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A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial
"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition."
—Alistair Cooke
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.
Mencken’ s no-nonsense sensibility is still his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.
A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for T he Baltimore Sun, The Nation , and The American Mercury . It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’ s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
—Alistair Cooke
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.
Mencken’ s no-nonsense sensibility is still his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.
A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for T he Baltimore Sun, The Nation , and The American Mercury . It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’ s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
206 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2006
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About the author
H.L. Mencken
637 books727 followersHenry Louis "H.L." Mencken became one of the most influential and prolific journalists in America in the 1920s and '30s, writing about all the shams and con artists in the world. He attacked chiropractors and the Ku Klux Klan, politicians and other journalists. Most of all, he attacked Puritan morality. He called Puritanism, "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."
When asked what he would like for an epitaph, Mencken wrote, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
(from American Public Media)
At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."
When asked what he would like for an epitaph, Mencken wrote, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
(from American Public Media)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
March 6, 2009
_A Religious Orgy in Tennessee_ is a minefield surrounded by a barbed wire fence in the middle of a volcano on the outskirts of another minefield.
There are only a handfull of writers whose style I would actively attempt to plagiarise if I were not a better person: Henry Louis Mencken is near the top.
Mencken really did not like Bryan in any way; his relationship to the old fundy is very similar to that between Hunter Thompson and Dick Nixon. Most of the reportage herein is confined to vitriolic attacks on the character of Bryan, and the infamous obituary, near the end of the book, is probably the cruellest last things to say to a dead man I've ever heard or seen. There is much hatred written throughout, regional, personal and religious, but Mencken never misses a chance to make his language sing.
If you want to learn about the Scopes Trial, read another book; if you want to read a book that is ostensibly about the Scopes Trial, but is in fact, a manifesto against the psychological evils of fundamentalism, ignorance, and William Jennings Bryan, then settle in.
Here, in his reportage from Dayton in the steamy summer of '25, his shirt-sleeves rolled past the elbow, chewing a fat cigar, and lampooning whatever he sees as dangerously backward, Mencken epitomizes the nobly lacerating journalist, whose persona he pretty much created. There is very little here about the actual trial; instead he unearths the Daytonians' superstitions. This actually enhances the relevancy of the trial as few histories could do. What Mencken decsribes and decries is a return to a science-less pre-history, where a majority of Bryanites rules the campuses and the government. It's a scary thought; thankfully, we've come a bit further, but not too far.
There are only a handfull of writers whose style I would actively attempt to plagiarise if I were not a better person: Henry Louis Mencken is near the top.
Mencken really did not like Bryan in any way; his relationship to the old fundy is very similar to that between Hunter Thompson and Dick Nixon. Most of the reportage herein is confined to vitriolic attacks on the character of Bryan, and the infamous obituary, near the end of the book, is probably the cruellest last things to say to a dead man I've ever heard or seen. There is much hatred written throughout, regional, personal and religious, but Mencken never misses a chance to make his language sing.
If you want to learn about the Scopes Trial, read another book; if you want to read a book that is ostensibly about the Scopes Trial, but is in fact, a manifesto against the psychological evils of fundamentalism, ignorance, and William Jennings Bryan, then settle in.
Here, in his reportage from Dayton in the steamy summer of '25, his shirt-sleeves rolled past the elbow, chewing a fat cigar, and lampooning whatever he sees as dangerously backward, Mencken epitomizes the nobly lacerating journalist, whose persona he pretty much created. There is very little here about the actual trial; instead he unearths the Daytonians' superstitions. This actually enhances the relevancy of the trial as few histories could do. What Mencken decsribes and decries is a return to a science-less pre-history, where a majority of Bryanites rules the campuses and the government. It's a scary thought; thankfully, we've come a bit further, but not too far.
May 28, 2015
BRILLIANT.
“Such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed.”—page 21
Vintage, vitriolic, Mencken: A RELIGIOUS ORGY IN TENNESSEE: A Reporter’s Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial, by H. L. Mencken, Art Winslow offers up the journalist’s first-hand accounts and commentaries on the 1925 trial of John Scopes—for ‘unlawfully’ teaching theories of human evolution in a state funded school—made familiar to us all by the great 1960 Spencer Tracy movie: Inherit the Wind.
