Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/88

 thought it was necessary to leave their church. They believed that they could appreciate and understand and make their own simple and human doctrine of the Nazarine, to love their neighbor, be kindly with them, not to place a fine on and not try to send to jail some man who did not believe as they believed, and got along all right with it, too, until something happened. They have not thought it necessary to give up their church, because they believed that all that was here was not made on the first six days of creation, or that it had come by a slow process of developments extending over the ages, that one thing grew out of another. There are people who believed that organic life and the plants and the animals and man and the mind of man, and the religion of man are the subjects of evolution, and they have not got through, and that the God in which they believed did not finish creation on the first day, but that he is still working to make something better and higher still out of human beings, who are next to God, and that evolution has been working forever and will work forever—they believe it.

And along comes somebody who says we have got to believe it as I believe it. It is a crime to know more than I know. And they publish a law to inhibit learning. Now, what is in the way of it? First, what does the law say? This law says that it shall be a criminal offense to teach in the public schools any account of the origin of man that is in conflict with the divine account in the Bible. It makes the Bible the yard stick to measure every man's intellect, to measure every man's intelligence and to measure every man's learning. Are your mathematics good? Turn to I Elijah ii, is your philosophy good? See II Samuel iii, is your astronomy good? See Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 7, is your chemistry good? See—well, chemistry, see Deuteronomy iii-6, or anything that tells about brimstone. Every bit of knowledge that the mind has, must be submitted to a religious test. Now, let us see, it is a travesty upon language, it is a travesty upon justice, it is a travesty upon the constitution to say that any citizen of Tennessee can be deprived of his rights by a legislative body in the face of the constitution. Tell me, your honor, if this is not good, then what? Then, where are we coming out? I want to argue that in connection with another question here which is equally plain. Of course, I used to hear when I was a boy you could lead a horse to water, but you could not make him drink—water. I could lead a man to water, but I could not make him drink, either. And you can close your eyes and you won't see, cannot see, refuse to open your eyes—stick your fingers in your ears and you cannot hear—if you want to. But your life and my life and the life of every American citizen depends after all upon the tolerance and forebearance of his fellowman. If men are not tolerant, if men cannot respect each other's opinions, if men cannot live and let live, then no man's life is safe, no man's life is safe.

Here is a country made up of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotch, German, Europeans, Asiatics, Africans, men of every sort and men of every creed and men of every scientific belief; who is going to begin this sorting out and say, "I shall measure you; I know you are a fool, or worse; I know and I have read a creed telling what I know and I will make people go to Heaven even if they don't want to go with me, I will make them do it." Where is the man that is wise enough to do it?

This statute is passed under the police power of this state. Is there any kind of question about that? Counsel have argued that the legislature has the right to say what shall be taught in the public school. Yes, within limits, they have. We do not doubt it, but they probably cannot say writing and arithmetic could not be taught, and certainly they cannot say nothing can be