The Scopes Monkey Trial
By Elton Camp
A few years back I happened to be
In a burg called Dayton, Tennessee
For John Scopes, it was there claimed
That the theory of evolution he named
In the local high school he was a teacher,
But he ran afoul of the town’s preacher
“From a monkey you teach we’re arisen.
For that crime you should go to prison.”
When the press the charge did mention
It caught the entire nation’s attention
To the town came William Jennings Bryan
His goal was to show that Darwin was lyin’
Clarence Darrow took up Scopes’ defense
His presence made the whole town wince
To bring in money had been town’s goal
But the whole thing was out of control
“When Darrow gets through with his tricks,
This town and its people will look like hicks.”
This was the fear of the leaders of the city
Including members of the tourist committee
The judge wouldn’t allow scientists to appear
“Not relevant. To this trial you will steer clear.”
Darrow came up with such a cunning scheme
To get Mr. Bryan on the stand was his dream
Bryan agreed that on the Bible he was expert
So he didn’t see how his testimony could hurt
It soon emerged he was ignorant as could be
Something even the fundamentalists could see
The trial’s outcome was John Scopes’ convictions
Outstanding was Bryan’s bumbling contradictions
His ineptitude didn’t mean that evolution was true
But he was no scholar and didn’t know what to do
When the fundamentalists Bryan began to chide
To their horror, their champion laid down and died
To their foolish thinking it proved to be quite odd
Darrow should have died by the hand of their god.
This is what can happen when religion tries to rule
The specifics of what is to be taught in the school
The creationists claimed all appeared in six short days
Doing this both true science and Bible teaching betrays
Look at William Jennings Bryan just as close as you can
See he has a striking resemblance to a Neanderthal man
To be claimed as the direct ancestor of such a man as he
Most likely has all the hairy apes laughing in the tree.