Mencken was there. And Mencken had strong opinions about the subject matter, about the participants, and about the outright buffoonery of it all. In his newspaper and magazine articles reprinted in this volume he expresses those opinions with his usual linguistic eloquence, flare and ‘killer’ vocabulary. [Thank goodness for electronic readers, with quick and easy dictionary access.]
Recommendation: A lexicological orgy. Most particularly, and highly, recommended to the language nerds among us. Critical thinking enthusiasts will also delight. Fans of William Jennings Bryan might want to take a ‘pass’ on this one.
“Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. … Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything he was not.”—page 87
“He liked people who sweated freely, and were not debauched by the refinements of toilet.”—page 99
NOOKbook edition, 130 pages
“Such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed.”—page 21
Vintage, vitriolic, Mencken: A RELIGIOUS ORGY IN TENNESSEE: A Reporter’s Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial, by H. L. Mencken, Art Winslow offers up the journalist’s first-hand accounts and commentaries on the 1925 trial of John Scopes—for ‘unlawfully’ teaching theories of human evolution in a state funded school—made familiar to us all by the great 1960 Spencer Tracy movie: Inherit the Wind.
Mencken was there. And Mencken had strong opinions about the subject matter, about the participants, and about the outright buffoonery of it all. In his newspaper and magazine articles reprinted in this volume he expresses those opinions with his usual linguistic eloquence, flare and ‘killer’ vocabulary. [Thank goodness for electronic readers, with quick and easy dictionary access.]
Recommendation: A lexicological orgy. Most particularly, and highly, recommended to the language nerds among us. Critical thinking enthusiasts will also delight. Fans of William Jennings Bryan might want to take a ‘pass’ on this one.
“Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. … Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything he was not.”—page 87
“He liked people who sweated freely, and were not debauched by the refinements of toilet.”—page 99
NOOKbook edition, 130 pages
January 13, 2021
This was a bit of a surprise. I'd wanted to read some H L Mencken for some time, but it is not something that readily crosses one's path apart from references by other journalists. This is not a cheap paperback so I didn't rush into buying it, but then I did. I was expecting a report on the infamous Scopes trial and that is what it is. What surprised me, was that this reporting from 1925 could just as easily have been written today. How little the USA has changed in almost 100 years. Faith, fundamental Christianity continues to dominate, one party wants to force its beliefs over another, facts and evidence, scientific or otherwise, are irrelevant or just simply wrong, not by counter-proof, but counter belief. William Jennings Bryan was one-time presidential candidate very similar to his modern counterpart, but certainly more learned, in a biblical way, and not someone who impressed Mencken, but yet carried the day in court to ban the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools in favour of a literal reading of the Bible. Mencken's penultimate sentence in his reports on the trial, "It may help, indeed, to break up the democratic delusion, now already showing weakness, and so hasten its own end." Little has changed.
February 19, 2017
" Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards. His own speech was a grotesque performance and downright touching in its imbecility. Its climax came when he launched into a furious denunciation of the doctrine that man is a mammal. It seemed a sheer impossibility that any literate man should stand up in public and discharge any such nonsense. Yet the poor old fellow did it. Darrow stared incredulous. Malone sat with his mouth wide open. Hays indulged himself one of his sardonic chuckles. Stewart and Bryan fils looked extremely uneasy, but the old mountebank ranted on. To call a man a mammal, it appeared, was to flout the revelation of God. The certain effect of the doctrine would be to destroy morality and promote infidelity. The defense let it pass. The lily needed no gilding."
May 17, 2015
In his day, Mencken was the equivalent of Jon Stewart--except with more bite and a larger vocabulary. This collection of his reports of the trial and Bryan's obituary (3 versions) are as fresh and relevant today as when they were written. His wit and ferocity are not at all diminished.
Tip: Don't attempt to start highlighting especially meaningful and witty passages in this book--you will wind up highlighting the entire thing. Trust me on this. I know from experience.
