Today -100: July 16, 1925: It is a tragedy to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon

At the Scopes trial, Dudley Field Malone denies that the theory of evolution conflicts with the Bible. 

Since only one member of the Scopes jury admits to having read anything about evolution ever, Clarence Darrow suggests they should be allowed to hear about what evolution is before they decide whether the thing that John Scopes taught was evolution. So he calls zoologist (and Christian) Prof. Maynard Metcalf. After objections, Judge Raulston hears from the prof in the absence of the jury (who are told to stay away from the loudspeakers outside the courthouse). At his assertion that life on Earth began at least 600 million years ago, “There was an incredulous laugh among the spectators in court.”

Attorney General Tom Stewart feels the need to counteract whatever effect the reading from a (state-mandated) biology textbook had by reading the Book of Genesis to a bored jury. A 14-year-old student is asked what Scopes taught and gave a 14-year-old student answer, after which Darrow asks, “It hasn’t hurt you any, has it?” “No.”

H. L. Mencken, writing about William Jennings Bryan in The Baltimore Evening Sun: “This old buzzard, having failed to raise the mob against its rulers, now prepares to raise it against its teachers. He can never be the peasants’ President, but there is still a chance to be the peasants’ Pope. ... One somehow pities him, despite his so palpable imbecilities. It is a tragedy, indeed, to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon.”

Women in Detroit will be allowed to smoke in street cars.

The sheriff of Frederick County, Maryland carries out a sentence of 10 lashes for a convicted wife-beater, the first judicial whipping for years. That is, the first judicial whipping of a white man.

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