Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/97

 We, the following representatives of various well-known religious organizations, churches and synagogues, do hereby petition your honor that, if you continue your custom of opening the daily sessions of the court of Rhea county with prayer, you select the officiating clergymen from among other than fundamentalist churches in alteration with fundamentalist clergymen.

We beg you to consider the fact that among the persons intimately connected with, and actively participating in this trial of Mr. John T. Scopes there are many to whom the prayers of the fundamentalists are not spiritually uplifting and are occasionally offensive. Inasmuch as by your own ruling all the people in the courtroom are required to participate in the prayers by rising, it seems to us only just and right that we should occasionally hear a prayer which requires no mental reservations on our part and in which we can conscientiously participate.

Signed: REV. CHARLES POTTER, Minister, West Side Unitarian church, New York. RABBI JEROME MARK, Temple Beth-El, Knoxville, Tenn. REV. FRED W. HAGAN, First Congregational church, Huntington, W. Va. REV. D. M. WELCH, Minister, Knoxville Unitarian church.

Mr. Hayes—My motion, your honor, is, without, of course, giving up our exception to your honor's ruling, that if the court denies that, this petition be granted and that we have an opportunity to hear prayer by men who think that God has shown His divinity in the wonders of the world, in the book of nature, quite as much as in the book of the revealed word.

Court Refers Petition to Pastors' Association

The Court—I shall refer that petition to the pastors' association of this town, and I shall ask them—

(Laughter and loud applause, and rapping for order by the policeman.)

The Court—I shall ask the pastors' association from now on to name the man who is to conduct prayer. I shall have no voice, make no suggestions as to who they name, but I will invite the men named by the association to conduct the prayer each morning.

Now, I have an announcement to make.

Mr. Hayes—May I ask your honor if this is a decision on my motion?

The Court—Yes, sir.

Mr. Hayes—So that I may except, so that I may save the record.

Mr. Neal—Your honor knows that the men your honor refers this motion to, are not among the class of men that signed the petition.

The Court—I see by the press one minister has resigned his post recently because Dr. Potter was not allowed to preach in his church and I take it he is in sympathy with Dr. Potter and his doctrine, the others are perhaps fundamentalists, I don't know.

Scoop of Judges Opinion

Now, I have a very serious matter to speak of, I dictated my opinion in this case, which is lengthy. I have been about some four hours in the preparation of the opinion. I gave it to the court stenographer, a reputable court stenographer in secret, with the instruction that no living person know anything as to the conclusions I had reached until I had begun to read my opinion from the bench. I have not intimated to any living soul what my opinion was, except to the stenographer who took the decision.

I am now informed that the newspapers in the large cities are being now sold, which undertake to state what my opinion is. Now any person that sent out any such information as that, sent it out without the authority of this court and if I find that they have corruptly se-