Tip: Don't attempt to start highlighting especially meaningful and witty passages in this book--you will wind up highlighting the entire thing. Trust me on this. I know from experience.
September 27, 2020
This collection of articles by Mencken just skewers the simple-minded Appalachians of 1925 Tennessee and their de facto leader, William Jennings Bryan. He paints them as a people who are proud of their ignorance and work hard at keeping any facts or knowledge from upsetting their faith in mythology; it is the exact opposite of the scientific method that will come up with an idea based on present facts but change if new ones are discovered. In which world would you rather live?
July 12, 2022
“The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken to be a sort of immunity, not merely from governmental control but also from public opinion…Any fool, once he is admitted to holy orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us.”
“Even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.”
While I was reading this book, I was wondering to myself, who is this generation’s H.L. Mencken?
Someone with acerbic wit.
Someone fearless about calling out foolishness and superstition.
Someone who sees their purpose as exposing the lies of the powerful for the good of the country rather than protecting their own status and access to power.
Perhaps this person exists. If they do, we need more of them.
When Clarence Darrow eviscerated perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand near the close of the Scopes Evolution trial, many viewed it (despite Scopes conviction) as the death knell of creationism. Mencken was not so sure. Present at the trial, Mencken talked to people from all walks of life in small town Dayton, Tennessee and found himself shocked by the superstitions and lack of basic education that informed their lives (Bryan would state under examination from Darrow that he believed men were not mammals, to great cheers from the courtroom).
Mencken rightly surmised that people who believe in superstitions like that a man lived in the belly of a ‘large fish’ would not be so easily dissuaded. That they would in fact regroup and come back stronger.
That we are still discussing the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in 2022 is proof that Mencken was far more prescient than many gave him credit for.
I will add that Mencken’s writing is probably not for everyone. There is some casual racism and when he lays into someone, in this case Bryan, he is like a boxer who has knocked out his opponent but keeps pummeling him as he lies on the mat. It is at times beyond simple criticism, it is savage.
Take this passage from his obituary of Bryan, who would die five days after the trial ended:
.“This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P.T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition, the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes.”
Or a more comparatively speaking gentle observation:
“The best verdict the most romantic editorial writer could dredge up, save in the eloquent South, was to the general effect that his imbecilities were excused by his earnestness”
Yikes. If people thought some were too rough on Jerry Falwell when he died, those same folks should thank their lucky stars that Mencken wasn’t around to give his opinion.
All that said, he was a brilliant at often humorous writer who didn’t suffer fools gladly. America was lucky to have him and sorely needs someone like him now.
April 25, 2012
H.L. Mencken has long been listed among America's most brilliant and infamous journalists and iconoclasts, and after having read this collection of articles it is easy to see why. The writing is superb and not a single sentence goes by that won't make you stop and think. While this collection centers around the articles Mencken wrote during the Scopes Monkey Trial the actual content and ideas explored are both timeless and timely, given today's still very hot debate over creationism being taught in the classroom.
Mencken is nothing if not scathing, and it is easy to see how later writers, such as Christopher Hitchens, owe so much to his work. One does not need to agree with all of the points he makes to see the pure writing talent he had, and truth be told some paragraphs were even a bit rattling to an atheist and anti-fundamentalist as myself. The stand out article for me was "Homo Neanderthalensis" in which Mencken gives his most uncompromising assessment of the state of 'enlightenment' of most members of the 'so-called' human race. I don't agree with everything he says within it, but it makes you think, and that to me is a much more valuable function of reading a writer's work than affirmation for my own beliefs. (That particular article can be found online here: http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment...)
Also included in this publication is the full court transcript between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the two lawyers on either side of the anti-evolution case, and is an interesting debate between two men on completely opposite ends of the religious spectrum. While typing in the names "Hitchens," "Dawkins," or "Harris" in a YouTube search field may find you more exciting debates, this one is still very much worth reading due to its historic significance.
All in all this is a fascinating read that would be sure to provide plenty of food for thought as well as questions for debate among friends or in a classroom setting. Also, between Mencken's articles and the court transcript, it is perhaps the most competent and concise lesson in the most famous trial of the early 20th century in under 210 pages. A must read for anyone who enjoys great writing.
