652 Chapter 24 Postwar Society and Culture: Change and Adjustment
Nevertheless, the trial exposed the danger of the
fundamentalist position. The high point came when
Bryan agreed to testify as an expert
witness on the Bible. In a sweltering
courtroom, both men in shirtsleeves,
the lanky, rough-hewn Darrow
cross-examined the aging champion
of fundamentalism, exposing his
childlike faith and his disdain for the
science of the day. Bryan admitted to
believing that Eve had been created
from Adam’s rib and that a whale
had swallowed Jonah. “I believe in a
God that can make a whale and can
make a man and make both do what
He pleases,” he explained.
The Monkey Trial ended badly
for nearly everyone concerned.
Scopes moved away from Dayton;
the judge, John Raulston, was
defeated when he sought reelec-
tion; Bryan died in his sleep a few
days after the trial. But fundamen-
talism continued to flourish, not
only in the nation’s backwaters but
also in many cities, brought there
by rural people in search of work. In retrospect, even
the heroes of the Scopes trial—science and freedom
of thought—seem somewhat less stainless than they
did to liberals at the time. The account of evolution
in the textbook used by Scopes was hopelessly defi-
cient and laced with bigotry, yet it was advanced as
unassailable fact. In a section on the “Races of Man,”
for example, it described Caucasians as “the highest
type of all... represented by the civilized white
inhabitants of Europe and America.”Urban–Rural Conflicts: Prohibition
The conflict between the countryside and the city was
fought on many fronts, and in one sector the rural
forces achieved a quick victory. This was the Eighteenth
Amendment, ratified in 1919, which prohibited the
manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic bev-
erages. Although there were some big-city advocates of
prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment, in the words
of one historian, marked a triumph of the “Corn Belt
over the conveyor belt.”
The temperance movement had been important
since the age of Jackson; it was a major issue in many
states during the Gilded Age, and by the Progressive
Era powerful organizations like the Anti-Saloon League
and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union were
seeking to have drinking outlawed entirely. Indeed,
prohibition was a typical progressive reform, moralistic,
backed by the middle class, and aimed at frustrating
“the interests”—in this case the distillers.Federal agents pour liquor into a sewer during Prohibition.The Scopes trial was a media sensation; it even gave rise to popular
songs, such as this one by Billy Rose.