[Goglog] Learned a new word today

[Steve Gruenwald]

Rich Rostrom wrote:

>>  If a snippet is all you've seen, go rent ["Inherit the Wind"].
>>  It's one of the truly great ones.  Although dramatized, it's surprising
>>  how much of the important (and *some* of the dramatic) stuff happened
>>  in real life.
>
> To a certain extent.

I don't know what you're disagreeing with that I said.  I
said "it's surprising how much of the important (and *some*
of the dramatic) stuff happened in real life."  A lot of it
did, and it is surprising.

> The trial is portrayed as the attempted judicial
> persecution of "Cates" by hostile religious fanatics
> who dominate the town.

No, the trial isn't.  Have you actually seen the film?  The
trial is shown as what it was, brought by prosecutors
enforcing a newly passed state law.  No one actually
participating in the trial is portrayed as a religious
fanatic (other than Bryan) or as trying to persecute him.
Judge Raulston tried hard to maintain an orderly and fair
proceeding in reality, and this is shown in the movie.  The
extent to which there was rancor and outbursts and (arguably
excessive) deference to local and religious interests in the
trial itself is pretty darned accurate in the movie; it's
right there in the trial transcript.  The opening prayers
were long and strengly sectarian, and there was argument
about it; same with the banner over the courthouse steps.
And to some extent the movie even played it down.  According
to Mencken's contemporaneous dispatches - which there is no
basis to doubt as to the facts, whatever else may be said
about his characterizations - "There is, in fact, a
considerable heat in the trial. Bryan and the local lawyers
for the State sit glaring at the defense all day and even
the Attorney General, A.T. Stewart, who is supposed to have
secret doubts about fundamentalism, has shown such pugnacity
that it has already brought him to forced apologies."  Later,
in the course of argument, Stewart declaimed that "That
which strikes at the very foundations of Christianity is not
entitled to a chance" [to present evidence].

The surrounding atmosphere, OTOH, is something else, and
AFAICT the movie did not exaggerate much at all.  There were
probably no burnings in effigy, and the residents were
mainly courteous on the streets of the town.  But Dayton was
crowded with visiting anti-evolution (and anti-education)
agitators, Bryan was making rabble-rousing speeches from the
day he arrived (very much like those in the film), and there
were night-time outdoor prayer meetings far more extreme
than the one shown.

> This is completely false. The trial was a put-up by
> a group of prominent townsmen (one of them well known
> as a "free-thinker").

Actually by the ACLU, who did have a strong interest in the
issue.  The ACLU was actively seeking a person to challenge
the law before Rappleyea came to them.

> Mencken's depiction of Dayton as a hive of ignorant
> yokels was a nasty caricature.

Yes, nasty, as I said; but caricature?  Do you have a basis
for saying anything in his reporting was inaccurate?  In
fact, one of his first dispatches said: "The town, I confess,
greatly surprised me. I expected to find a squalid Southern
village, with darkies snoozing on the horse-blocks, pigs
rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of
hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town full
of charm and even beauty -- a somewhat smallish but
nevertheless very attractive Westminster or Balair."  (And
this is largely how it was portrayed in the movie.)  But the
prejudice, not only against evolution but against education
itself, was also there.  There were speakers against and
pamphleteering about the dangers of education.

> Scopes agreed to be the defendant, even though he couldn't
> remember whether he'd actually taught the offending part of
> the textbook during his stint as substitute science teacher.

Actually, he later specifically said he was out sick that day.

> What else? The defense team were all prominent attorneys
> working pro bono; they jumped at the opportunity as soon
> as the trial was announced. Mencken's paper, the Baltimore
> _Sun_, was involved only to the extent of paying Scopes'
> bail.

I believe that's right.  What are you contradicting?

      - Steve G