Mencken is nothing if not scathing, and it is easy to see how later writers, such as Christopher Hitchens, owe so much to his work. One does not need to agree with all of the points he makes to see the pure writing talent he had, and truth be told some paragraphs were even a bit rattling to an atheist and anti-fundamentalist as myself. The stand out article for me was "Homo Neanderthalensis" in which Mencken gives his most uncompromising assessment of the state of 'enlightenment' of most members of the 'so-called' human race. I don't agree with everything he says within it, but it makes you think, and that to me is a much more valuable function of reading a writer's work than affirmation for my own beliefs. (That particular article can be found online here: http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment...)
Also included in this publication is the full court transcript between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the two lawyers on either side of the anti-evolution case, and is an interesting debate between two men on completely opposite ends of the religious spectrum. While typing in the names "Hitchens," "Dawkins," or "Harris" in a YouTube search field may find you more exciting debates, this one is still very much worth reading due to its historic significance.
All in all this is a fascinating read that would be sure to provide plenty of food for thought as well as questions for debate among friends or in a classroom setting. Also, between Mencken's articles and the court transcript, it is perhaps the most competent and concise lesson in the most famous trial of the early 20th century in under 210 pages. A must read for anyone who enjoys great writing.
February 12, 2008
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.
Mencken’s no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.
A Religious Orgy in Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary exchange: Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
Mencken’s no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.
A Religious Orgy in Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary exchange: Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
October 11, 2007
Includes all the articles H.L. Mencken wrote during the Scopes Monkey Trial (the basis for the play and movie Inherit the Wind). At the end of the book there's a transcript of Darrow's entire cross-examination of William Jennings Bryant. It's amazing to read, though not as intense as I expected. It's more amazing that the Creationism debate is still going on...
January 1, 2016
This is Mencken's complete reportage of the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Tennessee, in which a teacher was tried for teaching the theory of evolution in a small-town public school. Mencken eloquently, methodically and brutally eviscerates the ignorant and intolerant fundamentalists (most notably William Jennings Bryan) who condemned Scopes, and science in general.
February 26, 2014
Viewing the farcical nature of the Scopes Trial through Mencken's lens provides equal doses of hilarity and dismay. His unforgiving style and relentless hammering of the "mountebank" William Jennings Bryan brings a smile to the face of anyone opposed to the public dissemination of ignorance and willful stupidity.
August 4, 2011
This book contains a lot of ranting. But as a collection of political editorials from 1925, it's enlightening the extent to which nothing has changed in 85 years.
August 6, 2011
Its relevance today is startling.
March 8, 2015
The first work of Mencken I've read, and certainly not the last. His command of the English language and his dripping contempt for stupidity and bullshit were an absolute pleasure to read.
September 28, 2017
The Sage of Baltimore completely evicerates the populist/progressive imbecile William Jennings Bryan, former Secretary of State, three-time Democratic Presidential candidate and bimetallist of "Cross of Gold speech" fame, while covering the so-called Scopes monkey trial. One particularly searing example:
"Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not"
If Mencken's brutalizing of Bryan wasn't enough, defense attorney Clarence Darrow's questioning of Bryan is also included in full. Darrow systematically picks Bryan apart, putting his ignorance of science, anthropolgy and the Bible itself on full display. Being that the trial took place in 1925 in small town Tennessee, however, Scopes lost anyway, and Bryan died five days after the trial ended - before he could do any more damage to the world.
"Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not"
If Mencken's brutalizing of Bryan wasn't enough, defense attorney Clarence Darrow's questioning of Bryan is also included in full. Darrow systematically picks Bryan apart, putting his ignorance of science, anthropolgy and the Bible itself on full display. Being that the trial took place in 1925 in small town Tennessee, however, Scopes lost anyway, and Bryan died five days after the trial ended - before he could do any more damage to the world.
