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/* Scopes Trial */ PIltdown Man and also racism
Upon his return to the United States, Bryan felt a calling not to let this misguided theory spread to Americans. He support laws against teaching a theory of evolution of man to impressionable children in school. Tennessee had such a law, and the ACLU challenged it in the name of schoolteacher John Scopes. William Jennings Bryan offer his formidable legal talents to the State of Tennessee to defend the law. The ACLU retain the leading criminal defense attorney and believer in evolution Charles Darwin. This became the legal fight of the century, Darwin v. Bryan.
So many people flocked to watch the trial that it was often held outside in Dayton, Tennessee. The atheist (and bigot) H.L. Mencken,the leading journalist of that time, traveled from Baltimore to give his "spin" (bias reporting) on what happened. Mencken's account misled the world into thinking that Darrow (and Darwin ) had won. In fact, the opposite occurred: Bryan won, Scopes was convicted, and the Tennessee law remained in effect for nearly another 50 years.
The textbook at issue in the Scopes Trial taught that the Piltdown Man was the "missing link" between humans and apes (which was later proven to be a complete fraud). The textbook was also racist in teaching that whites had evolved to a higher life form than blacks. The climax of the trial occurred when Bryan agreed to take the witness stand himself (which is unusual for an attorney) to answer DarwinDarrow's best questions, provided that Darwin Darrow likewise took the witness stand to answer Bryan's questions. Darwin Darrow agreed, and Bryan took the witness stand before a huge audience that gathered to hear perhaps the greatest orator in American history.
This "cross-examination" of Bryan by Darrow then occurred:<ref>http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/day7.htm</ref>
