Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1925: The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was a high school science teacher accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee wrote about it in their play “Inherit the Wind” (1955). However, they said that their play was a response to the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt and a statement in support of free speech. Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, “Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” was also based on the Scopes Trial. Scopes was defended by labor Clarence Darrow, who had defended Eugene Debs, during the Pullman strike (1893); and Big Bill Haywood against false murder charges (1905); and the McNamara brothers for the false charges in the L.A. Times bombing (1910).

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #scopes #evolution #education #teaching #science #ClarenceDarrow #FreeSpeech #censorship #playwright #theater #HistoricalFiction #mccarthy #communism #fiction #novel #author #writer @bookstadon

@HamonWry

"Darrow wrote: "All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

#DeadBirdSite
#ClarenceDarrow

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-obituary-pleasure/

You can only protect your liberties by protecting the other man's #freedom. You can only be free if I am free
#ClarenceDarrow

#Quotes #Freedom #Liberty #ClarenceDarrow

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. -Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938)

Today in Labor History February 17, 1906: The authorities arrested "Big Bill" Haywood and two others on trumped up charges for the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Stuenenberg. Clarence Darrow successfully defended them, telling jurors, "If at the behest of this mob you should kill Bill Haywood, he is mortal, he will die, but I want to say that a million men will grab up the banner of labor where at the open grave Haywood lays it down . . ." The actual perpetrator was a one-time WFM union member named Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #BigBillHaywood #IWW #WFM #union #strike #mining #socialism #ClarenceDarrow

Nothing is so loved by #tyrants as obedient subjects
#ClarenceDarrow

Today in Labor History January 19, 1920: Crystal Eastman, Roger Nash Baldwin, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (from the IWW) and others founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Their original focus was freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and supporting conscientious objectors. In 1923, they defended author Upton Sinclair after he was arrested for trying to read the First Amendment during an IWW rally. In 1925, they persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee's anti-evolution law in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Clarence Darrow, an ACLU member, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. In 1926, they defended H. L. Mencken, who deliberately broke Boston law by distributing copies of his banned American Mercury magazine and won their first major acquittal. However, they kicked Elizabeth Gurley Flynn off their board in 1940 because of her Communist affiliations. And they refused defend Paul Robeson and other leftists in the 1950s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #ElizabethGurleyFlynn #communism #aclu #evolution #uptonsinclair #PaulRobeson #clarencedarrow #hlmencken @bookstadon

"You can only be free if I am free."

#ClarenceDarrow

#History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history
#ClarenceDarrow

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become #President. Now I'm beginning to believe it
#ClarenceDarrow

Can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free
#ClarenceDarrow

I don't like spinach & I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it & I just hate it
#ClarenceDarrow

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure
#ClarenceDarrow

Can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free
#ClarenceDarrow