August 10, 2020
As Mencken says toward the end of the book, these people won't be going away. Evangelicals are on a mission, and that mission is to force down other people's throats their anti-science religion. Anyone who embraces a literal interpretation of scripture is destined to be considered a nutcase by rationalists. Demagogues such as Bryan still litter our landscape, herding the thought-challenged for their own purposes. Mencken is ruthless here, and one could say even cruel in his disgust. The trial was certainly a farce and I suppose not worthy of detailed descriptions of the day-to-day antics of the fundamentalist zealots. What is especially amusing to me is that anti-evolutionists were so blatantly obvious in trumpeting the foregone conclusion (i.e. conviction) that no one could mistake the proceedings as anything other than a mockery of the justice system, at least as practiced in a backwater town in Tennessee.
May 13, 2009
Scathing. But not really. Reading this is like being at a business meeting and you know what’s going on and no one says it but HL does with the utmost clarity. But he equally loathes falseness of all coats, legal or not. It makes sense the guy from the HBO show The Wire was a newsman from Baltimore.
January 24, 2025
Scorching. Scathing. And sadly prescient.
June 3, 2017
Many authors have crystallized the elements of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. H.L. Mencken enriches this history in two ways: he was an excellent journalist, and he was actually present in the courtroom. If you are looking for sympathy for the fundamentalists, Mencken is not your man. However, I was impressed with his coverage of Dayton, Tennessee, and I suspect this positive assessment remains true today.
Nearly a century later, a few of Mencken's writings range from improper to racist (including passages in his other book Choice of Days). Who knows which of these he would alter, or hold fast to, if he were resurrected?
Nonetheless, Mencken provides a window on the Scopes Trial that is worth looking through. He ensured the glass remained clear, the light undeterred.
Nearly a century later, a few of Mencken's writings range from improper to racist (including passages in his other book Choice of Days). Who knows which of these he would alter, or hold fast to, if he were resurrected?
Nonetheless, Mencken provides a window on the Scopes Trial that is worth looking through. He ensured the glass remained clear, the light undeterred.
January 13, 2018
Mencken was a brilliant and cutting man, but his opinion pieces on the Scopes trial are not necessarily his best work. Perhaps the best part of this is the appendix, which gives a transcript of Darrow's interrogation of Bryan about the possible flaws of literal interpretations of the bible and the difficulties of fundamentalism.
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July 19, 2007A great overview of the trial. Mencken is delightfully scathing. Darrow's cross examination of Bryan was not as damaging as I expected, but still amusing. I can't believe this argument is still going on more than 75 years after the Scopes trial...
December 19, 2017
Excellent selection of articles written by Mencken as he was covering the infamous Scopes 'evolution' trial (and subject of the great film Inherit the Wind). Mencken's critique is both intellectually brilliant and biting!
April 10, 2017
Sharp and oftentimes comical overview of the Scopes Monkey Trial from someone who was actually there for it. Some great pieces on what educational systems do (and don't do); and some really great insight on the dangers of religious quackery.
May 3, 2022
A funny collection of Mencken's columns during the Scopes trial. His wit is something else.
December 30, 2023
This is of historical interest. John Thomas Scopes was a teacher who taught Darwinian evolution in the state of Tennessee. This had been outlawed by the state legislature as being un-Christian and contrary to the Bible. Religious Fundamentalists were in control of the state government. A trial took place in the town of Dayton, Tennessee to prosecute Scopes.
The Baltimore Evening Sun sent their renown reporter, H. L. Mencken, to cover the trial in July of 1925. It had attracted nation-wide interest.
This book consists of the daily reportage of Mencken, plus a transcript of the confrontation between the defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow, and chief prosecutor William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was a Fundamentalist who believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible. The Bible was the word of God and the absolute truth.
Mencken comes off as a snob and elitist, referring to the people of Tennessee as yokels or worse. But his daily reportage, even though from 1925, points out many of the inherent divisions in the United States that continue to this day. The confrontation between secularism and religious beliefs is still prominent today. One has only to look at recent Supreme Court decisions. The U.S. is the only advanced democratic country where many of those elected to government office profess Christian beliefs.
