Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/176

172 had passed ought not to be enforced, just because the people who went there didn’t think it ought to have been passed, don't you think it would be resented as an impertinence? They passed a law up in New York repealing the enforcement of prohibition. Suppose the people of Tennessee had sent attorneys up there to fight that law, or to oppose it after it was passed, and experts to testify how good a thing prohibition is to New York and to the nation, I wonder if there would have been any lack of determination in the papers in speaking out against the offensiveness of such testimony. The people of this state passed this law, the people of this state knew what they were doing when they passed the law, and they knew the dangers of the doctrine—that they did not want it taught to their children, and my friends, it isn't—your honor, it isn't proper to bring experts in here to try to defeat the purpose of the people of this state by trying to show that this thing that they denounce and outlaw is a beautiful thing that everybody ought to believe in. If, for instance—I think this is a fair illustration—if a man had made a contract with somebody to bring rain in a dry season down here, and if he was to have $500 for an inch of rain, and if the rain did not come and he sued to enforce his contract and collect the money, could he bring experts in to prove that a drought was better than a rain? (Laughter in the courtroom.) And get pay for bringing a drought when he contracted to bring rain. These people want to come here with experts to make your honor believe that the law should never have been passed and because in their opinion it ought not to have been passed, it ought not to be enforced. It isn't a place for expert testimony. We have sufficient proof in the book—doesn't the book state the very thing that is objected to, and outlawed in this state? Who has a copy of that book?

The Court—Do you mean the Bible?

Mr. Bryan—No, sir; the biology (Laughter in the courtroom.)

A Voice——— [sic]Here it is; Hunter's Biology.

Mr. Bryan—No, not the Bible, you see in this state they cannot teach the Bible. They can only teach things that declare it to be a lie, according to the learned counsel. These people in the state—Christian people—have tied their hands by their constitution. They say we all believe in the Bible for it is the overwhelming belief in the state, but we will not teach that Bible, which we believe even to our children through teachers that we pay with our money. No, no, it isn't the teaching of the Bible, and we are not asking it. The question is can a minority in this state come in and compel a teacher to teach that the Bible is not true and make the parents of these children pay the expenses of the teacher to tell their children what these people believe is false and dangerous? Has it come to a time when the minority can take charge of a state like Tennessee and compel the majority to pay their teachers while they take religion out of the heart of the children of the parents who pay the teachers? This is the book that is outlawed if we can judge from the questions asked by the counsel for the defense. They think that because the board of education selected this book, four or five years ago, that, therefore, he had to teach it, that he would be guilty if he didn’t teach it and punished if he does. Certainly not one of these gentlemen is unlearned in the law and if I, your honor, who have not practiced law for twenty-eight years, know enough to know it, I think those who have been as conspicuous in the practice as these gentlemen have been, certainly ought to know it and that is no matter when that law was passed; no matter what the board of education has done; no matter whether they put their stamp of approval upon this book or not, the moment that law became a law anything in these books contrary to that law was