Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/80

 and I know how it is—they may vote for them without reading them, but the substance of the act is put in the caption, so it may be seen and read, and nothing can be in the act that is not contained in the caption. There is not any question about it, and only one subject shall be legislated on at once. Of course the caption may be broader than the act. My friend is entirely right about it. They may make a caption and the act may fall far short of it, but the substance of the act must be in the caption, and there can be no variance. Now, Your Honor, that is elementary, nobody need to brief on that, it is a sufficient brief to read the constitution, that one section, it is very short.

Now, let us see what they have done, there is not much dispute about the English language, I take it, here is the caption, "Public act, Chapter 37, 1925. An act prohibiting the teaching of the evolution theory in all the universities, normals and all the public schools of Tennessee which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the state, and to prescribe penalties for the violation thereof."

Now what is it, an act to prohibit the teaching of the evolution theory in Tennessee? Well, is that the act? Is this statute to prevent the teaching of the evolution theory? There is not a word said in the statute about evolution, there is not a word said in the statute about preventing the teaching of the theory of evolution—not a word. This statute contains nothing whatever in reference to teaching the theory of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee. And, Your Honor, the caption contains nothing else—nothing else. Does the caption say anything about the Bible? Oh! no, does it say anything about the divine account contained in the Bible? Oh! no. If a man was interested in the peace and harmony and welfare of the citizens of Tennessee, if he was interested in intellectual freedom and religious freedom, if he was interested in the right to worship God as he saw fit, but he found out that chaos and disorder and riot could follow in the wake of this caption, and he found out that every religious prejudice inherent in the breast of man could be appealed to, by the law, the legislature was about to pass—there is not a single word in it. This caption says what follows is an act forbidingforbidding [sic] the teaching of evolution, and the Catholic could have gone home without any thought that his faith was about to be attacked, the Protestant could have gone home without any thought that his religion could be attacked, the intelligent scholarly Christian, who by the millions in the United States, find no inconsistency between evolution and religion, could have gone home without any fear that a narrow, ignorant, bigoted shrew of religion could have destroyed their religious freedom and their right to think and act and speak, and the nation and the state could have laid down peacefully to sleep that night without the slightest fear that religious hatred and bigotry was to be turned loose in a great state. Any question about it? Anything in this caption whatever about religion, or anything about measuring science and knowledge and learning by the book of Genesis, written when everybody thought the world was flat? Nothing. They went to bed in peace, probably, and they woke up to find this, which has not the slightest reference to it, which does not refer to evolution in any way, which is as claimed a religious statute, the growth of as plain religious ignorance and bigotry as any that justified the Spanish inquisition or the hanging of the witches in New England, or the countless iniquities under the name of what some people called religion, and persued the human race down to the last hundred years. That is what they found, and here is what it is: "Be it enacted by the general assembly of the state of Tennessee, that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the universities, normals and all other public schools in the state, which are supported in whole or in part by the public