An American History

802 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression

answered “yes,” Darrow inquired how

it got around before being cursed— on

its tail? Asked whether God had actu-

ally created the world in six days, Bryan

replied that these should be understood

as ages, “not six days of twenty- four

hours”—thus opening the door to the

very nonliteral interpretation of the

Bible fundamentalists rejected.

The jury found Scopes guilty,

although the Tennessee Supreme

Court later overturned the decision

on a technicality. Shortly after the trial

ended, Bryan died and the movement

for anti- evolution laws disintegrated.

Fundamentalists retreated for many

years from battles over public education, preferring to build their own schools

and colleges where teaching could be done as they saw fit and preachers were

trained to spread their interpretation of Christianity. The battle would be

rejoined, however, toward the end of the twentieth century, when fundamen-

talism reemerged as an important force in politics. To this day, the teaching of

the theory of evolution in public schools arouses intense debate in parts of the

United States.

The Second Klan

Few features of urban life seemed more alien to rural and small- town native-

born Protestants than their immigrant populations and cultures. The war-

time obsession with “100 percent Americanism” continued into the 1920s, a

decade of citizenship education programs in public schools, legally sanctioned

visits to immigrants’ homes to investigate their household arrangements, and

vigorous efforts by employers to instill appreciation for “American values.”

Only “an agile and determined immigrant,” commented the Chicago Tribune,

could “hope to escape Americanization by at least one of the many processes

now being prepared for his special benefit.” In 1922, Oregon became the only

state ever to require all students to attend public schools— a measure aimed,

said the state’s attorney general, at abolishing parochial education and pre-

venting “bolshevists, syndicalists and communists” from organizing their own

schools.

Perhaps the most menacing expression of the idea that enjoyment of

American freedom should be limited on religious and ethnic grounds was the

A Ku Klux Klan gathering in Seattle, Washington,
in 1923. The unrobed members of the audience
are covering their faces to avoid identification.
Unlike the Klan of the Reconstruction era, the
second Ku Klux Klan was more powerful in the
North and West than in the South.