Page 93 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
And he [Bryan, chief prosecutor] takes refuge, peasant-like, in religious hallucinations. They depart from sense altogether. They are not merely silly; they are downright idiotic. And, being idiotic, they appeal with irresistible force to the poor half-wits… When I heard him [Bryan] in open court, denounce the notion that man is a mammal I was genuinely staggered and so was every other stranger in the courtroom… But the native Fundamentalist, it quickly appeared, saw nothing absurd in his words. The attorneys for the prosecution smiled approval, the crowd applauded, the judge on the bench beamed his acquiescence. And the same thing happened when he denounced all education as corrupting and began arguing incredibly that a farmer who read the Bible knew more than any scientist in the world.
This book also points out the urban-rural divide. Mencken constantly denigrates the “rural hicks”. This divide is even more significant today, where one has Senators representing rural states that thwart progressive legislation. Why is it that states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky… have the same number of votes in the Senate that California has. Perhaps this was acceptable in 1789 when there were only a few states represented.
In many ways, the influence of Christianity on American government has only increased since the Scopes trial in 1925. The supposed “separation of church and state” is largely a charade.
Page 120 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
The best of liberal thought… is simply the doctrine that a man engaged in combat with superstition should be very polite to superstition. This, I fear, is nonsense. The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so to rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.
True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights… to harbor and indulge his imbecilities… [but] he has no right to be protected against the criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.
Page 121 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken as a sort of immunity, not merely from government control but also from public opinion…Is it to pass unchallenged? What we have is the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to holy orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelations, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us.
… though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts, they are in direct contravention of the known facts.
The Baltimore Evening Sun sent their renown reporter, H. L. Mencken, to cover the trial in July of 1925. It had attracted nation-wide interest.
This book consists of the daily reportage of Mencken, plus a transcript of the confrontation between the defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow, and chief prosecutor William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was a Fundamentalist who believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible. The Bible was the word of God and the absolute truth.
Mencken comes off as a snob and elitist, referring to the people of Tennessee as yokels or worse. But his daily reportage, even though from 1925, points out many of the inherent divisions in the United States that continue to this day. The confrontation between secularism and religious beliefs is still prominent today. One has only to look at recent Supreme Court decisions. The U.S. is the only advanced democratic country where many of those elected to government office profess Christian beliefs.
Page 93 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
And he [Bryan, chief prosecutor] takes refuge, peasant-like, in religious hallucinations. They depart from sense altogether. They are not merely silly; they are downright idiotic. And, being idiotic, they appeal with irresistible force to the poor half-wits… When I heard him [Bryan] in open court, denounce the notion that man is a mammal I was genuinely staggered and so was every other stranger in the courtroom… But the native Fundamentalist, it quickly appeared, saw nothing absurd in his words. The attorneys for the prosecution smiled approval, the crowd applauded, the judge on the bench beamed his acquiescence. And the same thing happened when he denounced all education as corrupting and began arguing incredibly that a farmer who read the Bible knew more than any scientist in the world.
This book also points out the urban-rural divide. Mencken constantly denigrates the “rural hicks”. This divide is even more significant today, where one has Senators representing rural states that thwart progressive legislation. Why is it that states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky… have the same number of votes in the Senate that California has. Perhaps this was acceptable in 1789 when there were only a few states represented.
In many ways, the influence of Christianity on American government has only increased since the Scopes trial in 1925. The supposed “separation of church and state” is largely a charade.
Page 120 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
The best of liberal thought… is simply the doctrine that a man engaged in combat with superstition should be very polite to superstition. This, I fear, is nonsense. The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so to rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.
True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights… to harbor and indulge his imbecilities… [but] he has no right to be protected against the criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.
Page 121 from the reporting of H. L. Mencken
The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken as a sort of immunity, not merely from government control but also from public opinion…Is it to pass unchallenged? What we have is the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to holy orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelations, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us.
… though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts, they are in direct contravention of the known facts.
