Jun 12, 2015 · William Jennings Bryan—the “Great Commoner,” three-time Democratic nominee for President, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. ruling elder—argued for the prosecution, the State of Tennessee, which alleged that Scopes had broken the Butler Act by teaching human evolution at a state-funded school. Billed as a grand showdown between ...
The issue of evolution to Bryan was a bitter fight to the end. He defined the issue and called upon all-both friend and foe alike-to speak to the issue ... people. He became the self-appointed defense attorney for the people who agreed with him. When Bryan began his campaign against the teaching of Darwinism, he was a seasoned and gifted, if ...
The year before, in a sensational trial in Chicago, he saved the child-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb from the death penalty. The Scopes trial would bring him even greater notoriety ...
Attorney Phillip Johnson says "The idea of the defense lawyer calling the chief prosecutor as a witness is absurd. But Bryan thought it was an opportunity to …
By the mid 1920s, the battle between Fundamentalists, who believed in the literal truth of the Bible, and Modernists, who believed religion should progress with modern society, embroiled most Protestant denominations. It was particularly divisive among Presbyterians, contributing to the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.
Defending substitute high school teacher John Thomas Scopes was Clarence Darrow, one of the celebrity lawyers of the day. William Jennings Bryan—the “Great Commoner,” three-time Democratic nominee for President, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. ruling elder—argued for the prosecution, the State of Tennessee, ...
Charles Wishart, RG 414. (Image No. 4725) A convert to Presbyterianism, Bryan had served as Secretary of State under fellow Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson.