A Religious Orgy in Tennessee Read online

  DARROW: What do you think?

  BRYAN: I do not think about things I don’t think about.

  DARROW: Do you think about things you do think about?

  BRYAN: Well, sometimes. [Laughter.]

  DARROW: Mr. Bryan, you have read these dates over and over again?

  BRYAN: Not very accurately. I turn back sometimes to see what the time was.

  DARROW: You want to say now, you have no idea how these dates were computed?

  BRYAN: No, I don’t say. But I have told you what my idea was. I say I don’t know how accurate it was.

  DARROW: You say from the generation of man.…

  STEWART: I am objecting to his cross-examining his own witnesses.

  DARROW: He is a hostile witness.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: I am going to let Mr. Bryan control.

  BRYAN: I want to give him all the latitude that he wants, for I am going to have some latitude when he gets through.

  DARROW: You can have latitude and longitude. [Laughter.]

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Order.

  STEWART: The witness is entitled to be examined as to the legal evidence of it. We were supposed to go into the origin of this case, and we have nearly lost the day, Your Honor.

  MCKENZIE (FOR THE PROSECUTION): I object to it.

  STEWART: Your Honor, he is perfectly able to take care of this, but we are attaining no evidence. This is not competent evidence.

  BRYAN: These gentlemen have not had much chance. They did not come here to try this case. They came here to try revealed religion. I am here to defend it, and they can ask me any questions they please.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: All right. [Applause.]

  DARROW: Great applause from the bleachers.

  BRYAN: From those whom you call “yokels.”

  DARROW: I have never called them yokels.

  BRYAN: That is the ignorance of Tennessee, the bigotry.

  DARROW: You mean who are applauding you?

  BRYAN: Those are the people whom you insult.

  DARROW: You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: I will not stand for that.

  DARROW: For what he is doing?

  JUDGE RAULSTON: I am talking to both of you.

  STEWART: This has gone beyond the pale of a lawsuit, your Honor. I have a public duty to perform under my oath, and I ask the court to stop it. Mr. Darrow is making an effort to insult the gentleman on the witness stand, and I ask that this be stopped, for it has gone beyond the pale of a lawsuit.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: To stop it now would not be just to Mr. Bryan. He wants to ask the other gentleman questions along the same line.

  STEWART: It will all be incompetent.

  BRYAN: The jury is not here.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: I do not want to be strictly technical.

  DARROW: Then Your Honor rules and I accept. How long ago was the flood, Mr. Bryan?

  BRYAN: Let me see Ussher’s calculation about it.*

  DARROW: Surely. [Hands a Bible to Bryan.]

  BRYAN: I think this does not give it.

  DARROW: It gives an account of Noah. Where is the one in evidence? I am quite certain it is there.

  BRYAN: Oh, I would put the estimate where it is, because I have no reason to vary it. But I would have to look at it to give you the exact date.

  DARROW: I would, too. Do you remember what book the account is in?

  BRYAN: Genesis … It is given here as 2348 years before Christ.

  DARROW: Well, 2348 years BC. You believe that all the living things that were not contained in the ark were destroyed?

  BRYAN: I think the fish may have lived.

  DARROW: Outside of the fish?

  BRYAN: I cannot say.

  DARROW: You cannot say?

  BRYAN: No, except that just as it is, I have no proof to the contrary.

  DARROW: I am asking you whether you believe it.

  BRYAN: I do.

  DARROW: That all living things outside of the fish were destroyed.

  BRYAN: What I say about the fish is merely a matter of humor.

  DARROW: I understand.

  BRYAN: Due to the fact that a man wrote up here the other day to ask whether all the fish were destroyed, and the gentleman who received the letter told him the fish may have lived.

  DARROW: I am referring to the fish too.

  BRYAN: I accept that as the Bible gives it, and I have never found any reason for denying, disputing, or rejecting it.

  DARROW: Let us make it definite: 2,348 years?

  BRYAN: I didn’t say that. That is the time given, but I don’t pretend to say that is exact.

  DARROW: You never figured it out, those generations, by yourself?

  BRYAN: No, sir, not myself.

  DARROW: But the Bible you have offered in evidence says 2340 something, so that 4200 years ago there was not a living thing on earth, excepting the people on the ark and the animals on the ark, and the fishes.

  BRYAN: There had been living things before that.

  DARROW: I mean at that time.

  BRYAN: After that.

  DARROW: Don’t you know there are any number of civilizations that are traced back to more than 5,000 years?

  BRYAN: I know we have people who trace things back according to the number of ciphers they have. But I am not satisfied they are accurate.

  DARROW: You are not satisfied that there is any civilization that can be traced back five thousand years?

  BRYAN: I would not want to say there is, because I have no evidence of it that is satisfactory.

  DARROW: Would you say there is not?

  BRYAN: Well, so far as I know, but when the scientists differ from twenty-four millions to three hundred millions in their opinions as to how long ago life came here, I want them to be nearer, to come nearer together, before they demand of me to give up my belief in the Bible.

  DARROW: Do you say that you do not believe that there were any civilizations on this earth that reach back beyond five thousand years?

  BRYAN: I am not satisfied by any evidence that I have seen.

  DARROW: I didn’t ask you what you are satisfied with—I asked you if you believed it.

  BRYAN: Will you let me answer it?

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Go right on.

  BRYAN: I am satisfied by no evidence that I have found that would justify me in accepting the opinions of these men against what I believe to be the inspired word of God.

  DARROW: And you believe every nation, every organization of men, every animal in the world outside of the fishes—

  BRYAN: The fish, I want you to understand, is merely a matter of humor.

  DARROW: I believe the Bible says so. Take the fishes in?

  BRYAN: Let us get together and look over this.

  DARROW: Probably we would better. We will after we get through. You believe that all the various human races on the earth have come into being in the last four thousand years or four thousand two hundred years, whatever it is?

  BRYAN: No; it would be more than that. Sometime after the creation, before the flood.

  DARROW: 1925 added to it?

  BRYAN: The flood is 2300 and something; and creation, according to the estimate there, is further back than that.

  DARROW: Then you don’t understand me. If we don’t get together on it, look at the book. This is the year of grace 1925, isn’t it? Let us put down 1925. Have you got a pencil? [One of the defense attorneys hands Darrow a pencil.]

  BRYAN: Add that to 4,004?

  DARROW: Yes.

  BRYAN: That is the date given here on the first page, according to Bishop Ussher, which I say I accept only because I have no reason to doubt it.

  DARROW: 1925 plus 4004 is 5,929 years. Now then, what do you subtract from that?

  BRYAN: That is the beginning.

  DARROW: I was talking about the flood.

  BRYAN: 2348 on that, we said.

  DARROW: Less that?

  BRYAN
: No, subtract that from 4000. It would be about 1700 years.

  DARROW: That is the same thing.

  BRYAN: No. Subtracted, it is 2300 and something before the beginning of the Christian era, about 1700 years after the Creation.

  DARROW: If I add 2300 years, that is the beginning of the Christian era?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: If I add 1925 to that I will get it, won’t I?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: That makes 4,262 years?

  BRYAN: According to the Bible there was a civilization before that, destroyed by the flood.

  DARROW: Let me make this definite. You believe that every civilization on the earth and every living thing, except possibly the fishes, that came out of the ark, were wiped out by the flood?

  BRYAN: At that time.

  DARROW: At that time; and then whatever human beings, including all the tribes that inhabited the world, and have inhabited the world, and who run their pedigree straight back, and all the animals, have come on to the earth since the flood?

  BRYAN: Yes.

  DARROW: Within 4200 years. Do you know a scientific man on the earth that believes any such thing?

  BRYAN: I cannot say. But I know some scientific men who dispute entirely the antiquity of man as testified to by other scientific men.

  DARROW: Only that does not answer the question. Do you know of a single scientific man on the face of the earth that believes any such thing as you stated, about the antiquity of man?

  BRYAN: I don’t think I have ever asked one the direct question.

  DARROW: Quite important, isn’t it?

  BRYAN: Well, I don’t know as it is.

  DARROW: It might not be?

  BRYAN: If I had nothing else to do except speculate on what our remote ancestors were and what our remote descendants have been, but I have been more interested in Christians going on right now, to make it much more important than speculations on either the past or the future.

  DARROW: You have never had any interest in the age of the various races and people and civilizations and animals that exist upon the earth today. Is that right?

  BRYAN: I have never felt a great deal of interest in the effort that has been made to dispute the Bible by the speculations of men, or the investigations of men.

  DARROW: Are you the only human being on earth who knows what the Bible means?

  STEWART: I object.

  JUDGE RAULSTON: Sustained.

  DARROW: You do know that there are thousands of people who profess to be Christians who believe the earth is much more ancient and that the human race is much more ancient?

  BRYAN: I think there may be.

  DARROW: And you never have investigated to find out

  how long man has been on the earth?

  BRYAN: I have never found it necessary to examine every speculation; but if I had done it I never would have done anything else.

  DARROW: I ask for a direct answer.

  BRYAN: I do not expect to find out all those things. I do not expect to find out about races.

  DARROW: I didn’t ask you that. Now, I ask you if you know, if it was interesting enough, or important enough for you to try to find out how old these ancient civilizations are?

  BRYAN: No, I have not made a study of it.

  DARROW: Don’t you know that the ancient civilizations of China are six or seven thousand years old at the very least?

  BRYAN: No; but they would not run back beyond the creation, according to the Bible six thousand years.

  DARROW: You don’t know how old they are, is that right?

  BRYAN: I don’t know how old they are, but possibly you do. [Laughter.] I think you would give the preference to anybody who opposed the Bible, and I give the preference to the Bible.

  DARROW: I see. Well, you are welcome to your opinion. Have you any idea how old the Egyptian civilization is?

  BRYAN: No.

  DARROW: Do you know of any record in the world, outside of the story of the Bible, which conforms to any statement that it is 4,200 years ago or thereabouts, that all life was wiped off the face of the earth?

  BRYAN: I think they have found records.

  DARROW: Do you know of any?

  BRYAN: Records reciting the flood, but I am not an authority on the subject.

  DARROW: Now, Mr. Bryan: will you say if you know of any record, or have ever heard of any records that describe that a flood existed 4,200 years ago, or about that time, which wiped all life off the earth?

  BRYAN: The recollection of what I have read on the subject is not distinct enough to say whether the records attempted to fix a time, but I have seen in the discoveries of archaeologists where they have found records that described the flood.

  DARROW: Mr. Bryan, don’t you know that there are many old religions that describe the flood?

  BRYAN: No, I don’t know.

  DARROW: You know there are others besides the Jewish?

  BRYAN: I don’t know whether those are the record of any other religion, or refer to this flood.

  DARROW: Don’t you ever examine religion so far to know that?

  BRYAN: Outside of the Bible?

  DARROW: Yes.

  BRYAN: No, I have not examined to know that, generally.

  DARROW: You have never examined any other religions?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: Have you ever read anything about the origins of religions?

  BRYAN: Not a great deal.

  DARROW: You have never examined any other religion?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: And you don’t know whether any other religion gave a similar account of the destruction of the earth by the flood?

  BRYAN: The Christian religion has satisfied me and I have never felt it necessary to look up some competing religions.

  DARROW: Do you consider that every religion on earth competes with the Christian religion?

  BRYAN: I think everybody who believes in the Christian religion believes so …

  DARROW: I am asking what you think.

  BRYAN: I do not regard them as competitive because I do not think they have the same source as we have.

  DARROW: You are wrong in saying “competitive”?

  BRYAN: I would not say competitive, but the religious unbelievers.

  DARROW: Unbelievers of what?

  BRYAN: In the Christian religion.

  DARROW: What about the religion of Buddha?

  BRYAN: Well, I can tell you something about that, if you would like to know.

  DARROW: What about the religion of Confucius or Buddha?

  BRYAN: Well, I can tell you something about them, if you would like to know.

  DARROW: Did you ever investigate them?

  BRYAN: Somewhat.

  DARROW: Do you regard them as competitive?

  BRYAN: No, I think they are very inferior. Would you like for me to tell you what I know about it?

  DARROW: No.

  BRYAN: Well, I shall insist on giving it to you.

  DARROW: You won’t talk about free silver, will you?

  BRYAN: Not at all.

  STEWART: I object to counsel going any further and cross-examining his own witness. He is your own witness.

  DARROW: Well, now, general, I assume that every lawyer knows perfectly well that we have a right to cross-examine a hostile witness. Is there any doubt about that?

  STEWART: Under the law in Tennessee, if you put a witness on and he proves to be hostile to you, the law provides the method by which you may cross-examine him. You will have to make an affidavit that you are surprised at his statement, and you may do that.

  BRYAN: Is there any way by which a witness can make an affidavit that the attorney also is hostile?

  DARROW: I am not hostile to you. I am hostile to your views, and I suppose that runs with me, too.

  BRYAN: But I think when the gentleman asked me about Confucius I ought to be allowed to answer his question.

  DARROW: Oh, tell it, Mr. Bryan, I won’t
object to it.

  BRYAN: I had occasion to study Confucianism when I went to China. I got all I could find about what Confucius said, and I found that there were several direct and strong contrasts between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Confucius. In the first place, one of his followers asked if there was any word that would express all that was necessary to know in the relations of life, and he said, “Isn’t reciprocity such a word?” I know of no better illustration of the difference between Christianity and Confucianism than the contrast that is brought out there. Reciprocity is a calculating selfishness. If a person does something for you, you do something for him and keep it even. That is the basis for the philosophy of Confucius. Christ’s doctrine was not of reciprocity. We were told to help people not in proportion as they had helped us—not in proportion as they might have helped us, but in proportion to their needs, and there is all the difference in the world between a religion that teaches you just to keep even with other people and the religion that teaches you to spend yourself for other people and to help them as they need help.

  DARROW: There is no doubt about that. I haven’t asked you that.

  BRYAN: That is one of the differences between the two.

  DARROW: Do you know how old the Confucian religion is?

  BRYAN: I can’t give you the exact date of it.

  DARROW: Did you ever investigate to find out?

  BRYAN: Not to be able to speak definitely as to date, but I can tell you something I read, and will tell you.

  DARROW: Wouldn’t you just as soon answer my questions, and get along?

  BRYAN: Yes, sir.

  DARROW: Of course, if I take any advantage of misquoting you, I don’t object to being stopped. Do you know how old the religion of Zoroaster is?

  BRYAN: No, sir.

  DARROW: Do you know they are both more ancient than the Christian religion?

  BRYAN: I am not willing to take the opinion of people who are trying to find excuses for rejecting the Christian religion, when they attempt to give dates and hours and minutes. And they will have to get together and be more exact than they have yet been able, to compel me to accept just what they say as if it were absolutely true.

  DARROW: Are you familiar with James Clark’s book on the ten great religions?

  BRYAN: No.

  DARROW: He was a Unitarian minister, wasn’t he? You don’t think he was trying to find fault, do you?

  BRYAN: I am not speaking of the motives of men.