FUNDAMENTALISM & THE SCOPES TRIAL
In 1925 Tennessee passed the Butler Act which prohibited the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in school. John Scopes, a biology teacher, refused the law and taught evolution in his high school classroom. He was arrested and tried in front of a grand jury in July of 1925. Clarence Darrow defended Scopes and William Jennings Bryan prosecuted (Gilbert). The “monkey trial” is credited to the ideas and influence of fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is the ideology of taking biblical readings literally and refusing modernistic ideas. Many Christians in America felt threatened because the modern society was acting wild and drifting from traditional morals. Also, people were coming up with scientific explanations that conflicted with the Bible’s writings. Fundamentalists didn’t mind new scientific discoveries or technology , unless it interfered with their beliefs. (“Fundamentalism”). It is still controversial to teach evolution in schools, and the Scopes trial was an example of traditional ideas conflicting with modern ones.
PROHIBITION, ORGANIZED CRIME, BOOTLEGGING, AL CAPONE
The 1920s was incorporated with a series of crimes and calamities, which gave it the name “The Roaring Twenties”. One of these dilemmas happened to be the Prohibition era; which was the complete banning of alcohol distribution, manufacturing, and selling in the United States. Congress agreed that the resources being used to assemble alcohol, such as bread and corn, was being wasted, when they could send this food to soldiers fighting overseas (Lapsansky-Werner, 2008). In the end, they passed the Volstead Act. Some people supported this case entirely, although there were some people who were very unsupportive and decided to go through high ends to obtain alcohol. People produced homemade alcohol at home, others smuggled from alternative countries (pg.229). The sellers of this product were called bootleggers, in which they sold alcohol in secret drinking businesses called “speakeasies” (1920s’ Prohibition Era. 2011). One of these “bootleggers” was a man named Al Capone. Al Capone is a famous gang leader, and was well known for his businesses in prostitution, drugs, murder, crime, and illegal alcohol distribution. He, however, constantly defended himself saying that his “business” was just him selling alcohol and not actually drinking it. Capone was the distributor, not the consumer (Biography: Al Capone. 2010). Overall, the arrest of Al Capone and the constant bootlegging made Congress think twice about the prohibition of alcohol.