ible, produced a whole cycle of dramatic confrontations, of which the Scopes trial was but one". The Scopes trial was not distinct, therefore, so much for its theme as it was for its presentation. Other school districts and other towns, struggling with this very issue, missed themedia circus. Dayton, however, came to center-stage, with the lawyers and business men writingthe script and the country enthralled with this true American drama.There was much more at stake in this trial than the debates between rival lawyers, an evolution law, or science and religion. The Scopes Trial was emblematic of a long-standing cultural divide in America between the simple beliefs of common citizens and the intellectual class. Many elitists of the Progressive Era realized that if the nation were to move in the direction they wanted, the attachment to the Jeffersonian democracy, with trust in local control and good judgment of the people, would have to be replaced by a more centralized administration run by experts, technocrats, and other intellectuals.This belief was directly opposed to what many Christians of the Scopes Trial thought. As Bryan noted at the time, The case has assumed the proportions of a battle-royal between unbelief that attempts to speak through so-called science and the defenders of the Christian faith, speaking through the legislators of Tennessee....Your answer will be heard throughout the world; it is eagerly awaited by a praying multitude. If the (antievolution) law is nullified, there will be rejoice wherever God is repudiated, the savior scoffed at and the Bible ridiculed. Every unbeliever of every kind and degree will be happy. If, on the other hand, the law is upheld and the religion of the school children protected, millions of Christians will call you blessed.This trial, likewise, represented a continuing cultural and philosophical divide between the North and South. In fact, Scopes Trial galvanized the great intel...
