Paul Muni as a character based on Clarence Darrow, and Ed Begley as a character based on William Jennings Bryan. In 1960, a film version of the play starred Spencer Tracy as the Darrow character and Fredric March as the Bryan character.