Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/85

 conflict with the Bible or what the Bible said about it. Let me call attention, your Honor, to one case they have heralded here—I don't know why. I will refer to it later. Let me show you a real indictment, gentlemen, in case you ever need to draw another one. You don't mind a little pleasantry, do you? Here is the case we have heard so much about.

Leeper vs. State. My fellow is a leper, too, because he taught evolution. I am going to discuss this case a moment later to show that it has nothing to do with the subject. This man was indicted because under the school book law of this state the commission had decided certain books should be taught, and amongst the rest they decided that Frye's geography should be taught. That any teacher that did not follow the law and taught something else should be fined $25. Of course, it wasn't so bad as to teach evolution, although the statute doesn't say anything about evolution. Now they indicted him and this is what they said in the indictment. This is their leading case. "The grand jury for the State of Tennessee, upon their oaths present that Edward Leper, heretofore, to-wit: On the 5th day of October, 1899, in the state and county aforesaid, being then and there a public school-teacher and teaching the public school known as school No. 5, Sixth district, Blount county"—they pick that out all right—"did unlawfully use and permit to be used in said public school, after the state textbook commission had adopted and prescribed for use in the public schools of the state Frye's introductory geography as a uniform textbook another and different textbook on that branch than the one so adopted aforesaid, to-wit: Butler's geography and the new Eclectic elementary geography against the peace and dignity of the state. Now, your honor, would that have been a good indictment, if they had left all that out and said he taught some book not authorized by the board? He has got a right to know what he taught and where he taught it and all the necessary things to convict him of crime. Your Honor, he cannot be convicted in this case unless they prove what he taught and where he taught it, and we have got a right to know all that before we go into court—every word of it. The indictment isn't any more than so much blank paper. I insist, your Honor, that no such indictment was ever returned before on land or sea. Some men may pull one on me, but I don't think so—I don't think so. You might just as well indict a man for being no good—and we could find a lot of them down here probably and if we couldn't I could bring them down from Chicago—but only a man is held to answer for a specific thing and he must be told what that specific thing is before he gets into court. The statute is absolutely void, because they have violated the constitution in its caption and it is absolutely uncertain—the indictment is void because it is uncertain, and gives no fact or information and it seems to me the main thing they did in bringing this case was to try to violate as many provisions of the constitution as they could, to say nothing about all the spirit of freedom and independence that has cost the best blood in the world for ages, and it looks like it will cost some more. Let's see what else we have got. This legislation—this legislation and all simliarsimilar [sic] legislation that human ingenuity and malice can concoct, is void because it violates Section 13, Section 12 and Section 3. I want to call attention to that, your Honor, Section 12 is the section providing that the state should cherish science, literature and learning. Now, your Honor, I make it a rule to try not to argue anything that I do not believe in, unless I am caught in a pretty close corner and I want to say that the construction of the attorney-general given to that, I think, is correct and the court added a little to it, which I think makes your interpretation correct for