May 23, 2025
Writing this review as a former resident of Dayton and a proud Appalachian. Mencken continues to be lauded as one of the most erudite and accomplished journalists of his era. I see plenty of five-star reviews of this book here, praising Mencken's wit and brilliance. As someone who grew up rural and religious, no book has ever had such a profoundly negative physiological impact on me. It was painful to read his reductive and deeply dehumanizing evaluation of rural southern mountaineers. Menken described the towns folk as “hillbillies,” “halfwits,” “peasants,” “yokels from the hills,” and “gaping primates from the upland valleys of the Cumberland Range.” These admirers of Bryan’s religious fervor, Mencken noted, were “people who sweated freely, and were not debauched by the refinements of the toilet.” Referring to these “inferior orders of men” as “Homo Neanderthalensis” and “immortal vermin,” he writes, “The inferior man’s reasons for hating knowledge are not hard to discern. He hates it because it is complex- because it puts an unbearable burden upon his meager capacity for ideas.”
Ask yourself if it is ever, under any circumstance acceptable to refer to human beings as gaping primates or vermin. Mencken was a staunch social Darwinist, and while I have my own critiques of the religious fundamentalism so prominent in my hometown, I am far more concerned about a news media ethos that continues to transform ideological enemies into caricatures. This polarization is at the root of the deep divides that continue to plague us. Mencken helped set the precedent.
I recommend this book not for its wit and wisdom, but rather as a prime example of the calculated construction of the hillbilly stereotype that has been leveraged to marginalize and dehumanize Appalachians over the last century.
Ask yourself if it is ever, under any circumstance acceptable to refer to human beings as gaping primates or vermin. Mencken was a staunch social Darwinist, and while I have my own critiques of the religious fundamentalism so prominent in my hometown, I am far more concerned about a news media ethos that continues to transform ideological enemies into caricatures. This polarization is at the root of the deep divides that continue to plague us. Mencken helped set the precedent.
I recommend this book not for its wit and wisdom, but rather as a prime example of the calculated construction of the hillbilly stereotype that has been leveraged to marginalize and dehumanize Appalachians over the last century.
December 22, 2025
I'm sure almost everything here has appeared in S.T. Joshi's monumental series of volumes collecting Mencken's out-of-copyright journalism, but I like having the Scopes stuff in one place. This was the story he was born to cover, as he surely knew.
He seems to have enjoyed his time in Dayton, where many of the notables were less concerned with defending Genesis than with attracting publicity and tourists. For the rest of the locals it was a different story entirely, and we get Mencken's classic account of a midnight visit to a writhing, keening, tongue-talking Pentecostalist service deep in the woods outside of town. The savage postmortem attack on William Jennings Bryan he composed for the Baltimore Evening Sun is here too, along with the slightly more sedate but unsurpassable piece he wrote afterward for the American Mercury. One thing I hadn't come across before is the transcript of Bryan's cross-examination by Clarence Darrow, which was interesting but badly outshone, drama-wise, by the Hollywood version with Spencer Tracy and Frederic March in "Inherit the Wind." If Mencken hadn't decided prematurely that the best part of the show was over and returned to Baltimore, we might have gotten an eyewitness account for the ages.
He seems to have enjoyed his time in Dayton, where many of the notables were less concerned with defending Genesis than with attracting publicity and tourists. For the rest of the locals it was a different story entirely, and we get Mencken's classic account of a midnight visit to a writhing, keening, tongue-talking Pentecostalist service deep in the woods outside of town. The savage postmortem attack on William Jennings Bryan he composed for the Baltimore Evening Sun is here too, along with the slightly more sedate but unsurpassable piece he wrote afterward for the American Mercury. One thing I hadn't come across before is the transcript of Bryan's cross-examination by Clarence Darrow, which was interesting but badly outshone, drama-wise, by the Hollywood version with Spencer Tracy and Frederic March in "Inherit the Wind." If Mencken hadn't decided prematurely that the best part of the show was over and returned to Baltimore, we might have gotten an eyewitness account for the ages.
August 28, 2017
Surprising at the self-centered, arrogant reporting presented by H.L. Mencken in this book. He disparages "the other side" and, in particular, Williams Jennings Bryant, constantly. The book is a series of newspaper articles he wrote during the Scopes trial that challenged Darwinism and the concept of evolution in a fundamentalist culture. I did learn a lot of new vocabulary though!
June 28, 2020
If Jon Stewart was a reporter covering the Scopes Monkey Trail, he might have written this series of articles calling out powerful people on their bullshit and mobs on their ignorance.
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